We moved back to Finland after living abroad for eight years. At the same time, I returned to work full time. I was very excited about my new job, although the cultural shock associated with returning home was considerable. In addition, I struggled with the challenges of my new everyday life- work, motherhood, and home. In other words, how to take care of everything when your spouse was still working abroad at the time? So, on the recommendation of my colleague, I started work supervision, where I was able to reflect on these and many other issues in a safe place of peace and confidentiality. It was a good investment.
What is work supervision?
I often come across this question. First, work supervision is the examination of work, along with the work supervisor and the supervisee. Second, it is a learning process that progresses toward those goals that the work supervisee considers essential to themselves. Third, the work is based on mutual trust, interaction and the supervisee’s own insights.
Work supervision may not be very familiar to everyone. It has a strong tradition and history of experience as a form of work, here and elsewhere. It is suitable for learning and developing the individual, the group and the whole organization. Work supervision came to Finland as early as the 1940s and 1950s, from England and the USA, when work supervision was used by social services and health care and Evangelical -Lutheran church employees. For them, work supervision was arranged to develop and support work, as individual work supervision or group work supervision. Gradually, the form of work also became part of the teaching and education sector. For business, as a development tool, work supervision started to be used in the 1990s, after which companies utilized work supervision as part of, e.g., strategic work. Today, work supervision is widely implemented.
Confidential status
The workweek often passes quickly, and few have time to stop for important work-related questions concerning, e.g., own primary role, interaction in the work community, or workload factors. For these and many other situations, work supervision provides space and time. A space where you can stop in peace and reflect with your supervisor about your own routines, roles, motives and coping mechanisms. At the centre is the person and their goals.
There are many reasons for applying for work supervision. You can come to work supervision even if there is no acute challenge at work. You can participate in it at different career stages according to your wishes and possibilities. It is good to note that work supervision is not therapy. Still, it helps the employee/work community to research and strengthens their pivotal roles, find new perspectives and ways of working, and support professional growth and well-being at work.
The supervisor is an experienced expert in their profession, who has also completed a two-year specialized education for a supervisor. As a supervisor, they bring to the sessions both their professional skills and an outside perspective, helping the employee/work community with structuring and clarifying questions or tasks. The supervisor does not have to be a professional in the same field as the supervisee. The unifying factor has been and is work and the work community.
A useful learning process
Work supervision consists of the learning process over several sessions and experiential learning between sessions. Just as you don’t learn to ride a bike instantly, the more you spend on the work supervision process, the greater the benefits. The value of work supervision is crystallized in goal-oriented, process-like work. My first work supervision included 40 appointments with the supervisor. I could reflect in peace on my thoughts, work ethic, and work community, and I still sometimes find my thoughts drifting back, with gratitude, to my work supervisor and our shared journey in exploring my work.
In addition, one of the essential strengths of the work supervision process is that I see a preventative approach to work that promotes the well-being of the employee and the work community and supports employees in their core mission. For my part, this investment has paid off. It also inspired me to explore the topic further and train later as a work supervisor. Have you ever thought of undertaking such a journey yourself?
