Work Questions??

[cmyguard]

Ok, so after pondering this thought all weekend, I needed to vent. I went to an alllll day work retreat on Saturday. I work at a non profit who works with at risk kids 6-17 and provides free counseling to them. Well, we are in the process of strategic planning since our agency is growing soooo much. The retreat was going well. I am the program sup, and oversee 6 programs with variation in fundings, with about 9 people to oversee. By the end of the day we were in program development and broke off into groups and I was in the fundraising committee group. There were about 25 people there from the Board of Directors to my boss and the Excecutive Director, and my team well the bod guys gets up to present his portion of the group and he said that one of the needs is that this particular department needs their own supervisor because the current supervisor oversees soo many programs and is spread thin. (I am the current sup and am always available. So, then one of the girls says that he misunderstood what they were saying. So, I felt that I was made to look incompetent in front of the Board of Directors. My staff says that they are overwhelmed, but are not producing the results to defend that statement. Eveyrone wants their own computer and their own office, and less clients and more counselors, but how can I defend that when everything they are doing does not show that they are productive. They watch videos on the internet, and fuck around. I guess what I am wondering is if I should have reacted or said something, because I did not...

thanks,

[winneythepooh7]

I think that it is better that you did not. It is more professional. Otherwise your staff will resent you. Way back in Social Work school, when I was learning about "Supervision" my very wise Supervisor & Field Instructor told me that when working with staff, and providing supervision, you have to think of them like you would think of a client: for their strengths and their weaknesses, areas they need to improve on (goals), etc. etc. I also know that when I worked in a similar environment, the agency blocked the internet except for our website to do our work, because staff always managed to find the time to play on there rather than do their work. They had a policy that if you were caught up with your work, and wanted to surf the net for personal use, you needed to get the lock taken off by your supervisor. This is something you should present to your supervisors. I also think that a lot of paraprofessional staff in general need a lot of support and guidance because what may appear self-explanatory to you, a lot of staff aren't that sharp and need a lot of hand-holding. That is where you will come in, and what will probably take up a lot more of your time. Good luck, I know it's hard. I've been there, and I am still there.............