When Supervision Is Not Enough: Work Discipline and Employee Performance in Indonesian Agribusiness Firm

Abstract

This study examines the relationships between supervision, work discipline, and employee performance at PT Indojaya Agrinusa Medan, an agribusiness and animal-feed manufacturing company in Indonesia. A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed. The study involved the entire population of 100 employees, all of whom participated through a census sampling technique. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale and analyzed using multiple linear regression with IBM SPSS. The measurement instruments demonstrated satisfactory validity and reliability. The results show that supervision was positively and significantly associated with employee performance (β = 0.253, p = 0.011), while work discipline demonstrated a stronger positive association (β = 0.535, p < 0.001). Jointly, supervision and work discipline significantly contributed to employee performance, accounting for 54.3% of its variance (R² = 0.543). Empirically, these findings indicate that work discipline makes a stronger statistical contribution to employee performance than supervision within the examined agribusiness context, while both remain complementary. Practically, managers should strengthen accurate, timely, objective, and consistently focused supervision while reinforcing employee attendance, compliance with organizational procedures, adherence to work standards, and vigilance to support reliable performance in production-oriented operations.