Resilience through the daily work of first line managers

• Organisational resilience can be a source of competitiveness, enabling companies to respond and adapt to unexpected changes, ensuring that a company can thrive whilst dealing with the unexpected. The ability of first line managers (FLMs) to handle their daily work at the operational level in order to maintain a stable production output, while managing the many challenges in the complex industrial context, is key. The importance of how FLMs can handle their role has been confirmed by several researchers – and more research is needed. In this research, two manufacturing companies are participating as they wish to develop their FLMs’ abilities to handle their role as an intermediate position between workers, technical support staff and upper management. The study aims to produce knowledge of how the daily work in the role of FLMs is enacted in the manufacturing context and how resilient action strategies can be developed for both performance and wellbeing. The study follows a collaborative approach in which two manufacturing companies are participating. After an initial workshop and ten in-depth interviews with FLMs the preliminary results indicate that the disturbances of daily work per se were expected by many of the interviewees. Difficulties involved were diminished by developed routines, although the information about those sometimes were difficult to find. Improvement opportunities regarded for example clarification of the role, better collaboration with support functions, more time to spend with operators interacting at shop floor level and expanding proactive action strategies.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Front line managers

action strategies

manufacturing industry

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)