Element: Organisation goals and values

Suggested considerations and actions:

It is important for organisations to decide on the priorities and values they will commit to and apply, including those related to workforce, then communicate and promote them.

• Include workforce-related goals in your corporate goals: For example: "We support our workers by providing a positive and collaborative work environment, supportive supervision, and opportunities for capability development".
• Articulate the principles that apply to your workforce management practice and incorporate them when communicating with your workforce: For example: "We are committed to quality practice, supportive supervision, listening to workers, trust, mutual respect, ongoing learning, teamwork, etc.
• Highlight your approach to workforce in external communications, e.g. websites, social media, annual reports, newsletters, job advertisements.

Element: Reaching potential new workers

Suggested considerations and actions:

Job applicants look for information about the culture of organisations and the way they manage their staff, as well as more practical information such as role, location and pay. An organisation’s ‘employee value proposition’ (EVP) describes the support and benefits it offers its employees in return for their skills, capabilities, and experience, including the level of on-the-job support and opportunities for learning. This can be a key factor in attracting and retaining the workers you need.

• Include information about your approach to workforce management, including supervision support and opportunities for capability development, in your role descriptions, your advertisements, and the background information you provide to prospective job applicants. Link to the NDIS Workforce Capability Framework (the Framework) and its resources to encourage suitable applicants.

Element: Communicating with participants

Suggested considerations and actions:

Participants expect to be supported by workers with the capabilities they need to do a good job. Most participants also value workforce stability so they know who will be coming to support them.

• Provide information about how you support and supervise workers to ensure supports are delivered safely and competently. Encourage participants to give feedback about things that go well and areas where change is needed. Use the Framework to explain how you expect workers to deliver services and supports.
• Discuss how you will confirm that workers have the capabilities they need and explain your responsibility to make sure the supports and services provided are right for them For example, discuss how the supervisor will make arrangements to observe how things are going when setting up the Service Agreement. You can also use the Working Together guide to support you to make these arrangements.

Element: Leaders and managers 'walk the talk'

Suggested considerations and actions:

Workers will engage with supervision arrangements and appreciate their value if they experience them as constructive, collaborative, fair and supportive rather than selectively applied or focused on fault-finding.

• Ensure all managers and supervisors are familiar with the Framework, expectations about the way services and supports are delivered by workers, how you want supervisors to work with workers, and the leadership capabilities they should demonstrate.
• Provide guidance to managers and supervisors about how you see supervision working. Encourage them to review their own supervisory capabilities and ensure they are reflecting the organisation’s workforce values and principles when communicating with and supervising workers. Check that supervisor training refers to the Framework and clearly conveys the positive, supportive and collaborative principles and approach to be demonstrated in conducting supervision.
• Ensure that members of governance bodies, such as board members, are aware of the Framework and have the capabilities they need to reflect the organisation’s workforce values and principles when determining strategic direction.

Element: Guiding principles to establish effective policies, procedures and systems

Considerations:

Some important criteria to keep in mind when deciding on your approach include:

• Practical and realistic in your context.
• Beneficial to each of the organisation, participants, supervisors and workers.
• Supportive, with a priority focus on the capabilities described in the Framework.
• Embedded in everyday functions and work, not a once-in-a-while, formal event.
• Easily understood and applied.
• Consistently implemented across the organisation.
• Recorded, reported and regularly reviewed to identify areas for improvement.

Element: The size and distribution of your organisation

Consideration:

All organisations need processes to direct their workers on what they are required to do in their job, agree with them on performance expectations, and offer support, feedback and opportunities to enhance or develop new capabilities.

• The complexity and formality of the policies, procedures and systems will vary with the size and complexity of the organisation. Larger organisations, especially those where the workforce is geographically distributed, will usually have online human resource (HR) management systems for use by supervisors and workers to access guidance and templates, and to record key supervision milestones, expectations, achievements and development needs. Small organisations may manage the process adequately without such systems but still need to have clear policy, guidance, templates and the means to record key information to ensure transparency, consistency and accountability. The templates and checklists in these resources can be used as a starting point.

Element: The workers covered by supervision arrangements

Consideration:

An organisation is responsible for managing and supervising all workers delivering supports and services on its behalf, regardless of their employment status. All workers need to know what is expected of them, how their work will be assessed, and what support they can expect from the organisation. When designing systems to manage these arrangements, factors to consider include:

• Capacity to provide supervision to all workers, that is, the need to plan for headcount (not full-time equivalent (FTE)) numbers.
• Capacity to address the needs of different groups of workers such as permanent, temporary and casual, full-time or part-time. Different approaches may be required depending on expected length and frequency of employment. For example, a short-term or a casual employee who only works a couple of hours a week is unlikely to have a long-term learning plan as well as a performance agreement. Defining expectations and agreeing on how work will be assessed is still important but may not need to be as detailed as for ongoing workers. If the employee stays for longer than initially expected, make sure supervision arrangements are adjusted.
• Contractors: performance expectations and method of assessing performance should be agreed as a condition of engagement and set out in contractual documentation.
• New recruits and experienced staff: new recruits will usually need more support in the initial stages of employment; more experienced staff may need coaching and support to adapt their approach to NDIS requirements, refresh and maintain skills or develop new capabilities.
• Workforce stability: if you experience high turnover in the first few months of employment it could be useful to develop a specific supervision policy for supporting new workers to ensure quality service delivery, worker engagement, and retention.
• Workforce changes: if you are planning to expand or change the mix of services you offer, consider the supervision implications.

Element: Where work is performed

Consideration:

Supervision is particularly challenging if work is performed in different locations. Many NDIS workers deliver supports and services in NDIS participants’ homes or in community settings. Organisations may also be delivering services in city, regional and/or remote locations, making it impractical to hold regular in-person meetings. In these cases, organisations should consider establishing systems to support alternative approaches such as using networking apps, text messages, phone/video calls, emails and other digital communications. Where these systems are introduced, organisations should consider the training and support users may need to use them effectively, and policies and procedures should describe expectations about how and when different communication channels should be used. For example, not all interactions are suited to remote communications. Planned events, such as developing the performance agreement or annual performance reviews, should ideally be conducted in-person.

Element: The type of services and supports you deliver

Consideration:

All NDIS providers need to ensure their workers have the capabilities they need to deliver different kinds of supports and services. This includes an appropriate method to record relevant training, assess capability and ensure relevant capabilities are current.

Some NDIS organisations provide specialised supports requiring supervision by health or allied health staff. In these cases, supervision planning needs to allow for this when setting up the performance agreement and reviewing performance. This can be managed in different ways. For example, some supervisors are also registered health or allied health workers. In other cases, the worker’s supervisor coordinates inputs and feedback from all relevant sources, including specialist practitioners and participants.

Element: Responsibility for supervision

Consideration:

There are many aspects to supervision, as described in the Overview of Resources. Although each worker will have a main supervisor, some aspects of supervision might be done by others. For example, rostering and attendance management might be separately managed from providing direction and oversight for the services delivered to participants. Learning and capability development could be managed by a People and Culture/HR function in a larger organisation. Where that is the case, it is important to make sure the different elements of supervision are complementary and provide a coherent basis for setting up the performance agreement and reviewing performance. The worker’s main supervisor is best placed to coordinate inputs about expectations and feedback on performance from all relevant sources.

Element: Supervisor training and commitment

Consideration:

Organisations rely on supervisors to ensure workers deliver relevant, quality supports and services to NDIS participants. Supervisors’ main responsibilities should be to support workers in their jobs, identify where supports and services to participants is going well and where there is a need for adjustment, and provide opportunities for workers to reflect on and develop capabilities. The Framework sets out the key capabilities supervisors need to do this. Organisations need to support and develop their supervisors by:

• Expecting them to be familiar with the Framework and use it to guide their advice and support to workers.
• Providing clear guidance on the supervision approach they want to apply consistently across the organisation, including policies, procedures, templates and record management systems.
• Arranging access to relevant training on the principles of supportive supervision and the organisation's specific approach.
• Including performance as a supervisor in the supervisors' own performance agreements and performance reviews.
• Seeking feedback from workers on their experience of supervision, to assess its effectiveness, perceived benefits and areas for improvement.
• Seeking feedback from supervisors on how well the organisation is supporting them in meeting their supervisory responsibilities.

Element: Engaging workers

Consideration:

Effective supervision relies on sound working relationships between supervisors and workers, built on values such as mutual respect, trust, honesty, transparency, professionalism, and fairness.

When it is working well, workers understand their role within the organisation and the contribution they make to achieve its objectives. Workers and their supervisors agree on what work should be done, how it should be done (drawing on the Framework), how it will be assessed, and their ongoing learning and capability development pathway. Some of the important steps organisations can take to gain positive engagement of workers in the supervision process include:

• Request workers to be familiar with the Framework, to help them understand expectations in the NDIS context.
• Include an outline of your supervision approach in role descriptions and other information about working in your organisation, emphasising a collaborative, positive process that supports workers to deliver quality services, gain job satisfaction and further develop their capabilities.
• Highlight the importance, value of and commitment to supervision during recruitment and induction.
• Make sure supervisors collaborate with workers to develop their performance agreements, review achievements and discuss learning and capability development plans regularly.
• Encourage workers to provide feedback about the supervision process, in discussions with their supervisor and in response to other opportunities, such as regular climate surveys or exit interviews.

Element: Involving participants

Consideration:

In the NDIS, participant input is essential when setting service expectations and reviewing performance, at the organisation level and the individual worker level. The Working Together Guide provides guidance on how to obtain that input as part of a collaborative, respectful and mutually beneficial approach. Key points are:

• Include information about the organisation’s approach to supervision in information provided to participants about the services you provide, making it clear that supervision is a positive, supportive and constructive process aimed at ensuring quality supports and services for workers.
• Explain the organisation’s approach to supervision, including the supervisor’s responsibility to oversee service delivery and the importance of participant input, when first engaging with participants.
• Communicate and agree on how input and feedback will be provided (including preferred communication mode).
• Encourage participants to use the Framework to help them describe what they expect and/or provide specific feedback on what is going well and what could be improved.

Element: Resourcing

Consideration:

Organisations should make adequate resources available to conduct supervision. This means that planning, preparation, and supervision time need to be factored in as part of supervisors’ and workers’ workload. 

Supervision is an ongoing, integral part of service delivery. Although some planned sessions are necessary (for example to develop performance agreements, review performance or discuss capability development or career steps) the majority of supervision activity is best delivered as part of day-to-day operational functions: supervision is most effective when integrated into how supervisors manage service delivery rather than a separate process. For example, a phone check-in on an assignment provides the opportunity to ask how things are going, if there are issues the worker would like to discuss (then or at a later, more convenient time), check on their wellbeing, debrief and support workers to manage challenging situations.

Observation of a great interaction with a participant is the right time to give quick positive feedback. Setting up service arrangements for a new participant or making changes to an existing arrangement is the right time to discuss the options to meet their needs and things to look out for.

Both the worker and the supervisor can draw on these operational experiences and discussions when deciding on the aspects they want to discuss at their cyclical, planned sessions.

Element: Record keeping

Consideration:

Organisations need to keep records of supervision to meet expectations in the Code of Conduct and the Practice Standards. Record keeping also enables organisations to review how well their supervision system is implemented and link it to participant and workforce outcome measures.

Organisations will set up different systems to meet this requirement. As a minimum, records should provide evidence that steps have been taken to ensure workers have a clear understanding of their role, have the capabilities they need, and were appropriately supervised to ensure safe and competent delivery of supports.

Element: Measures of success at whole of organisation level

Aspects to consider:

How will you know how well your supervision system is working? It is important to decide on criteria that are meaningful and measurable. For example, you could consider criteria related to achieving service delivery and quality goals and workforce goals.

Your criteria should include numerical measures to tell you things such as how many of your workers have current performance agreements, the proportion of participants who regularly provide feedback, staff turnover. They should also include measures more closely related to outcomes, such as the results of staff feedback surveys on measures related to job satisfaction, participant outcomes and satisfaction feedback, worker capability profiles.

To help you interpret your data, you can also consider measures such as staff turnover, participant retention, complaints, reportable incidents.

Start by measuring performance in areas where you have records, data and systems in place to record and collect consistent and reliable information. If you do not have records or data in a key area, consider setting up a system to obtain it. 

You could also include assessment of supervision efficiency and effectiveness as part of your regular internal audit cycle.

Element: Measures of success at individual worker level

Aspects to consider:

Each supervisor should seek worker feedback on how well things are going on a regular, informal basis as well as part of planned cyclical performance and development discussions. This should include feedback on the supervision arrangements and interactions.

Element: Measures of success at individual participant level

Aspects to consider:

Each supervisor should also seek feedback from participants on how satisfied they are with the supports they receive from their worker(s) – what is going well and where things could be done differently. This feedback should be incorporated in performance reviews conducted with the worker.

Element: Taking action on evaluation findings

Aspects to consider:

Supervision will only be an organisational priority if it is integrated into all relevant operational aspects and clear responsibilities are assigned to coordinate and oversee its implementation. The following actions will help achieve this:

• Assign responsibility for oversight of the supervision system implementation, including record keeping, to a specific manager.
• Include responsibility for data gathering and producing periodical reports to assess how things are going to a specific role and include review of the reports as a regular item for management and/or board meetings.
• Consider information from supervision systems together with workforce indicators (e.g. turnover, capability levels, job satisfaction) and participant experience indicators (satisfaction with services received, measures of fidelity, number and type of complaints) to gain insight into their efficiency and effectiveness and identify areas for improvement.