I wonder has anyone been in a similiar position to me.   The manager of my current job where I have been in post for six months on a part-time basis has taken issue with my work related to quantity of new assessments and his feeling that I have lack of understanding. I have not been confirmed in post yet for this reason and over this last month I have been scrutinised to see if there has been improvement. I am now waiting to hear if I will be confirmed in post or not. When I started for the first 4 months I was hot-desking and sharing a computer with 2 others. I had miminal and sporadic help from colleagues due to the intensity and urgency of the work and working part-time meant I missed the multidisciplinary allocation meetings.  I feel all of these issues put me at a disadvantage additionally I worked overtime to meet the work demands and the manager used this as an illustration of my lack of understanding in that I was unable to complete the work in the hours allocated. Other social-workers have said they have had to work overtime to complete the work and it is particularly difficult for part-timers  as the nature of the work means that reports and records have to be completed immediately for commissioning purposes.  I have been qualified for 28 years and have always been a diligent and conscientious worker, admittedly this has been a new role for me which I have worked hard at to find my way round the operational systems.  I have been shocked at the way the manager has  reacted to me.  It is unfortunate that I have not been able to use the union for support as I have not been in it long enough.  I think I have been treated unfairly and a miscommunication between the manager and myself at the beginning as to when I should take on cases has led to this awful situation. Colleagues have now said that their understanding was the same as mine in relation to this issue. I have been working my butt off these last few weeks in fact it has been like this over the last 5 months but I am worried it is still not enough. If I do not get confirmed in post I am concerned that this will be the end of my social work career and it will be very hard to for me to get another job. I am wondering if it would be worth me taking a grievance out. Has anyone got any helpful ideas or comments.[:'(]

Ellena:

I wonder has anyone been in a similiar position to me.   The manager of my current job where I have been in post for six months on a part-time basis has taken issue with my work related to quantity of new assessments and his feeling that I have lack of understanding. I have not been confirmed in post yet for this reason and over this last month I have been scrutinised to see if there has been improvement. I am now waiting to hear if I will be confirmed in post or not. When I started for the first 4 months I was hot-desking and sharing a computer with 2 others. I had miminal and sporadic help from colleagues due to the intensity and urgency of the work and working part-time meant I missed the multidisciplinary allocation meetings.  I feel all of these issues put me at a disadvantage additionally I worked overtime to meet the work demands and the manager used this as an illustration of my lack of understanding in that I was unable to complete the work in the hours allocated. Other social-workers have said they have had to work overtime to complete the work and it is particularly difficult for part-timers  as the nature of the work means that reports and records have to be completed immediately for commissioning purposes.  I have been qualified for 28 years and have always been a diligent and conscientious worker, admittedly this has been a new role for me which I have worked hard at to find my way round the operational systems.  I have been shocked at the way the manager has  reacted to me.  It is unfortunate that I have not been able to use the union for support as I have not been in it long enough.  I think I have been treated unfairly and a miscommunication between the manager and myself at the beginning as to when I should take on cases has led to this awful situation. Colleagues have now said that their understanding was the same as mine in relation to this issue. I have been working my butt off these last few weeks in fact it has been like this over the last 5 months but I am worried it is still not enough. If I do not get confirmed in post I am concerned that this will be the end of my social work career and it will be very hard to for me to get another job. I am wondering if it would be worth me taking a grievance out. Has anyone got any helpful ideas or comments.[:'(]

Ellena this situation sounds really stressful for you. All I can suggest is that you do use your union for either advice or support about how to progress. Just because you haven't been a member for very long shouldn't impact the advice/help they can give you - I've never heard of that happening before.

 I hope the situation resolves itself soon.

I had an issue within the first couple of months of joining my place of work and my union, the work place steward wasn't very helpful trotting out the standard line about not being a member for long enough - however a call to the branch office was far more fruitful, I was visited by a full time branch steward who got stuck in and helped me out straight away with not a mention of the length of my subscription to the union.

Call them, it sounds a horrible situation without any support. 

Let us know how it goes. 

Whist subject to a Probationary period of employment you shoud be offered all the help / training / Supervision etc. to ensure that you are able to be confirmed in Post. It is difficult to adjust to new systems and ways of working - not to mention new colleagues and managers!

Supervision should identify areas of both strength as well as weakness and the employer should be able to demonstrate that they have provided you with all the 'tools' necessary to be able to work effectively. You ought to have a reduced Caseload to start with to enable you to be properly inducted by having time to visits establishments / other teams / agencies and to read all the Policies and Procedures relevant to your job.

 Unfortunately there does seem to be an increase in more aggressive styles of management - and yet workers are supposed to enable / empower / advocate for their service-users at the same time - a strange and even cruel mis-match.

Hitting Performance Indicators is more important, it often seems, that producing high quality pieces of work.

 Perhaps you need to be a bit 'clever' and seek your manager's help and advice - ask how s/he would go about achieving better results. Is there a Caseload Management 'tool' in place which would enable you to be 'scored' as the part-time worker that you are - part-time staff do often feel under additional pressures to get assessments done on time and many work almost full-time hours to do so.

I would be cautious about bringing in the Union - that may not be seen as constructive by your manager / employer. Use that as a last resort but do keep them fully informed of how things are working out for you.

And remember, failure by yourself is probably also failure by your employer - most do not want that so do try to ensure that you are seen as reasonable, conscientious and hardworking.

Hi Thanks for your advice,I will contact the branch again, they said that they cannot support me at the meeting with the HR department where the manager views their concerns.  I had one meeting one month ago and a follow up is due next week to see if I have improved.  When I called in to the union office on 30th May all they could say was they wouldn't be able to attend meetings to support me with HR and manager until I had been joined up for 13 wks.  They also seemed unsympathetic but I will try them again.  A colleague will be attending the meeting with me next week hopefully who is experienced and agrees with the issues I have mentioned to them about overtime and case management.  I have to say that manager seems positively off towards me and I can't seem to put a foot right.  My work is being heavily scrutinised and he has suggested doing an observation visit which I am very reluctant to agree to as no one else has had this and I would find this very intimidating.  I have not done anything wrong but it feels like I have and I can't seem to put a foot right.  Today I finished work at 7.30pm completing the reports and phonecalls necessary as being a pt-timer I will not be back until thurs pm and things needed to be set up by then, this is always the way. I have supervision again on fri which I am dreading, the manager will inform me whether he will be recommending I be confirmed in post or not I suppose - oh happy days!

Thanks for listening anyway

Ellena

 Hi; firstly to acknowledge what an unpleasant and difficult situation you are in; I do hope it works out okay but it's undeniably serious.

I don't wish to play de    

vils' advocate but there is a sound reason for the 13 week rule for joining the Union. Trade Union's aren't only there for crisis managment, but to represent workers and fight to improved pay and conditions for all. Without wishing to sound unsympathetic, there is a case for wondering by after you have been qualified for so long, why you haven't been a membere up until now. If you took part in the recent strike action then point that out - in practice it is likely to be significantly in you're favour in terms of them representing you. If you didn't, it might be difficult to be honest. Also try BASW. If you are unhappy with the local steward, talk you your branch office, or else your regional office. But I would remind you that the rule is there for a reason and to anticipate what might be hostile questions. 

 I have in the past often represented members without 13 weeks continuous, but this has been in the case of employees new to local authority employment, where I think a substantial element of explanation for non-membership 

That said consider the following;

 take of essential resources to do your job are clearly an important consideration in any probationary review meeting. Hotdesking is fine in Employment Law terms , but o nly if there is enough computers for staff to discharge their contractual obligations effectiely. This doesn't seem to be the case here. Did you raise it any any space and what was the response.

 Failing LA probation so basically only occur in exceptional cases; some newer, more 'bolshie' managers don't seem to understand this.

Also, it is ESSENTIAL that the employer can show that they complied with the published Probation Policy which should hae been gien to you at the start of your employment. for examle warning you in adance about thier opinion that you are failing to perform, soliciting your perspectie on this , and haing a dialogue about measrue to improe this. If they haen't done this then they will probably loose on appeal - which you might be able to string out untul after 13 weeks union membership - but hopefully it won't get to that.

I would probably consider taking out a grievance in your position. To be frank; ignor the irresponsible advice about not bringing in the Union, it is foolish in the extreme. as your career is at risk

you also need to think about how other colleagues in identical positions are monitored etc also what induction process who recei vedat the start ofyour new post. Deficiences here will make it harder for them to fail you.

It would help to know more about the nature of your work/ children's / adults etc. Feel free to PM me.

all the best 

Hi Thanks for your comments.  To answer your questions I have come back to Local Authority Social Services 6mths ago after working in the charity sector for 7 years so was not in a union for that time. I did not attend the strike as our Intermediate Care Team were exempted. I did not join Union in the beginning as I missed the induction meeting where the union were introduced in March when I had 2.5 days sickness. I realise I should have enquired about joining but it was not at the forefront of my priority list with trying so hard to meet the demands of the job in a short space of time during my working week.
Re Computer issues I regularly mentioned to manager that this was hampering my progress for a couple of months, then a student and another SW left in May so I have had a computer to myself since that time.  Earlier  the managers response to the issue I raised about Computer was to contact IT about a another deficient computer which I did but could not get a satisfactory response without wasting a lot of time.  Recently a temporary SW has had this computer tested and found that it is completely below spec and should not be in existance.
With regards to the dialogue I had with the manager I feel I was not clearly made aware of their concerns until I received this in writing at my request on 29th May, a couple of weeks earlier manager had said that they were changing their mind from having my probation extended to not confirming me in my post.  Despite this they had raised the performance indicators they gave me at 4 wks from 3 C's and 1 D to 3 C's and 1 B at 12 wks and I believe I got 2 B's and 2 C's at 24 wks but I have not had a copy of this.. 

Hi. If your whole team where on an exemption and you are a comparatively recent recruit to the local authority, I would point that out fairly clearly to your Union office and I would hope for a sympathetic response. One interpretation of the 13 weeks rule is for legal expenses as opposed to workplace advice and representation which is what you need at this stage.

 Di you send any emails abot the computer, or have an approx record of calls made to IT. This should help establish the poor resourcing issue. If you hae emals print them off now. It may help to contact the manager of the IT desk and ask for a list of falut calls on that particular machine. Get written info from your temp SW colleague as that would seem to strongly vindicate your concerns. This should not be written off as a minor issue; it is clearly impossible to undertake your role without an appropriate, working computer and regular / uniinterrupted access. Often social workers don't get that, however it MUST be taken FULLY into account if they attempt to introduce lack of work evidence to fail your probation.

They need written reasons for chanigng their extension or failure decision. This seems chaotic and utterly unfair. Not sure what you mean by C, D , Bs etc - not aware of this. I would sort of assume that C means satisfactory. You don't ha ve to be their best employee ever to pass probation, you ned to be satisfactory. I sort of imagine C means satisfactory, A excellent and E bloody awful. Check this out. If their are giviing up C's that implies strongly you performance as being rated as satisfactory.

29th May. How long were you in post then> Again that's important. When were you given a copy of the Probation Policy. It should have arrived with oyur contract,

Phone BASW today.

Keep in touch on forum or my PM

Elena, your situation is horrendous and your manager seems to be quite horrible. It might be a bit late in the day now, but one of the things you can do is  keep a daily diary of your routines, what you have done, what you have tried to do and where you have been hampered, for whatever reason. You should also include conversations that you have had with your manager, especially when s/he has been unhelpful, ambiguos, or obtuse. The advice to get hold of your departmental policy to remind your employer of their obligations is also sound.

The fact that Unison is being completely unhelpful and inflexible comes as no surprise to me; I doubt that they would be much help anyway, they very rarely are.

It sounds like your manager has got in for you, so I think the best thing you can do is hang on as long as you can and in the meantime do whatever you can to get out of the place and start afresh somewhere new.

Things can change. I left a post 18 months ago because of a bullying manager and the move turned out disastrously. I actually wrote a long article about it for community care, but it wasn't good enough for publication, but it was cathartic anyway! 

The team I joined was cliquey and in turmoil and took an instant dslike to me, for a variety of reasons, mainly to do with the flexible working hours I had agreed before starting the job. I got on very well with the manager though, but the team put in a complaint against him and he has been on the sick since, and work became a very lonely and hostile place. I felt (and was) completely unsupported and isolated,and it was all prety hellish.

Finally an acting manager turned up who had clearly been briefed about me, but we had a very frank and open discussion and agreed that we would start with an absoultely clean slate, and she made it clear to other team members that gossip would be not be tolerated. Not long after, a new service manager started who acknowledges the good work I do and as far as I know, knows nothing or little of my previous reputaion. Added to this, some difficult team members had moved on. The upshot is that my office is a much more pleasant environment. It's not exactly heaven, but it does illustrate that things can improve massively, in a short space of time. 

My advice to move on holds though. I was recently offered another job with a different authority, which would have been a promotion, the reference from my current employer was good, because they told so me at the interview, once they received the reference from previous employer though, the offer was withdrawn, without any explanation whatsoever. If your current manager really is vindictive, he has the potential to hold a malign influence over your life for years to come. The chap who didn't like me gave me a good reference to get my current job, presumable because he wanted me out, and this could be the case with you.

Anyway, good luck and I hope it turns out well for you.

I forgot to mention in the previous post that because the original manager was sidelined, the service manager wasn't prepared to sign off my probation and the acting manager, when she arrived, months later said she would have to supervise me for 3 months before she was prepared to sign it off, so I ended up on probation for about 16 months, despite never having had my work called into question. Again though, things can change very quickly, and if you have demonstrated a willingness to respond  to your managers directives,the worst that will happen will be that your probationary period is extended. Probably. 

I have been a UNISON steward for many years and I'm surprised your branch aren't being more flexible. I have known umpteen examples where we have represented new members, long before the 13 weeks. It's a very common issue where there is a big problem affecting several people in a workplace - the union will say to people "join us and we'll represent you" with no worries about the 13 weeks.

http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/16716.pdf is a link to the current Rulebook.

Section K 2.1 (p45) makes it clear that legal assistance cannot be provided before 13 weeks membership, but I can't see anything saying you're not entitled to branch representation. It's a common mistake, but stewards and branches should know better. I suggest going back and pointing that out.

I've met the same situation, and if it were not for UNISON, my Social Work career would have been very short. I did try to "hold on" until I had a new job, however despite a very good interview I was not offered a job once the references came in. Don't start that managers cannot provide negative references, because they can! It is all in the wording and knowing to read between the lines. I know other people who have been through the same thing, some left Social Work altogether, some went on to different teams, different managers and did very well. My suggestion is read carefully through the GSCC code and through the Core competences, verify with the National minimum standards for the occupation and gather evidence that you do meet these standards. Also remember that between these meetings you must have a development plan, with clear targets, expectations and monitoring, and your manager must show what he or she has done to ensure your plan is progressed.

Hi Kirst

Ta for advice, I have just rang branch- got the answer 'phone message at 4pm but hopefully they will get back and I will cite the above.

Cheers

Ellena