You’re spending money training the wrong people.
Your budget goes to safety meetings and compliance programs. But your supervisors—the people who actually determine whether safety works or fails—get nothing. Not because you don’t care. Because nobody ever built a training program that fits how small companies actually run.
Here’s what that’s costing you.
Your Supervisors Are Winging It—And It’s Not Their Fault
Your supervisors got promoted because they were great at the work. They showed up, worked hard, and knew the job better than anyone. So you made them supervisors.
But being great at the work and being great at leading people who do the work are completely different things. Nobody taught your supervisors how to have conversations that build trust. Nobody showed them how to get buy-in instead of just demanding compliance. Nobody gave them the tools to make each crew member feel like they matter—not just as a body on the crew, but as a person.
So they’re figuring it out as they go. Some get it eventually. Most don’t. And while they’re learning, you’re paying for it in incidents, turnover, and problems that should’ve been caught earlier.
One supervisor who went through PeopleWork training said, “For 30 years I’ve been in some type of management position and have seen myself in a lot of the segments discussed in this program. But now I have new tools and techniques to get better results.”
Thirty years of winging it before getting the actual tools to lead people. That’s what happens when nobody invests in your supervisors.
Why Most Training Doesn’t Fit Your Company
You’ve probably looked at supervisor training before. Maybe you even sent someone to a class. Here’s why most of those programs don’t work for companies like yours.
They pull your supervisors off the job for days at a time. In a 30-person company, you can’t do that. They teach theory instead of skills—your supervisor sits through presentations, takes notes, then returns to the job with no idea how to apply any of it. And they’re designed for big companies with HR departments and management layers you don’t have.
What you need is training built for how small companies actually operate.
What Changes When Your Supervisors Learn to Care
Here’s the thing I’ve learned after years working with industrial companies: the supervisors who get the best results aren’t the ones who demand the most. They’re the ones who care the most—and know how to show it.
CareFull supervisors—ones who are genuinely full of care for their team—build the kind of trust where crew members want to tell them about problems before those problems become incidents. That’s not soft. That’s smart.
One supervisor described it this way: “This program helped me to develop the confidence to connect with my team, to communicate with them, and to build relationships with them. Since starting this program, I’ve had my own team members come to me to tell me what a great job I’ve been doing.”
When your crew tells their supervisor they’re doing a good job, that means something. It means they feel safe speaking up. It means the relationship is real.
Another supervisor said: “I used to be the guy who felt I had to go out and fix all the problems. Now I ask my team for their ideas and advice. This program has helped me build better relationships and get their buy-in.”
That’s the shift from managing tasks to leading people. And it changes everything.
What Your Supervisors Actually Need to Learn
Three skills. Most supervisors have never been taught any of them.
First, how to have conversations that build buy-in rather than demand compliance. Not lectures—real conversations where crew members understand why safety matters to them personally.
Second, how to build trust even when they have to enforce rules or deliver bad news. So people don’t just comply out of fear—they actually want to do good work because of the relationship.
Third, how to make each person feel valued as an individual. People who feel valued speak up about problems. They look out for each other. They take pride in doing things right.
These are learnable skills. But most supervisors are expected to figure them out on their own while running a crew and meeting production targets. That’s not fair to them—and it’s not working for you.
You Shouldn’t Have to Push Safety Uphill Alone
You’ve got solid procedures. What you’re missing are supervisors who know how to make those procedures stick through real relationships instead of just rule enforcement.
After just 8 weeks of PeopleWork training, one supervisor put it simply: “I feel more confident about how I approach my guys, how we work together, being sensitive to each other, and making our teams better—in operations and safety.”
Start with one supervisor. The PeopleWork Core Essentials program is $995. Within a few weeks, you’ll see the difference—better conversations, fewer conflicts, people actually speaking up about safety issues before they become problems.
That’s what caring leadership looks like in practice.
Keep caring,
Kevin