Line personnel are lower-level employees

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The main part of the work at production and trade enterprises is performed by line personnel. These are the people who build houses, make doors and windows, cast metal, transport goods to stores, sit at the checkout, draw up insurance policies, and also engage in other low-prestige, but such necessary activities.

In any organization, the number of these employees significantly exceeds the number of other personnel. This is not surprising, because managers, marketers, merchandisers and other employees already work with what the line staff has produced. These are the so-called workhorses of all companies.

Unskilled workers

Often, the work of this category of personnel is classified as unskilled, since special knowledge is not needed to perform their simple labor functions. This applies to those positions for which a short internship or probationary period is sufficient:

• Cashiers.
• Sellers.
• Operators.
• Installers.
• Guards.

Businesses often invite students, mothers on maternity leave, pensioners or the disabled to fulfill these responsibilities.

Qualified line staff

However, specialists who have received specialized education and occupy the lower rungs of the hierarchical ladder at the enterprise are also line personnel. These are workers like:

• Sales managers.
• Bank employees.
• Doctors.
• Teachers.
• Mechanics, welders, casters and others.

Applicants for such positions are subject to a number of requirements that fit into the framework of their education. Sometimes representatives of line staff may have difficulty finding employment, which is due to a young specialist's lack of experience, recommendations, or simply an insufficient level of proficiency in their speci alty.

Difficulties in hiring line staff

Line personnel in production or other areas have the highest turnover rates compared to other departments of the same enterprises. This is largely due to the extremely low wages paid to such workers. Based on the fact that their work is unskilled (and in the presence of specialization qualifications are still at the lowest level), employers limit themselves to accruing the required minimum. Often at large enterprises there is a system of motivation for active, quick-wittedand diligent employees, as well as their career advancement.

The result of the functioning of such a system is also the fact that the line staff is a link where workers do not stay for long.

Moreover, many applicants for line staff positions initially consider these vacancies as temporary: students work between periods of active study, mothers on maternity leave are very mobile and can switch to more promising and profitable work at any time.

Hire an unskilled worker for the employer is not difficult, because there are always enough people who want to. However, if we are talking about a person who is responsible for his labor duties, then the search becomes much more complicated. When it comes to hiring workers with specialized knowledge (for example, line staff in production), this task is even more difficult. In order to close such vacancies, the HR specialist needs to find a middle ground between candidates of an unsatisfactory level who agree to the declared salary, and reliable, responsible applicants who are forced to accept the offer of the employer.

Who manages line personnel and how

The organizational structure designed to manage lower-level employees is called line management. Its essence is that each department is assigned a leader who reports to a superior. A feature of the system is that each employee in the hierarchy reports directly toto his supervisor: from him he receives tasks or instructions, and he is obliged to report only to this person.

The advantage of a vertical management structure is that subordinates are guided by clear interrelated tasks and there are no misunderstandings with the preparation and submission of reports. In addition, the entire vertical functions as a whole.

True, a linear HR system imposes additional responsibility on managers and the ability to control all aspects of the production process.

Thus, we can conclude: the defining role in the process of production of goods or services belongs to employees who are called "line personnel" (this is someone with little or no qualifications). This category of employees of the company performs an important part of the economic activity, which becomes the basis for the implementation of the labor function of other employees (advertising agents, sales managers, representatives of the transport and accounting departments).