About This Resource

This session was part of the 2025 Supervisor Success: Growing Leaders from Within CE Week series

Series Overview

Frontline supervisors are the backbone of employment social enterprises (ESEs). They keep operations running smoothly, provide technical expertise and customer service, and most importantly coach participant employees as they navigate barriers to employment. Yet many ESEs struggle to train and prepare supervisors effectively, especially when promoting participant employees into their first leadership roles. To address this challenge, REDF created a three-part Continuing Education Week series focused on practical strategies to grow and strengthen supervisor talent. 

Grounded in research, trauma-informed management practices, and the lived expertise of frontline leaders, this series supports ESEs in growing their internal talent and in creating clear pathways from participant employee to supervisor and beyond.

Alongside these sessions, we’ll introduce REDF’s new Supervisor Success Toolkit, which equips ESE leaders with training content to enhance supervisor onboarding and development.

Session Description

How do you prepare your organization to start a promotion pipeline for participant employees to step into supervisory roles? This session introduces the 10 Keys to Supervisor Success, a practical framework developed by ESE culture and talent expert Kirsten Ham-Marshall. Attendees will explore how to evaluate culture, policies, and structures to ensure supervisors with lived expertise thrive. You will walk away with a solid definition of what the supervisor role is and isn’t, and a practical checklist of responsibilities your supervisors should master to succeed.

Session Goals & Key Takeaways

By the end of this session, you will:

• Ask yourself critical questions and gain tools to evaluate and adapt your ESE’s structure for supervisors with lived expertise
• Leave with the 10 Keys to Supervisor Success to start growing and developing your talent from within
• Redefine the role and responsibilities of your supervisors
• Learn about the Supervisor Success Series Toolkit and how to use or adapt for your own organization

This Session is Ideal for:

• ESE leaders and managers responsible for training or supporting supervisors
• HR and training staff designing leadership pathways for participant employees

Below is the session recording and accompanying materials

About ESE Consulting

Kirsten Ham helps mission-driven businesses strengthen their operations and build sustainable earned revenue streams. As co-founder of UpSpire, she grew a social enterprise from one employee to more than 200, creating pathways out of homelessness and the justice system through full-time, benefited employment. Now serving as COO at Hawai‘i Farmers Union, she leads initiatives that strengthen Hawai‘i’s agricultural resilience and expand local economic self-reliance.

Drawing on more than a decade of hands-on experience scaling mission-driven ventures, Kirsten consults with employment-based social enterprises across the country—coaching leaders, shaping strategy, and helping them build stronger systems faster and better than she did. Her focus is always on practical growth that lasts.

She and her family farm and ranch in Waimea, Hawai‘i Island. She is best reached at Kirsten@eseconsulting.org.