As Shift Supervisor of Computer Operations for a leading sporting goods distributor, I am responsible for overseeing the computer operations for a company with annual sales in excess of $500 million. The company has warehouses located throughout the country which distribute sporting goods to local retailers, and our computer system not only tracks inventory, but records orders from our retail customers and processes purchase orders and invoices automatically. As a result, the computer operation is one of the key areas within the organization.
We operate three shifts with the first and second shifts (day and swing) having a shift supervisor as well as four operators. Third shift (graveyard) has a shift supervisor and two operators. Each shift has its primary and secondary responsibilities. On my shift, we are responsible for processing inventory requests from the remote warehouses, running invoices for customers, printing and distributing daily, weekly and monthly reports, and making sure that there are enough tapes for backup to be run on the following shifts. If there are any processing problems which we cannot handle, we contact a programmer to take care of the situation.
I work closely with the Human Resource Department (HRD) in two key areas: hiring and evaluating operators. At the heart of this interaction is the development of a job description; although an operator's duties are fundamentally the same as they were five years ago, the specific requirements have changed as the system has grown and the operating environment has been altered.
The job description determines where HRD advertises open positions. Operator positions are always advertised within the company since the company values the recommendations of its current employees. In fact, the company gives $200 to an employee who refers a candidate for an operator position who is eventually hired and who passes the probationary period. This not only improv...