How to Become a Maintenance Supervisor

When you work as a maintenance supervisor, there are many responsibilities because you're working in a leadership position and are managing a team. You're the link and middleman between the executives and the employees. As a maintenance supervisor, it's important to supervise, direct, and organize maintenance employees each day. You also spend part of your time working as a technician if you work at a smaller company with a smaller team. Some of your responsibilities include frequently inspecting facilities for problems, supporting your team, and generating work orders. The role involves communicating procedures and policies, keeping records of the spare parts and equipment, and recommending budget items. 

You're also expected to participate in renovating or remodeling projects. Discussing challenges in your department with upper management and following safety protocols in your department is also necessary. You'll spend time working with vendors and looking for any hazards that put your employees' safety at risk. The job includes participating in maintenance programs while communicating with building occupants. You'll also need to ensure that your team completes maintenance and repairs on time to avoid delays that affect other departments.

Maintenance supervisors handle repairs and maintenance on various factory-based equipment. You'll work with appliances and heavy equipment while using a variety of hand tools. You also work with office equipment like computers, fax machines, and phones as you manage the operations of your team. You'll use a computer for creating reports, recruiting new team members, and communicating with upper management. Depending on the size of the facility, you'll use a golf cart or maintenance vehicle to drive to different areas to perform maintenance and repairs.

Wearing proper safety gear is also necessary while working with different types of tools to reduce the risk of injuries. This type of position requires wearing proper protective footwear with traction, eyewear, and protective gloves. Masks are also necessary while handling different types of chemicals or spending time in rooms where the indoor air quality is poor. You will also need hearing protection in areas where there are high noise levels to avoid damage to the eardrum.

As a maintenance supervisor, you will spend most of your time in factories or facilities where equipment is present. You also spend time in an office when you have meetings and report to upper management and executives. You spend a lot of time in different departments and areas of the building as you monitor the equipment and manage your team. In this role, you have to be familiar with different parts of the building and the equipment that is in place. Some of the areas of the facility are dangerous to work in due to the chemicals and machinery that are present. Working in these areas requires obtaining safety gear from the company and following proper safety protocols.

As a maintenance supervisor, your colleagues are other maintenance technicians, machine operators, and general managers. You work closely with your team to ensure the efficient completion of different tasks. You interact with general managers in the company when you report to them and provide them with updates on your department. You spend time in meetings as you discuss the budget and any challenges you're facing. You also work with other maintenance technicians and janitors in different departments within the company. In a factory setting, you'll interact with forklift operators, assemblers, and other production workers.

As a maintenance supervisor, you work 40-hour work weeks during normal business hours of the company. It's common to work overtime in the evening or on the weekend. Working overtime is also necessary to restore the operation of different appliances or systems within the business. You also spend time at home working remotely when you need to create reports, recruit new employees for your team, and respond to emails. This type of job requires working indoors and outdoors at the facility due to the location of different types of machinery and appliances.

Becoming a successful maintenance supervisor requires having leadership skills and delegating tasks to your team members. It's important to have attention to detail and analytical skills. The role also requires proper time management skills and technical experience to complete maintenance or repairs correctly and on schedule.

As a maintenance supervisor, you will prepare maintenance schedules for your team to complete during the week. You also create maintenance goals and find ways to execute them with the help of your team. The position requires frequently inspecting areas of the building to determine if potential problems are developing and if maintenance is needed.

Applying for a job as a maintenance supervisor is easy with Spherion. You can search for maintenance supervisor jobs on Spherion.com by job title and location. If you don’t see the perfect role, you can submit an open application. Once you submit your contact information and resume through Spherion’s open application, a recruiter from the office closest to you will reach out to you. They'll provide you with details about potential maintenance supervisor roles that fit your skill set and professional goals.