Supervisor Resources
Human Resources welcomes you to the Supervisor Resource page, a comprehensive page designed to assist you in your role as a supervisor.
From overseeing tasks, to leading large divisions, managers and supervisors at UMKC are integral to the universities’ success. The resources in this section will help department chairs, supervisors, and hiring managers accomplish many of their routine daily tasks more efficiently.
Trending Topics for Supervisors
As a supervisor, there is always opportunity to learn and grow. The trending topics section is a resource for you as a supervisor to keep you up to date on things going on within UMKC and in the world of management and leadership.
Recruitment & Onboarding
Recruitment
The process of hiring new staff can be a stressful task for many supervisors. The goal of the Recruiters in Human Resources is to make this process as smooth as possible for all individuals involved. Our Recruiters provide Full Cycle Recruitment Services, which includes creating a customized recruitment plan from the time your position opens all the way to onboarding of your new employee. Each department is assigned to one of our recruiters for all their hiring needs.
View the Recruitment Services page for more information.
Onboarding
Onboarding at UMKC is more than an event, it’s an engaging experience designed to make the new employee feel welcome in their surroundings, and minimize the time it takes to become productive members of their department. It begins before the new employee steps foot on our campus with preparing the new employee’s workspace, designing a first-day schedule that intentionally connects the new employee with existing team members to help them get acclimated and up to speed, and setting short and long term goals that include relevant training and development opportunities.
Our goal is to positively impact student success through this new onboarding program by retaining a highly competent, diverse and engaged workforce. As the supervisor, we need your assistance in providing your new employee with an onboarding experience that will set them up for success in their new role at UMKC.
To support you and your employee during the onboarding process, we have created a number of resources for supervisors to use and put everything together into a resource guide. We recommend saving this guide or printing it out once you have hired a new employee to get you started with a successful onboarding process.
A number of resources from the guide are located below, but we recommend looking at the guide for more detailed information.
New Employee Checklists
The process of successfully onboarding a new employee is very detailed, please reference the checklists below to make sure you and your new employee are on the right track.
- Welcoming your New Employee Checklist: A checklist for supervisors to welcome their new employees to UMKC.
- New Employee Checklist: A checklist for new employees to guide them through their onboarding experience.
- Checklist for New Supervisors: A checklist for new employees who supervise employees at UMKC.
Welcoming your New Employee
Sample Welcome Email to New Employee
Sample Welcome Email to Department
New Employee Workspace Checklist
Setting Expectations and Creating Goals
Setting Employee Expectations
Creating Goals for Your New Employee
Goals Worksheet
Training Schedule and Activities
Sample Training Schedule
Ice Breaker Ideas:
Other Resources
Guide to Your First One-On-One Meeting
Employee Recognition Guide
Performance Management
Performance Management is done throughout the year with your employees. At UMKC, the ePerformance Progress Check-In tool provides oportunities three times a year to discuss what is going well and what could be better, check in on progress toward goals, stay aligned on current projects and agree on next steps.
Progress Check-Ins
Progress Check-ins occur three times during the fiscal year, with the third check-in including a manger rating.
- August – November
- December – March
- April – July (rated)
As a supervisor, it is encouraged for you to complete the ePerformance Percipio training courses before the performance appraisal begins.
View the ePerformance Progress Check-In page for more information.
Click the read more button for information on Setting Employee Expectations, Coaching Employee Behavior & Employee Recognition.
Setting Employee Expectations
Discussing employee performance and expectations is something that should happen early and often in the supervisory experience. As a supervisor, one of the first things you should do is have a conversation with your employees regarding your expectations of them. Expectations should then be reviewed regularly at one-on-one meetings with your employees.
Expectations are important to provide a guide for employees to know what they need to be doing from day to day. Having clear expectations is also helpful for managers when employees are not meeting expectations. It provides support during the coaching or discipline process and can be used as a reference and guide for what behaviors and actions are expected of employees.
Coaching Employee Behavior
If there is something that an employee is doing or not doing that is outside of the expectations set for them, the first step to correcting the behavior is coaching. Coaching consists of having an intentional conversation with the employee to point out what expectations are not being met and to reiterate the expectations for the employee. This is typically a private conversation with the supervisor and employee. During this conversation, it is important to make sure that the employee is understanding the expectations. It is also important to ask what you, as a supervisor can do to help the employee meet the expectation. Once the coaching moment is completed, it is recommended that the supervisor send a follow-up email to the employee to reiterate the expectations.
Employee Recognition
Being able to use praise effectively is one of the most important jobs of a supervisor as employee morale is a vital part of performance management and can make the biggest difference in your department. Sincere and honest recognition let’s employees know that you appreciate them and the work they do to keep the department running.
The act of recognizing employees doesn’t need to be grand, often it takes little time and will provide many benefits. The easiest form of recognition is simply using positive and encouraging words to recognize and reinforce desired behaviors.
Employee Relations
Employee Discipline
There are expectations for employees that need to be met in order for UMKC to continue to be successful. Employee expectations might seem trivial, but overtime if an employee is not meeting expectations, the result could be significant for the university. As a supervisor, it is important to know the expectations for your employees and to have continuous conversations with them about the expectations. Unfortunately, there are times when employees don’t meet expectations and steps have to be taken to discipline the employee. The process of disciplining employees is a difficult task for most supervisors, please know that Human Resources is here to help you through this process.
In all instances where you believe that formal disciplinary action may be appropriate, please contact the Human Resources Office for assistance.
Steps in the Disciplinary Process
| 1 | Understand the facts and circumstances: The supervisor must have an understanding of the facts and circumstances before assessing appropriate discipline. |
| 2 | Discuss situation with Human Resources; When you become aware of a problem, the best step is to contact employee relations to discuss if discipline is an appropriate course of action. |
| 3 | Complete the discipline submission form and submit to HR. |
| 4 | HR will review submission and documentation provided and employee file and will send completed discipline documentation to supervisor for administration to employee. |
| 5 | Supervisor presents discipline documentation to employee and receives employee signature (for written warning and suspension). |
| 6 | Signed discipline documentation is sent to HR to be added to employees official employee file. |
*The process outlined above may not be appropriate in every situation. The level, nature and seriousness of the situation will be reviewed by HR when situation is initially discussed and during review of discipline documentation.
Discipline should not generally come as a surprise to the employee. Occasionally employees are unaware of their supervisors’ dissatisfaction until they suddenly receive a formal written reprimand or a letter of termination. Try to avoid this situation if possible and attempt to regularly communicate issues to employees rather than wait until the performance problems can no longer be tolerated or until annual performance reviews are conducted.
Disciplinary Action for Non-Exempt Employees
Progressive discipline is utilized for regular administrative, service and support staff who are not in the probationary period, and may include oral warning, written warning, suspension, and ultimately discharge. Exempt employees are not typically subject to progressive discipline.
The goals of progressive discipline are to: inform the employee of inadequacies in performance or instances of improper behavior; clarify what constitutes satisfactory performance or behavior; instruct the employee on what action must be taken to correct the performance or behavior problem; and inform the employee of what action will be taken in the future if the expectations are not met.
Disciplinary Submission Form
Disciplinary Action for Exempt Employees
The discipline process for exempt employees varies depending on the behaviors exhibited and the department.
- Coaching/Performance Improvement Plan
- When an exempt employee is not meeting their expectations, a useful action to take is a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP is used as a coaching tool to notify employees that their behavior and performance is not meeting expectations and to provide the employee with steps to meet expectations moving forward. The PIP is presented to the employee and provides dates for when behaviors and performance will be reevaluated. At the discretion of Human Resources in partnership with the department, the PIP can be skipped, moving straight to the Memo-to-File
- Memo-to-File
- A Memo-to-File is the primary method of disciplinary action for exempt employees. This action provides the employee with a memo, that is also placed in the employee file, stating that their behavior and performance is not meeting expectations and failure to improve will result in termination of their employment.
If an exempt employee is not meeting the supervisors expectations, please contact the Human Resources Office to discuss the appropriate actions.
Flexible Work Arrangements
Creating a work/life balance for employees is something UMKC prides its self on. With continual advances in technology and increases in an employee’s personal life, the ability to be flexible is more important than ever as we continue to attract the top talent for our positions. As a result, the university has several flexible work arrangement opportunities for employees to take advantage which allow employees to work outside of the standard 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. work schedule and outside of the office location.
Types of flexible work arrangements:
- Flexible Work Schedule
- Compressed Work Week
- Flex Place
- Flexible Work Arrangements or Release time for Employee Wellness Activities
More Information on Flexible Work Arrangements, including guides and forms, can be found on the UM System Total Rewards page.
Family Medical Leave Act
How to Request FMLA Information
UMKC employees needing a leave of absence under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), should contact our vendor partner, Unum at 866-779-1054 and file a claim for Family Medical Leave (FMLA). This outreach can be done by the employee who needs the medical leave, the supervisor, or the department HRF/HRBP.
As a supervisor, its important know the basics of FMLA and to be on the lookout for employees who might need to utilize FMLA leave. To review eligibility requirements for FMLA and additional information, please sign up to attend the FMLA training session and/or review the Supervisors Guide to FMLA.
Workplace Accommodations
UMKC is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for employees who have a disability or chronic medical condition. These experiences can be very different for each individual employee and may include concerns with communication, hours, interactions with others, concentration, etc.
As a supervisor, it is important for you to know how to recognize and respond to a potential accommodation request. You should consult with Human Resources or the Affirmative Action Office if you have any questions.
Recognizing a Request
As a supervisor, you should watch for an employee making a link between the workplace and a disability or medical issue. For example:
An employee says he/she has been late for work because of their medical appointments.
During a one-on-one meeting, an employee states that chronic back problems are preventing them from meeting deadlines.
You receive a doctor’s note indicating that your employee needs to take lunch at 11:30 am every day.
These are all indications that an accommodation needs to be discussed for the employee. An accommodation will be made by a department if it can be done without creating undue hardships.
Making a Referral
Once a supervisor identifies the employees need for accommodations, please complete an ADA Accommodation Request form and submit to the Affirmative Action Office.
The ADA Coordinator will review the request and work with the employee to see what accommodations can be made. This process often involves the supervisor, but only if the employee gives permission for the accommodation request to be shared with the supervisor.
The Affirmative Action Office will work to provide reasonable accommodations where able and as long as it does not impose undue hardship on the department.
Training and Professional Development
The Human Resources Office provides many training and professional development opportunities for both supervisors and their employees. As a supervisor, it’s important to not only know what resources are available to you as a supervisor, but it’s also important to know what resources are available to your employees. There are a number of free options available on campus and several off-campus opportunities as well. There are also resources to help pay for outside opportunities that are more in line with an employee’s specific position and duties.
To view a full list of training opportunities and resources, visit the Professional Development page.
Resources for New Supervisors
Being a new supervisor at UMKC, there are plenty of opportunities through Percipio to assist new supervisors at the university. Additionally, the Human Resources office is also available for 1:1 coaching and guidance.
- First-Time Manager Channel (Courses)
- Managing People for the First Time: Simple Ideas for Leading Your Team (Book)
