The Owner Who Bypasses Everyone

Principles being violated

• Unity of command. Workers receive orders from both their supervisor and Rajinder. Where two authorities exist, the informal, senior one always wins, so the supervisor's instruction becomes optional.
• Scalar chain / bypassing. Direct WhatsApp access lets any operator skip two levels. Every bypass teaches the worker that the chain does not matter.
• Span of control. 62 direct reports to one person is far beyond a workable first-line span. Rajinder cannot physically process leave, faults, purchases and dispatch in a day, which is exactly why order 400 slipped.
• Authority–responsibility parity. Supervisors are answerable for output (delivery, overtime) but hold no decision rights. That mismatch is what made two of them resign.
• Excess centralisation. Signing every purchase above ₹2,000 turns a routine transaction into an owner-level decision.

What to treat first

Treat the delegation of routine decisions first - not the WhatsApp channel, and not the delivery percentage.

Reasoning: delivery delay, overtime and attrition are all downstream of one cause - decisions queue at one desk. Fixing the WhatsApp channel alone would change the pipe, not the water. Delegation, by contrast, removes the queue and simultaneously gives the supervisors a reason to stay.

Sequence: (1) delegate routine decisions with written limits; (2) formalise a single reporting channel to match the new authority; (3) measure delivery, overtime and escalation count at 60 days. Doing (2) before (1) leaves workers with a supervisor who still cannot decide anything, which destroys credibility faster than the current mess.

Tier A - supervisor decides alone, logs it

• Leave up to 3 days for own section
• Machine stoppage and die change within approved parameters
• Consumables and spares up to ₹5,000 from the approved vendor list
• Overtime up to 20 hours per week within the released budget

Control: one line in the daily dispatch and exception sheet; Rajinder reviews the sheet once a day for exceptions only, not to re-decide.

Tier B - supervisor decides, informs within 24 hours

• Purchase from an approved vendor up to ₹20,000, with two quotations on record
• Re-sequencing a dispatch by up to 3 days
• Rejecting an incoming lot that fails the incoming check
• Reassigning a worker across two sections for a shift

Control: a weekly variance report against the released plan; any item repeated three times in a month gets its limit re-examined.

Tier C - Rajinder only

• Capital spend above ₹25,000, new vendors, price changes, credit terms to customers, hiring and exit

Control: written approval with a reason recorded, so that later review is possible.

How the thresholds were set

Set limits at roughly three times the typical transaction value. If an average spare purchase is ₹1,500, a ₹5,000 limit captures the large majority of transactions - which is the point. A limit that only covers half the cases just moves the queue.

The key design rule

Authority without a control is what produced her earlier vendor-payment loss. Authority with a control - approved vendor list, two quotations, a cap - gives her the safety she actually wants without the queue.

Reframe the past error

Her objection is evidence-based, so arguing "trust them" will fail. Reframe it: the vendor payment went wrong because there was no vendor list and no second quotation - a control failure, not a delegation failure. Repeating the decision at her desk did not fix the control gap; it only hid it. So the delegation plan must visibly carry the missing controls (approved vendor list, two-quotation rule, ₹20,000 cap, monthly reconciliation by the clerk).

Make the resistance cheap to test

• Start with Tier A items only - low value, reversible, daily.
• Give a 60-day probation with a named deputy and a stated review date.
• Announce the change at a full-staff meeting. Public commitment makes silent reversal expensive, which is precisely the discipline she needs.
• Agree one rule: if she overrules a supervisor, she tells the supervisor, not the worker. Silent reversals are what killed the dispatch sheet.

The WhatsApp channel

Do not ban phones - that will not survive contact with a shop floor. Restructure it:

1. One official group per section, with the supervisor as admin and Rajinder as a read-only member.
2. Workers send requests to the supervisor; Rajinder's auto-reply outside 8 p.m.–8 a.m. redirects to the supervisor on duty.
3. A two-week transition where she forwards instead of answering, so the habit moves.

Measure

Track on-time delivery, overtime cost and number of items reaching her per day. If escalations do not fall by 60 days, the limits are wrong, not the principle.