Talking Stick - May/June 2019 - 44

The Super-Visor

Recognizing Common Issues
for Supervisors
Despite effective onboarding and
training, a values-based and supportive
work environment, a strong professional development curriculum, and
good supervision, problems sometimes
arise. Interpersonal conflicts can occur.
Mistakes happen. Lapses in ethical
judgment occur. An unintentional
microaggression offends. Personal,
health, or academic problems also may
arise that affect performance. What is a
student employment practitioner to do?
Above all else, accept that no one
is perfect, no situation is perfect, and
uncertainty is certain. That problems arise regularly is guaranteed. A
supervisor's job is to solve problems,
so expect them and reframe them as
opportunities to find good solutions.
Consider the example of conflict between two employees. Managing conflict may be just as distasteful and just
as avoidable as providing feedback,
and it may be impossible to eliminate
all feelings of angst when confronted
with an interpersonal conflict between
students or between students and staff.
However, supervisors have many
resources at their disposal to help them
work through the conflict management
process. You could use the 5-I format,
an ethical decision-making framework
developed by Craig E. Johnson and pre-

sented in his book Ethics in the Workplace (2006). The five I's begin with
identifying and investigating the problem. An interpersonal conflict would
require listening to both sides and seeking to understand people's feelings and
needs, not just their stated positions.
Does the problem stem from unclear
communication or differences in communication style? A lack of clarity? An
organizational problem? An intergenerational misunderstanding? A lack of
sensitivity? An unethical decision? Getting to the root of the problem requires
creating an environment where the
people involved feel valued, supported,
and heard. The next "I," innovate, gives
all parties a chance to generate creative
solutions that would reasonably satisfy
everyone. Implementation is the action
piece where a supervisor would be
wise to monitor the extent to which the
agreed-upon solution is being implemented and negotiated decisions are
explored. Key to successfully managing
conflict is the ability to engage in active,
deep listening, so that each person feels
heard and valued.
Other problems may not seem so
daunting. If your student employee is
consistently late to work, speak with
her to find out why. You might discover that she commutes to campus with
public transportation and simply cannot get to work before a certain time.

A Good Job: Campus Employment as a High-Impact
Practice is authored by George S. McClellan,
Kristina L. Creager, and Marianna Savoca with a
foreword by George D. Kuh. It is available from
Stylus Publishing at styluspub.presswarehouse.com.

This is an easy fix: Change her hours.
You might receive an email from a
faculty member who has pointed out
a glaring grammatical error in a promotion sent by one of your marketing
assistants. Also an easy fix: Respond

At some points during the
semester, even your star
employees may question
their abilities, lose focus, feel
insecure or frustrated, have
conflicts with peers or staff,
and experience failure or
a general malaise because
the work and the work
environment are not what
they expected.
to the email with grace, thanking the
professor for the feedback and assuring him that you will work hard to
ensure that all future communications
from your department are vetted for
grammar and spelling. Separately you
can meet with the student employee
and talk about the situation. Maybe
the student was in a rush and made a
mistake, or maybe English is not her
first language and she struggles daily
with English grammar. You could refer
her to resources on campus that can
help with her overall writing skills,
and you might consider assigning a
peer to work with her and review email
promotions before they are sent.
Another issue that arises more often in a student employment environment than in a corporate environment
is requests for scheduling or shift
changes, in this case during midterms
and finals weeks. The beauty of this
issue is that it is by and large preventable. Although supervisors cannot
 CONTINUES  60

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Talking Stick - May/June 2019

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