THE SUPERVISOR’S GUIDEBOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dennis Reid, Marsha Parsons, and Carolyn Green each has over
40 years of experience supervising provision of services for people
with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They have supervised
services in residential centers, schools, adult day-support services,
vocational programs, and community settings. They have also pub-
lished over 140 applied research articles and book chapters in the
human services. Their research has appeared in over 20 peer-re-
viewed journals including the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
Behavior Analysis in Practice, Journal of Organizational Behavior Manage-
ment, American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and
Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions. Dennis, Marsha, and Carolyn
have received numerous awards for their respective services from
organizations such as the Association for Behavior Analysis Interna-
tional, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental
Disabilities, Organization for Autism Research, and the Office of the
Governor of North Carolina. They are currently affiliated with the
Carolina Behavior Analysis and Support Center in Morganton, North
Carolina. Additional information about the authors and their work
can be obtained at www.dennishreidau.com.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Reid, Dennis H., author. | Parsons, Marsha B., author. |

Green, Carolyn W., author.
Title: The supervisor’s guidebook : evidence-based strategies for pro-
moting work quality and enjoyment among human service staff /
by Dennis H. Reid, Marsha B. Parsons, Carolyn W. Green.
Description: Second edition. Springfield, Illinois : Charles C Thomas,
Publisher, Ltd., [2021] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021001371 (print) | LCCN 2021001372 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780398093600 (paperbook) | ISBN 9780398093617 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Human services personnel—Supervision of—United
States. | Social work with people with disabilities–United States. |
People with disabilities—Services for—United States. | Human ser-
vices personnel—Training of. | Supervisors—Training of–United
States.
Classification: LCC HV40.54 .R4553 2021 (print) | LCC HV40.54
(ebook) | DDC 361.0068/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001371
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021001372
This book is dedicated to our parents: Charles and Margaret Reid,
Reece and Rachel Bigham, and Charles and Lavada Worley.
If not for their personal devotion and natural abilities to teach and
supervise, we would not have been in a position to write this book.
 PREFACE

T he job of a supervisor of direct support staff in the human services is one

of the most important yet unheralded professions. Supervisors are
charged with ensuring support staff deliver quality services for people with
disabilities whose quality of life is heavily dependent on how well those ser-
vices are provided. Supervisors must ensure staff receive necessary training
in their job duties, are actively supported to stay motivated to work profi-
ciently and, at times, effectively assisted to improve their work performance.
Supervisors have to overcome many challenges to fulfill these critical duties,
often involving frequent changes in their staff work force and varying or lim-
ited resources.
Complicating the job of staff supervisors is a lack of formal training nec-
essary to perform their supervisory duties effectively. When supervisors do
receive training in how to supervise staff work performance, the training is
not always very useful. The training is frequently too general to equip super-
visors with knowledge and skills to affect staff work performance on a rou-
tine basis. The training also is commonly based on unproven means of pro-
moting quality staff performance, stemming from current fads or ideology
that has little if any hard evidence to support the training content.
Over the last five decades, a technology for supervising staff work per-
formance in the human services has been evolving, derived from applied
research conducted in many human service agencies. Such research has pro-
vided a sound evidence base to support the effectiveness of the supervisory
strategies constituting the technology to date. We have been fortunate in par-
ticipating in research on effective ways to supervise as well as in applying
the technology in our work as supervisors in the human services. However,
most supervisors have not had opportunities to become aware of these evi-
dence-based means of fulfilling their supervisory duties.
The purpose of The Supervisor’s Guidebook is to describe the existing evi-
dence-based approach to supervision. Description of the approach is sup-
plemented with practical suggestions based on our combined experience
encompassing over 100 years of supervising staff performance in the human
services. The intent is to provide supervisors with detailed information about

vii
viii The Supervisor’s Guidebook

tried and tested means of promoting diligent and proficient staff perfor-
mance and to do so in a way that maximizes staff enjoyment with their work.
It is sincerely hoped the book fulfills this purpose for the reader.

D.R.
M.P.
C.G.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

N umerous people have helped us learn about supervision, far too many
to recognize individually. However, we have learned most from the ded-
icated and sincere staff we have been fortunate to supervise over the years.
They have greatly facilitated our jobs as supervisors and significantly en-
hanced our work enjoyment.

ix
 CONTENTS

Page
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Section I

INTRODUCTION TO SUPERVISION

Chapter 1. The Importance of Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What is Supervision? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Successful Supervision Involves Promoting Staff Work Enjoyment . . . 7
Evidence-Based Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Purpose of The Supervisor’s Guidebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Intended Audience of The Supervisor’s Guidebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Organization of The Supervisor’s Guidebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 2. An Evidence-Based Protocol for Supervising Staff

Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Steps Constituting an Evidence-Based Approach to Supervision . . . 13
Implementing Steps of the Supervisory Protocol in Ways to
Enhance Work Enjoyment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
A Practical Concern with Evidence-Based Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Section II

CRITICAL SUPERVISORY SKILLS

Chapter 3. Specifying Staff Work Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Three Criteria for Specifying Staff Performance Responsibilities . . . 27

xi
xii The Supervisor’s Guidebook

Strategies for Specifying Performance Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Specifying Performance Responsibilities in Ways Acceptable
to Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 4. Training Work Skills to Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Basic Goals of Staff Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Behavioral Skills Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Two Main Formats for Training Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
General Considerations When Conducting Behavioral Skills
Training with Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
A Qualification with Staff Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Chapter 5. Monitoring Staff Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Formal Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Informal Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Special Considerations with Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Promoting Staff Acceptance of Performance Monitoring by
A Supervisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 6. Supporting Proficient Work Performance: Positive

Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
The Power of Positive Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
An Evidence-Based Protocol for Providing Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Special Considerations When Using the Evidence-Based
Feedback Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Different Ways of Providing Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Chapter 7. Supporting Proficient Work Performance: Special

Recognition Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Special Recognition Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Special Recognition Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Using Money for Special Recognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
 Contents xiii

Chapter 8. Correcting Nonproficient Work Performance . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Prerequisites for Corrective Supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
A Serious Misconception About How to Correct Nonproficient
Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Common Reasons for Nonproficient Staff Performance and
Supervisor Corrective Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Performance Problems Due to Reasons Outside of the
Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Chapter 9. Promoting Staff Work Enjoyment: Making Disliked

Work Tasks More Enjoyable to Perform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
General Considerations for Making Work Tasks More Enjoyable
for Staff to Perform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
An Evidence-Based Approach for Making Disliked Work Tasks
More Enjoyable to Perform: TEMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
An Example of How TEMP Has Been Used to Make A Disliked
Work Task More Enjoyable to Perform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Special Considerations for Addressing Highly Disliked Work
Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Section III

RESOLVING COMMON PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS

Chapter 10. Resolving Common Performance Problems: Overview . . . 187

The Basic Premise of Supervisor Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Supervising in Difficult Situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Chapter 11. Reducing Absenteeism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Reasons for Frequent Absenteeism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Specifying Acceptable and Unacceptable Absenteeism . . . . . . . . . . 204
Absenteeism-Reduction Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Two Final Considerations for Reducing Absenteeism . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
xiv The Supervisor’s Guidebook

Chapter 12. Resolving Problems with Staff Provision of Client-

Teaching Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Improving Formal Teaching Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Promoting Naturalistic Teaching During Routine Activities . . . . . . 231
Special Considerations for Overcoming Performance Problems
with Teaching Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Chapter 13. Reducing Frequent Nonwork Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Special Considerations in Applying Certain Steps of Evidence-
Based Supervision to Reduce Nonwork Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . 244
General Considerations for Reducing Frequent Nonwork
Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Section IV

SUPERVISING FROM A DISTANCE (TELEHEALTH)

Chapter 14. Supervising from a Distance With Telehealth . . . . . . . . . . 259

Supervision via Telehealth: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Telehealth Specifically for Implementing Evidence-Based
Supervisory Procedures from a Distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Chapter Summary: Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Section V

SELECTED READINGS

Selected Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
THE SUPERVISOR’S GUIDEBOOK
 Section I

INTRODUCTION TO SUPERVISION
 Chapter 1

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPERVISION

T he most significant determinant of the effectiveness of human ser-

vice agencies is the quality of work performed by direct support
staff. Direct support staff spend more time with agency clients and
provide more services that affect client welfare than any other agency
personnel. In turn, a major determinant of the proficiency with which
support staff fulfill their roles is the quality of supervision they receive.
The importance of supervision on the performance of direct sup-
port staff has long been acknowledged in the human services. Such
importance is due to a number of factors. Most apparently, the major-
ity of people who begin employment in a direct support capacity have
no previous training in how to fulfill their roles. Although newly em-
ployed staff usually receive some agency orientation, most of the re-
sponsibility for training new staff how to perform specific job duties
falls on their immediate supervisors. Relatedly, as new work expecta-
tions arise, such as implementing new teaching procedures with cli-
ents or programs to reduce challenging behavior, supervisors must
ensure staff learn how to perform the new duties.
Because direct support staff usually have multiple performance
expectations to fulfill, supervisors are also responsible for ensuring
staff know what should be done at certain times and that staff have the
resources to do their jobs. Supervisors must likewise intervene with
staff at times to correct problems with work performance. Addition-
ally, supervisors must help staff stay motivated to perform their duties
proficiently on a day-to-day basis.

5
6 The Supervisor’s Guidebook

WHAT IS SUPERVISION?

As just indicated, supervisors of direct support staff have many

responsibilities to fulfill. In addition to the duties illustrated above,
supervisors often have a variety of administrative tasks to perform,
meetings to attend, work schedules to prepare, and documentation to
maintain. However, from the perspective of actually supervising staff
performance, the job of a supervisor essentially involves two basic
responsibilities. First, when staff performance is less than adequate,
supervisors must take action to improve that performance. Second,
when staff performance is of sufficient quality, supervisors must take
action to support and maintain that performance.
Supervisors typically acknowledge the importance of actively
working to improve inadequate job performance of their staff. It is usu-
ally apparent, for example, that a supervisor must take action to re-
duce frequent absenteeism by a given staff person, alter inappropriate
staff interactions with agency clients, or resolve problems with incon-
sistencies regarding how staff carry out client treatment procedures. In
contrast, supervisors are not always cognizant of the importance of
actively working to support appropriate staff performance.
Specific supervisory action is needed to support and maintain
quality work among staff for a variety of reasons. In particular, a some-
what common phenomenon in human service agencies is what is gen-
erally referred to as staff “burnout”. Due to the effortful nature of pro-
viding direct services for individuals with disabilities day after day,
many staff lose their motivation to work diligently and proficiently
over time—they “burn out.” In other cases, new staff begin their jobs
highly motivated but gradually lose their motivation because they are
criticized by more experienced and less motivated staff for their work
efforts. The latter staff resent the apparent motivation of new staff be-
cause it makes their less effortful performance more noticeable. Super-
visors can prevent deterioration in the quality of staff work due to
these and other reasons by actively supporting staff performance that
is of high quality.
Taking action to improve inadequate staff performance and taking
action to support and maintain quality performance represent the
essence of supervision. These are the two supervisory responsibilities
that have the most significant effect on what staff do in the workplace
and correspondingly, the quality of services provided to agency cli-