Supervision in Organizational Practice: Dual Role Considerations to Support Supervisors

Background: Aligned with social work supervision theory, workplace supervision in the human services (HS) involves a designated hierarchal organizational relationship, whereby an appointed supervisor provides support, ensures quality of care, oversees administration, and fosters the professional development of frontline staff to meet service mandates and, ultimately, provide the best service possible to clients. Preparing and supporting supervisors to engage effectively within their positions requires orientation, training, and ongoing support to meet the demands and challenges of their roles. One key area of supervisory challenge relates to balancing the management functions of the role (i.e,, ensuring quality of care, and administration) with the supportive elements (i.e., tangible and emotional support, and professional development) known as the dual role in supervision literature. Very few studies, and none within the Canadian context, have explored how supervisors balance their dual roles.

Methods: We engaged in a sequential mixed-methods project of research for the purpose of strengthening supervision in HS, with integration occurring at the design, data instrument development, analysis, and interpretation stages. This project was informed by the practice-based research needs of a community of inquiry (CoI) comprising organizational (executive) directors. Together, we developed a Qualtrics survey to query the practice of supervision (i.e., modality, format, frequency, duration, content), and the top outcome of interest to the CoI which was practitioner wellness. We used the results from the survey versions (leader, supervisor, frontline practitioner) to develop semi-structured interview guides for the qualitative strand of our project. Particularly interested in managing the dual role, the CoI asked we examined the occurrence, practice, benefits and limitations, and support needs related to of supervisors hold a dual role. Survey data was cleaned and analyzed using SPSS (i.e., descriptive statistics), with missing data imputed. Dedoose was used to organize and code qualitative data, with the analysis following abductive Reflexive Thematic Analysis and including methods to enhance trustworthiness and credibility.

Results: Dual role questions were completed by 78 supervisors, and 26 leaders. Seventy-seven percent of supervisors held dual roles, with 30% indicating this influenced the support they were able to provide practitioners, and 12% indicating the impact on staff was negative, whereas only 3% reported clients were negatively impacted as a result. Of the leader participants, 96% indicated their organizations are structured around a dual role for supervisors. Noted benefits across participant groups included in-depth staff and organizational knowledge, streamlining accountability, and enhanced risk management. The limitations across sub-samples related to workload issues, and the problematic wellness impact on supervisors. Themes identified from interview data (n=18 supervisors, n= 14 practitioners) provide further insight into how these roles are beneficially managed, including separation through time of the roles, efforts to establish trust and safety, cultivating support for supervisors, and clear supervisory agreements.

Conclusion: The mixed-methods dual-role analysis provided insight into the occurrence of this type of supervision as typical within HS organizations. Findings support the value of this organizational structure, along with insight into how supervisors can engage both roles effectively. This practice-initiated analysis provides clear direction for organizational leadership.