Supervision Matters

How ‘Loving the Land’ created a staff-supportive HR system

Let’s start this case study with a pop quiz. How would you answer these four easy questions?  

1. What do supervisors do when each department has a different payscale, different hiring processes, separate staff records, and different ways of doing performance reviews? (Choose one)
   A) Keep their heads down and run their own silo the way they want
   B) Collaborate to standardize how staff in all departments are treated
   
   
2. What does a supervisor do when several board members loudly berate staff members, using ageist and sexist slurs? (Choose one)
   A) Cower in silence out of fear that the abusive board members will turn against them too
   B) Speak up and make it clear that the staff must be treated with respect, and urge the board to expel the worst offenders
   
   
3. What does a manager do when they discover that for years the part-time employees haven’t been getting the health benefits guaranteed in the insurance contract? (Choose one)
   A) Propose hiding the evidence and just starting the benefits going forward
   B) Give the part-timers back pay to make up for the past missing benefits
   
   

4. Who creates an organization’s strategic plan? (Choose one)
   A) An outside consultant creates it and presents it to the staff as a done deal
   B) Managers and consultants facilitate a process for all staff and board members to have input and co-create the plan
   
   

Can you believe that this organization we’re calling ‘Loving the Land’ experienced all the A situations in the past? It’s not surprising that interviewees requested pseudonyms, as they were unusually candid about the bad old days when the situations occurred. The organization is a respected, decades-old force for green space and environmental education in its rural region. But in that past era, the internal dysfunction didn’t embody the values of the mission.

Now ‘Loving the Land’ has textbook best practices for HR – which shouldn’t be surprising, since the person who literally wrote the book, Rita Sever, author of Supervision Matters, was a consultant to the organization during the transition from A to B practices. She worked with a new HR manager to establish new policies that would be more supportive of staff.

Here are some aspects of the new systems Rita Sever and the HR manager put into place:

• A comprehensive online employee handbook was created.
  
  It is now constantly updated as state regulations change. Staff with questions are encouraged to look for the answers in the handbook first. New employees are required to sign it, acknowledging that they have read it and will abide by it.
  
  The handbook is approximately two to three times longer than a typical employee handbook. It covers the usual sections (values, compensation, benefits, paid leave, professional development, workplace safety, equal opportunity, bullying and harassment, termination criteria, etc.) in great detail. But it has dozens of other sections as well, evidence that it was created by ultra-conscientious people thinking in advance about every possible situation that could arise in the workplace.
  
  It might seem burdensome to the staff to have so many detailed rules (such as “Never leave the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet open, or two top drawers”), but in fact multiple staff members reported that it is reassuring to know exactly what is expected of them. And many of the extra provisions are supportive of employees, such as a mileage reimbursement for travel by bicycle, a cell phone benefit, and a closer parking space as a pregnancy accommodation.

• New supervisors are oriented and trained.
  
  In the past some staff members said they were dropped into their first supervisor roles with no training or preparation. One was assigned to supervise someone in a highly technical role he had no familiarity with.
  
  Now, before becoming a supervisor, employees are given videos to watch, books and articles to read, and coaching by managers. The top HR manager, ‘Gabriella’, who calls herself “freakishly organized,” actually took graduate courses in organizational management when she was first hired, so that she would be prepared for her new job. She oversees the onboarding of all new supervisors. 

• Weekly supervision meetings and biannual performance reviews are built into everyone’s schedule.
  
  Previously the supervisor and the department determined when and if supervision meetings occurred. Sometimes reviews were begun but never finished. Accountability was wildly uneven, with some supervisors lenient and some harsh.
  
  Now reminders go out automatically. The suggested prompts for in-depth discussions at biannual reviews include long-term work goals, professional development aspirations, job description revisions, and past and future workplans, in addition to recent performance. 

• Job descriptions are written with explicit expectations.
  
  In the past, some staff had no written job description. And some remember that there were unrealistic verbal expectations from their supervisors, such as tasks outside their job descriptions and for which they had no training.
  
  Now the HR manager reviews all job descriptions for consistency and compliance with ‘Loving the Land’ policies. Job descriptions are revised at biannual reviews, as well as when something changes about the work.

• The hiring process is consistent and fair.
  
  Previously some job announcements used male pronouns for traditionally male jobs, and some required academic credentials not actually needed for the job. Each department did its own hires, in inconsistent ways, and as a result, “pay varied wildly depending on [self-]advocacy,” according to ‘Salie’, a long-time employee.
  
  Now all hiring committees have mixed teams from various departments, and pay bands are standardized.

• Internal communication flows abundantly.
  
  ‘Loving the Land’ is a complex organization, with both indoor and outdoor workers at multiple sites running several non-overlapping program areas. Previously some staff were completely unaware of what other departments were doing; some got the message from their supervisors that their job was only to focus on their own bailiwick.
  
  Now a top manager sends out weekly emails that include not only program success stories and upcoming events, but also operational and HR updates, such as when a regulatory change affected workers’ comp. There is also a management team that meets regularly, so information can flow between departments. 

How did these healthy changes come to pass? Replacing the toxic board members with mission-aligned members made a big difference, of course, as well as Rita Sever’s expert consulting, and the Type A personality of the conscientious HR manager. But in addition, staff members were able to give input into organizational matters via a racial equity effort and a recent strategic planning process. 

In interviews with supervisors and supervisees, it became clear that all the changes have had positive effects on the organization’s work. Turnover used to be highest in the department where board members were involved; now turnover is lower across the board. Cross-department collaboration has led to innovative ideas being shared and implemented; new projects proposed by staff members are now thriving. 

But the greatest impact has been on the sanity of the staff, who seem grateful for the new stability. Clear and predictable procedures clearly make a difference to employee experience. A long-time employee, ‘Paige’, said, “I feel valued as an employee. I feel like systems are in place to take care of me if something happens. I have somewhere to go if I have questions. I don't feel like I did before, where I was just floating on a raft by myself, doing whatever [was] needed to get done. Now there's a support system.”

The Case Study series is the latest component of the Upgrading Nonprofit Workplaces study. Its purpose is to give examples of the practices in the Sustainable Jobs Toolkit, co-created by All Due Respect and the Staffing the Mission project, now part of Fund the People. For more best practices on Thoughtful Supervision, see the Toolkit here.

Written by Betsy Leondar-Wright, Ph.D.
With research assistance from Nikki Mirala
Published by Fund the People
In collaboration with All Due Respect