Continuous Feedback Posted on January 11, 2008 Margaret R. Weeks (bio) describes the need for supervision of staff especially in fieldwork situations.

In hiring staff for projects there are a lot of issues to take into consideration, and we often hold experience in very high regard, especially when you’re talking about applied projects. Much of the training that people need for doing these projects often happens on the job, but, again, having academic background for research has been very essential.

One of the issues that comes up though when it comes to hiring and mentoring people in the process of the work that they’re doing is providing ongoing support in the way of continuous feedback. For us continuous feedback has been really essential because of the kinds of issues that come up on the job, in the field that people are often shooting from the hip to try to resolve.

If a person is not able to be flexible in those contexts, they usually don’t do well in this kind of work, and in dealing with that, we have usually found that people need three and four chances to come around and try it, try it a different way, try to resolve issues that they’re having, some of which can be of a personal nature. And those are not necessarily related to this kind of work. That happens in any context, but sometimes doing this kind of work can exacerbate those issues.

One common example that we find in doing research with drug users is people who might have a history of drug use themselves can often find themselves dealing with their own past and issues that come up in that setting. And working with them to deal with that can sometimes be a little bit tricky, making sure that they have the support that they need.

But if it comes down to it and the person’s not able to perform the functions of the job, well it’s like anything. They can’t continue in that context. That’s always difficult for anybody to try to deal with, but of course obviously it happens.

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