Supervision and line management in care

Cue 1 Four functions of supervision as four quadrants, one lighting up.

AMARA 00:00 I have had supervision for six years and I could not tell you what it is for.

NADIA 00:06 Which is the whole problem, and it is not your fault. Supervision has four functions, and if nobody names which one you are doing, the session drifts into whichever felt most urgent that morning.

AMARA 00:20 What are the four?

NADIA 00:22 Management: is the work being done safely and to standard. Development: what are you learning and where are you going. Support: how are you, given what this job asks of people. And mediation: what is going on between you and the team.

AMARA 00:38 And they get mixed up.

Cue 2 The drift: a development session sliding into a performance review.

NADIA 00:40 Constantly. Somebody sits down expecting a development conversation and forty minutes later they have been performance managed without warning. That is how trust dies in a service, and it usually was not intended.

AMARA 00:54 So what do I do?

NADIA 00:56 Name it at the start. Today is mostly development, and we will spend ten minutes on how you are. One sentence, and everybody knows what room they are in.

AMARA 01:07 Give me a structure. I have forty five minutes and a floor to get back to.

NADIA 01:14 Both of you bring three things written down. Something that went well and why. Something that unsettled you. One thing you need.

Cue 3 Prepared supervision: three written lines from each person.

AMARA 01:22 Both of us?

NADIA 01:24 Both. A supervisor who arrives with nothing prepared is asking somebody to be reflective at them for an hour, and it shows.

AMARA 01:32 Then what?

NADIA 01:33 Last time's actions first. Always first.

AMARA 01:36 Why first?

Cue 4 Last time's actions revisited first, with unfollowed actions shown decaying.

NADIA 01:36 Because a supervision that never revisits its own actions teaches everybody that the actions are decorative. Do that twice and nobody will ever take an action seriously again. Then today's function, then caseload, then wellbeing asked properly, then actions with a name and a date on each.

AMARA 01:55 Right. The bit I am worst at. Feedback.

NADIA 01:58 Then one rule fixes most of it. Behaviour, never character.

AMARA 02:02 Example.

NADIA 02:03 You are careless. That is an insult with a job title attached, and there is nothing anybody can do with it. Now: the MAR chart had three gaps on Tuesday.

Cue 5 Character feedback provoking defence, beside behaviour feedback inviting explanation.

AMARA 02:15 One of those I could act on tomorrow.

NADIA 02:18 And notice what else happens. Character feedback provokes defence, because you have attacked who somebody is. Behaviour feedback invites an explanation.

AMARA 02:26 And the explanation is usually the thing I needed.

NADIA 02:30 Almost always. She was covering two floors. Nobody ever showed her. Or she genuinely cannot read the handwriting on that chart, and now you have found a systems problem instead of a person problem.

AMARA 02:43 Any technique for the moment itself?

Cue 6 A supervision record showing summary, actions, owners and dates.

NADIA 02:46 Say what you saw. Say the effect. Then stop talking. Most managers fill the silence, and the silence is where the useful part lives.

AMARA 02:55 Last thing. Recording. How much do I write?

NADIA 02:59 Summary of what was discussed, actions with owners and dates, and anything raised about safety or wellbeing. Both of you acknowledge it.

AMARA 03:07 And if somebody tells me something personal?

NADIA 03:10 Record that support was discussed and what was agreed. Not the detail. A supervision record is not a confidential file, and staff work that out fast if you write down their divorce.

Cue 1 Timeline: concern noticed in week one, raised in month eight, with resentment building.

AMARA 03:23 I have a staff member whose recording has been sloppy for months and I have said nothing.

NADIA 03:30 Then let us start with why that is the problem, rather than the conversation being difficult.

AMARA 03:36 Go on.

NADIA 03:37 Almost every disciplinary that goes badly began as a conversation somebody did not have six months earlier. You noticed. You hoped it would settle. You said nothing. And quietly you got resentful.

AMARA 03:50 That is uncomfortably accurate.

Cue 2 Four routes diverging: conduct, capability, health, safeguarding.

NADIA 03:52 And eventually it comes out at volume, during something unrelated. By which point her honest position is that nobody ever told her.

AMARA 04:00 And she would be right.

NADIA 04:02 She would be right, and at a tribunal it looks exactly like what it is. A concern raised in week one is feedback. The same concern in month eight is an ambush.

AMARA 04:15 Before I have it, is there anything I should work out first?

NADIA 04:20 Yes, and this is the thing new managers get wrong most expensively. Which of four things is this? Conduct, capability, health or safeguarding.

Cue 3 Disability related performance treated as conduct, flagged as discrimination.

AMARA 04:29 Tell them apart.

NADIA 04:30 Conduct is will not. Lateness with no reason, rudeness, not following a procedure she knows perfectly well. That is the disciplinary route.

AMARA 04:39 Capability?

NADIA 04:40 Cannot, despite trying. That is support, training, a proper improvement plan. Punishing somebody for not being able to do something is both unfair and ineffective.

AMARA 04:50 And health?

Cue 4 Safeguarding referral and disciplinary process running in parallel, not in sequence.

NADIA 04:50 Capability with a medical cause, and it may engage the Equality Act duty to make reasonable adjustments. Treat a disability related performance issue as misconduct and you are not managing, you are discriminating.

AMARA 05:04 And the fourth.

NADIA 05:05 Safeguarding. If a person using your service has been harmed or could be, this stops being an HR matter. It goes down the safeguarding route immediately.

AMARA 05:15 Even if I am mid disciplinary?

NADIA 05:18 Especially then. They run in parallel. Waiting for a disciplinary outcome before making a safeguarding referral is one of the most serious errors a manager can make, and it appears in serious case reviews regularly.

Cue 5 Conversation structure: observation, effect, question, listen, agree, follow up.

AMARA 05:32 Right. The conversation itself. How do I open it?

NADIA 05:35 With the actual thing. I want to talk about the medication round on Tuesday. Not five minutes of weather and then an ambush, which is what most people do because they are nervous.

AMARA 05:48 Then?

NADIA 05:49 What you saw, and its effect. Then ask what is happening here, and mean it. Then listen without preparing your reply.

AMARA 05:57 Why does that matter so much?

Cue 6 ACAS Code steps with the 25 per cent uplift attached to skipping them.

NADIA 06:00 Because the answer very often changes what the conversation is about. You went in about recording and you come out having discovered she is covering two floors, or she has a diagnosis she has not told you about, or she is caring for a parent.

AMARA 06:18 And then?

NADIA 06:18 Agree what changes, by when, and how you will both know it has. Write it down, give her a copy, and then follow it up on the date you agreed. That last part is the one everybody skips, and it is the one that decides whether anything changes.

AMARA 06:38 When does informal have to stop?

NADIA 06:40 When it continues after a clear informal conversation, when it is too serious for informal handling, or when there is a safeguarding concern. Then you follow the ACAS Code.

AMARA 06:52 Does that matter legally?

NADIA 06:53 Very much. An unreasonable failure to follow the ACAS Code can increase a tribunal award by up to twenty five per cent. Investigate, put the allegations in writing, allow her to be accompanied, hold the hearing, decide, and give a right of appeal. Skip a step and you can be entirely right about the facts and still lose.