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Diaries from the front line—Formal supervision and job quality among social care workers during austerity
Author(s) -
Cunningham Ian,
Lindsay Colin,
Roy Chandrima
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
human resource management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.44
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1748-8583
pISSN - 0954-5395
DOI - 10.1111/1748-8583.12289
Subject(s) - austerity , front line , public sector , business , economic shortage , human resource management , quality (philosophy) , public relations , private sector , turnover , public service , service (business) , voluntary sector , social care , political science , marketing , economics , economic growth , management , nursing , government (linguistics) , medicine , philosophy , epistemology , politics , law , linguistics
Focusing on social care workers in public, private and voluntary sectors, this article contributes to research on the impact of austerity on public service human resource management (HRM). The article uses an innovative diary method to highlight the importance of intrinsic elements of job quality such as supervision practice in mitigating degradation in extrinsic elements as austerity dismantles public service HRM. The article also reports that supervision has itself come under pressure due to resource shortages. The results regarding sub‐sector differences have implications for policy‐makers and practitioners in terms of rebuilding the standard employment relationship in social care so that they are more sensitive to differences across private, public and voluntary sectors.