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DRINK & DRUGS NEWS :: Q&AYou ask the questions - you answer the questions. Please keep your answers coming, and feel free to email a new question. Thanks to this issue's respondents for their contributions. Question:Since my new manager started six months ago, the culture of
our organisation has changed completely. Everything now is about
setting and meeting targets, and clients seem to come last. I raised
my concerns with her at my one-to-one, but she just said 'welcome
to the real world'. I've started to hate a job that I loved. Is
there anything I can do apart from keep my head down or leave?
[Eleanor, by email] Your replies...Dear Eleanor, Is the issue a personal one, or do other people working within the organisation feel the same way as you? You need to understand how your fellow workers feel about the changes and then perhaps you can all approach her and voice your concerns. This has to be done very carefully and sensitively, as you do not want to appear to be stirring up trouble but as a long-standing employee I feel you have the right to a more understanding and consultative approach than your new manager has shown you to date. You should bear in mind though that the new manager probably feels far more vulnerable and insecure about her new position than her outward appearances show and may be hiding behind her brusque exterior. Perhaps if you give her time and try and work with her, your client focused outlook and her target driven approach need not be mutually exclusive and will eventually lead to an improved service for the clients, which is I bet what you both ultimately want! Margaret Deman, Hampshire
Dear Eleanor, It can be very hard to adjust to working in a new way but sometimes it is what's needed. You say that 'everything is now about setting and meeting targets, and clients seem to come last' but surely the targets are there to quantify the quality of treatment your clients are receiving? Without targets and performance indicators how can you gain a true picture of how many successful outcomes you achieve for clients and identify parts of your programme that can be improved? The drugs field has changed immensely over the last few years and will continue to do so as there is an increase of professionalism in the field. The message from the NTA and Home Office is that we need evidence backing up the work of treatment agencies in order to justify continued funding. It sounds to me like your new manager is trying to implement this ethos at a smaller scale within your agency and I agree with her that you have to move with the times and yes (in her words) - welcome to the real world! Rick Badger, Birmingham
Dear Eleanor, I feel that although it obviously has a great personal impact on you, this is a problem that affects the field generally. There is something about this issue that has the potential to paralyse the workforce and therefore deprive our clients of the help they need. It is characterised by the kind of dilemmas you express at the end of your question; of either loving or hating the work and having to choose between resentful submission or abandoning ship! I think that it is important to return to first principles in order to make sense of this. When initially choosing to do the challenging work we do, most of us asked some important questions. What it is we are doing? What are we trying to achieve? Is it effective? Could it be improved? This is the basis of research and I think that we should always be engaged in a process of reflecting on our practice at this level. It is a fact that sometimes the demands for statistics, reporting and achieving targets are clearly driven by a need to 'tick boxes'. If this is what your manager means by 'the real world' it is important to keep it in perspective. We do have the opportunity to bypass all that cynicism. What this means practically is that we must become more proactive
in our attitude. The work we do with clients is important but it
shouldn't happen in a vacuum. It has to take place in a wider context,
because that is where our clients need to be able to function successfully.
Rather than 'resisting' the demands for statistics, targets and
monitoring, we should start thinking about how we can influence
the process to ensure we employ them to improve our effectiveness
- which is what clients need us to do. If we think there is a better
way to monitor, measure or quantify, we should be putting forward
our ideas and suggestions with passion and enthusiasm. It's got to be worth considering! Kirby Gregory, head of client services, Clouds.
Dear Eleanor, Of course I know nothing about your workplace but your manager is probably using tough talk to communicate to you the scale of the change that is needed in your agency. Maybe your local Drug Action Team (who she has to satisfy at the end of the day) hasn't been happy with every aspect of your agency's performance. Maybe you can find out why these targets have been chosen. Try not to take it too personally, but she is probably right. Services will survive or close depending on whether or not they can demonstrate that they are meeting an ever-increasing number of imposed targets. This is the reality of work in the drugs treatment field, and it tends to be that way across most health and care specialisms nowadays. It is difficult to know where you could move that wasn't like that. While it is true that targets are not ends in themselves, and they may not always get met, the point of them is to drive up performance. As long as the targets are meaningful it is possible, and maybe likely, that patients will end up benefiting. Ask yourself: are there ways that you can work 'smarter' to continue to do the job you love and get the case recording, paperwork, etc done? The answer is probably yes. Time management and concise recording, for example, are important skills and they can be learned and improved. Good luck. Simon Morton, social worker
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