Supervising and Supporting Your Staff

When you are trying to get things done through other people, you soon find that instructions, training sessions, lists of rules, and written procedures are not enough. These are all good methods for communicating what you want done and how you want it done. However, no matter how well these methods are applied, you will find that it is essential to have direct personal contact with your staff on a regular basis. Personal contact is essential for two reasons: first, to find out what is actually happening (in all aspects of the work, particularly those aspects that are never covered in service statistics), and; second, to renew the enthusiasm of the staff for the work they are doing. This personal contact is important both for the effective operation of the program and for staff morale and commitment. The purpose of supervision is to guide, support, and assist staff to perform well in carrying out their assigned tasks.

If you think of supervision as personal contact for these purposes, then you will recognize that staff at every level, from service delivery to administration, need supervision. Methods of supervision work for a whole range of organizational levels and functions.

Your main function as a supervisor is to help your staff to perform their jobs better by providing:

• Guidance and training
• Assistance with resources and logistics
• Support, encouragement, and advocacy for their rights
• Monitoring and evaluation

Your role as a supervisor should be that of a problem-solver who supports the employees, not a fault-finder who is always criticizing them. Your employees should be pleased to see you and not find reasons to be absent when you are coming.

• Supervisors at every level and in all parts of an organization have a number of basic functions. These include:
• Setting individual performance objectives (the activities an employee should accomplish by a certain date) with the employees themselves so that they know what is expected of them.
• Managing any performance problems and conflicts that arise and motivating and encouraging employees to do their best work.
• Having regular contact with staff members through supervisory sessions to motivate and provide feedback, solve problems, and provide guidance, assistance, and support.
• Designing a supervisory system, including a supervisor's session plan with selected items to supervise during each session.
• Preparing a supervisory schedule of upcoming supervisory sessions which shows the date and time of each session and lists any content that can already be foreseen. This should be updated periodically.
• Conducting periodic performance appraisals to review an employee's past performance in order to make sure performance objectives are being met.

Although the situations in which supervisors work may vary, effective supervisors must perform all these basic functions.

There are many different styles of supervision, but all supervision is made up of two basic components: giving direction and providing support. Giving direction involves one-way communication in which the supervisor tells the employee what to do and when, as well as where and how the tasks are accomplished. Supervisors provide support through their relationships with their employees. This implies more of a two-way communication in which supervisors encourage and guide staff, discuss any questions or difficulties, and enable them to carry out their jobs effectively.

A supervisor may instinctively be more inclined toward task-oriented or relationship-oriented supervision. However, every supervisor must also consider the type of supervision appropriate to each employee. Some employees work best independently, needing direction but little support. Other employees work better with a significant amount of support from their supervisor. In any case, a supervisor should always consult with employees before making judgements and decisions which affect the employee's work.

The foundation of supervision is the supervisory session, when the supervisor meets with one or more employees to review the work that has been done and to plan the work of the next few months. There are different types of supervisory sessions, each of which covers a different time frame and looks at the work to be accomplished in a different way. On-site, day-to-day supervision keeps track of what is being done and corrects any obvious problems as they occur. Supervisors also have supervisory sessions with staff working in the same location; these involve a longer-term review of the work and may look at the need for further training or the possibility of staff development activities. Supervisory visits to staff working in different locations look at work accomplished over a longer period. In addition to trying to resolve problems arising from day-to-day work, the vising supervisor has a pre-determined list of activities to carry out.

An additional form of supervision is the performance appraisal, which occurs at regular periods and looks at whether the employee is achieving her or his performance objectives, how well she or he is carrying out the tasks, and what support the supervisor should provide. This is a more formal version of the review that takes place during the regular supervisory sessions and may the basis for deciding whether the employee should receive a raise or promotion.

All supervisory sessions, whatever the circumstances, should:

• Reaffirm the mission of the organization - reminding staff of the organization's values, principles, and goals, and strengthening staff commitment to them;
• Make sure the staff have the interpersonal skills required to deliver high-quality family planning services;
• Check that the staff have the technical and intellectual skills necessary for the jobs they do and that they are properly trained;
• Deal with personal work-related issues of individual staff members.

A supervisory visit to staff working some distance away would also have to cover the following items:

• Checking and replenishing supplies;
• Bringing messages and items from headquarters and taking others back (the mailman function);
• Collecting record forms that need to go to headquarters.

As a supervisor, you should aim to have the staff working towards a set of performance objectives which they have helped to develop. Performance objectives, which are individualized targets written for each staff member, outline the tasks for which each staff member is responsible, as well as the deadlines for the completion of these tasks, when relevant. When each individual is working to meet performance objectives, the program itself is more likely to reach its targets and objectives on time.

Performance objectives should be developed in consultation with the staff member in question. Staff should be able to achieve their performance objectives through their own efforts. Do not set objectives over which they have little or no control. (For example, a nurse in a clinic has little control over how many people she or he sees).

Performance objectives should be:

• Specific, quantitative when possible, and qualitative when appropriate;
• Time-limited, stating when the activity is to occur or the date by which it must be completed;
• Clearly worded, so that there is no doubt whether the objective has been met.

1. Meet with each staff member. If the staff member has a job description, review the "Job Responsibilities" section.
2. Make a list of those responsibilities of the staff member which need to be addressed in the time period covered by these performance objectives.
3. Develop performance objectives that will adequately cover the staff member's major activities, functions, and responsibilities.
4. If you can, base the performance objectives on information that is routinely collected for management purposes, such as cycles of pills distributed or number of staff members given additional training. Often these will be objectives that have been determined during the planning process.

Example from Bangladesh - Performance Objectives from the Community-Based Family Planning Services Project

Performance objectives will guide both the employee and the supervisor who will be providing the employee with support and help. The supervisor is thus making a commitment to the joint venture of getting the work done properly and on time. Performance objectives for both the employee and the supervisor are recorded during the supervisory meeting for review at the next meeting, when the results will also be recorded. These records will be useful for an objective review of the whole year's work at the time of the annual evaluation.

In many countries or organizations, the concept of performance objectives is unfamiliar, and it may take the staff time to be able to work comfortably with this system. You can begin by introducing the idea of periodic reviews of the employee's activities. Once the staff member is comfortable with this system, you can introduce some performance objectives for each of the employee's activities.

Problems and conflicts are inevitable; no program will be completely trouble-free. One of the supervisor's responsibilities is to help resolve the problems that employees are encountering. However, it is not always obvious that problems exist, as employees may be unwilling to mention them to a supervisor. As the supervisor, you must make an extra effort to see whether problems exist.

Once it is evident that a program is not running as well as expected (for example, it is not meeting its objectives or there is tension among the staff members), the supervisor must determine the nature of the problem before any corrective steps can be taken. As a supervisor, you should begin by asking the following questions:

Who is involved in the problem?
What exactly is wrong?
When did the problem start?
Where exactly is the problem taking place?
What is the cause of the problem?
What resources will be needed to solve the problem?