Diaries from the front line—Formal supervision and job quality among social care workers during austerity

Abstract

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.