Most of the Witbank Individual and Group CSO described different supervisory experiences compared to their Johannesburg CSO counterparts. A Witbank Individual CSO said, “...
monitored and this is done on a daily basis, because you will have to submit the stat and you have to check, you see what you did, were you in, uhm you see obviously there is a lot of monitoring going on.” The one Witbank Individual CSO said, “The overall supervision, what can I say, its okay, you know, there are the, there are supervisors that are sharp, there are those that are haaayi.”
A few Johannesburg Individual CSOs said the support is there when some Supervisors are available, “... when they are there... you find that they support us well, they assist us, when
you need advice, they advise you, maybe when you need something, maybe you need a computer, they will log a call for you, maybe you need something. Them, some of them, not all of them, some, those will be the ones that will help where they are supposed to help at."
However, most of the Johannesburg and Witbank Individual and Group CSOs said Supervisors supervise the coming and goings of CSOs and other related trivial conduct instead of supervising work. An Individual Johannesburg CSO said, “Looking at where am I
going to, I went to the toilet five or six times and all that.” The participant said they
understand that part of supervision is monitoring the whereabouts of subordinates during working hours but disagrees with, “But you are not supposed to be looking at some of the
petty things, look at our work more, so that our work can be effective…instead of like going to the shops, going there and there, the focus is there and neglect work” A Witbank
Individual CSO attested to the above-mentioned treatment, “I think in supervision most of the
time, they don’t supervise work, they supervise people, in terms of the work, ..Like they will look at, uhhh, did you report, you were not in, you left going to look for food, just look for people, instead of the work. And then maybe you submit that work, then you go and look for feedback about that, in some things, when you go for feedback, you don’t get that.”
Almost all but a few insinuations from Witbank, the majority of Johannesburg Individual and Group CSO claimed to be subjected to inadequate and or incompetent supervision. To capture the general view of most Johannesburg and some Witbank Individual and Group CSOs, an Individual Johannesburg CSO said, “Supervisors are a bit difficult… Because
right now if we can call 100 CSOs and put them in this office, you ask them that what kind of support do you get from your Supervisors, for sure out of that hundred, 20 will say no their Supervisors support them. Eighty will say no those people don’t support us.”
The majority of Johannesburg Individual and Group CSO participants claimed that some Supervisors are not readily available on their workstations when needed by CSOs for assistance, “When you need them at that time, you find that they are not there or maybe they
are in a meeting at such and such a place or maybe that person since, or maybe they have gone out for lunch, or maybe they have gone shopping.”
The competence and work knowledge of Supervisors drew contrasting views from the Johannesburg and Witbank Individual and Group CSOs, with many in Johannesburg and a few in Witbank claiming that some Supervisors are incompetent and a few participants in Johannesburg and many in Witbank claiming that some Supervisors’ technical knowledge is impeccable. There were a few Johannesburg and Witbank Individual and Group CSOs who said some Supervisors were knowledgeable on certain aspects, meaning they specialised in that knowledge but would be found wanting in other areas. In support of the above assertion, an Individual Johannesburg CSO said, “Some of the Supervisors won’t have information.
Remember at frontline how many Supervisors do we have, if ever one has no information, you will go to this one who would have information, yes, just to service the client, that the service delivery be smooth.” A Witbank Individual CSO said, “And then the Supervisor, no our Supervisors there are those, is only one who is not so excellent, but the others, they know their job, they know their job like the palm of their hand. They are, no I don’t want to talk bad, no they are, they are good, but there’s this other one, no, no.” The Witbank CSO Group
said, “Even the very Supervisors, they are like us the CSOs. He would have a certain passion
and not know the other sections. You know that, if I want to ask about COIDA, I must run and ask ‘so and so’ because ‘so and so’ knows it. If I want to ask about UI, I won’t run and ask ‘so and so’ because ‘so and so’ doesn’t know UI. They also lack [knowledge]. They should understand the work that we do, and know it all as supervisor.”
There were strong insinuations from the Johannesburg Individual and Group CSO participants that some Supervisors refuse to do their work and there were very few Individual CSOs who claimed the contrary, that as a matter of fact, some Supervisors do work. To support the assertion, an Individual Johannesburg CSO said, “They actually do, they do their
work but those are some of the challenges, you find that when you meet with the client that wants to be difficult or they want to fight, and then when you say, maybe you are looking for a Supervisor, you find that the Supervisor is not there.”
Another Johannesburg Individual CSO said, “When the Supervisor sees that there is that
workload, and there’s a need for the Supervisor to assist, the Supervisor will be telling you that ‘I’m doing this and that is not my job’. Yet sometimes when we look for them they are nowhere to be found.”
As a result of the recurring unavailability of Supervisors, according to some Johannesburg Individual and Group CSO participants, CSOs turn to provide supervision support among themselves, based on individual CSOs acquired work experience over time. An Individual Johannesburg CSO said, in support of the above assertion, “ When they have a problem they
call me, you would find that I also act as if I’m a Supervisor even though I’m not a Supervisor just so that I can at least, fix the things, the client also becomes happy and the official also does not get angry and is happy you see that, because at the end of the day when you look the Supervisor is not there but you try that at least, you fix things.” Another
Individual CSO attested to self-support of CSOs, in some instances support sought because of fear to approach a Supervisor, “Sometimes we as CSOs, if you are scared of a supervisor,
would you go to them for assistance, definitely not. You’d rather go to your colleague next door... because you feel that this supervisor won’t assist me. Is it because maybe they themselves don’t have information or they don’t want, you don’t know, but you’d rather go to the CSO next door, next to you ... and then you check out the information jointly.”
Some Johannesburg and Witbank Individual CSOs claimed that some Supervisors are not approachable. In support of the above assertion, the Witbank CSO Group said, “There’s one
or two, that I know that every time when I go there, that person won’t be moody, every time ask them something, they willing be will to help you... Then there are those that you are scared of... You ask them something, ei, so, you end up not motivated in the work of that section where you know that they are good because you know that they are moody.” A
Johannesburg Individual CSO said, “There are some Supervisors who are not approachable,
very much so, there are some like that.”
Most Johannesburg Individual and Group CSOs and few Witbank Individual and Group CSO participants claimed that their Supervisors were not fair and consistent in the way they treated some CSOs. According to the above participants, some Supervisors have a tendency of targeting and putting unreasonable pressure on CSOs who do not answer or back chat when confronted on issues. In support of this assertion, the Johannesburg CSO Group 1
participants said, “They don’t treat us the same. If they know that ‘so and so’ is not
approachable, they are scared of her. ‘Oh, ‘so and so’ is a walk over’, when I do what she does, they will be on my case. To ask, why are you sitting with this client for so long, but they won’t go to ‘so and so’, to say why are you sitting with this client, they approach one person that why are you...; It’s about who is a walkover; ja, it’s about who is easy to confront about that behaviour.”
The majority of the Johannesburg Individual and Group Supervisors lay the blame of unruly incontrollable behaviour of CSOs squarely on the shoulders of the impunity of the system because according to the Supervisors, they have limited powers to discipline, hence inadequate supervision. The Johannesburg Supervisor Groups cited an on-the-spot situation and said, “Because I mean, you can go out now, this side or the other side, you must just do
this, because everybody doesn’t know you, Nonku. Go sit in the chair for ten minutes, and then you look at the officials, just look at the officials. It is scary if you see what image the official has towards your clients.”
Most of the Johannesburg Individual and Group Supervisors admitted that they were not equipped to undertake their supervisory role, “You know, we not well equipped you know or
trained to, to do what we supposed to do.”