There are many differences between a working relationship and a personal relationship. A working relationship is a formal agreement, where you agree to follow policies and procedures as well as the criteria set out in your job description. A working relationship consists of many factors such as time keeping, attendance, attitude, respecting your colleagues and service users. Without these factors the working relationship would break down. We tend to remain professional and talk about work, not your personal life. You would communicate with people in a more professional manner than you would a friend or family. In a working relationship you cannot choose who you want to form a relationship with.
A personal relationship is different because there are no boundaries, they are based on emotions and you can choose who to have personal relationships with, boyfriend, friends and family. A Personal relationship can consist of different factors such as intimacy, love, emotionally involved, friends and family. You do not have a set of rules to abide by and can express your opinions and feeling. Where you do not have to worry about breaking your policies and procedures. In a personal relationship you are more likely to behave differently and use different body language, if you’re in a bad mood you can show your emotions and feelings a lot more than you can in your working relationships.
In the health and social care setting there are many different working relationship, Doctors, Colleagues, service users and their families. For each of these different relationships you would develop a different type of relationship.
You would remain professional throughout your workplace but you may speak to a service user in a different manner than your manager. You would speak more about the service user to a health care professional from outside of your workplace, in a different way to your colleagues. You would have different relationships with each member of staff associated with service users and the work place.
It is important to adhere to the scope of your job role as this sets out boundaries and enables you to know your duties and responsibilities. This also enables you to be able to know what your tasks to do are and how to further you skills and abilities to make sure you meet the criteria. This would also tell you what jobs you are able to do and not do. If someone was to ask you to complete a job that you was not able to do you would find this out by reading you job role. It is always a way of protecting yourself and others from harm, injury or dismissal.
It is also important to follow your job role to provide the best care for clients and allows you to comply with health and safety. Following the scope of your job role will also allow you to complete tasks at the same standards as everyone else.
Agreed ways of working are policies and procedures, your job description and any laws you may need to follow or work to. Agreed ways of working also include health and safety regulation which employees have to abide by. Agreed ways of working are set out in order for you to be able to know what you’re doing at all times and know you are not putting yourself or others in danger in the workplace.
If you do not know all of the agreed ways of working, they are available for you to look at to make sure you are complying. If you are not complying with the policies and procedures this would result in dismissal or disciplinary against yourself and others.
The importance of having full and up-to-date details on agreed ways of working, is to enable social care workers to be able to work to their full potential. To work at a level that all other members of staff have to work to and to remain professional, reliable and trustworthy throughout their careers.
It is important that the agreed ways of working are updated regularly and available for all staff member to use. This makes the business run more effectively. If a policy changes and it is not updated then a staff member may do this wrong and be disciplined for the mistake. However if the agreed ways of working are not updated regularly it would be managements fault.
If the information is updated regularly the staff member would not be able to argue against the way of working as it would be there responsibility to keep updated on the policies, procedures and any changes to their job description or the law. It is also important for agreed ways of working to be updated to enable service users to receive the best possible care.
It is important to work in partnership with others to make sure that you are all working to the same standards of support for the individual service user’s needs. It is important to have a good working partnership with others who are helping to care for your service users and discuss what is best for them following their care plans.
Having a good working partnerships with enable you to problem solve with others as they might have dealt with a similar situation and have a solution to the issue that provides the best care. It is also important for you to have a good working partnership to help you meet the criteria of health and safety regulations for example: Manual handling is a usually a two person job. If you have a good working relationship you would be able to ask you colleague to help you with this job.
If you have a good working partnership with all people involved with your service user, it would make the service user more comfortable to know that all staff members are working together to provide the best service possible. It will also put the service user’s family and friends at ease.
There are many different ways to improve a working partnership for example:
- Team working would improve the working partnership as you would all be working to achieve the same goal and providing the best service possible for your service user.
- Communication would improve the working partnership as this is key to your job role. It is a way that two people can discuss different approaches to provide the best standard of care for the service users.
- Listening will improve your working partnership, if you are prepared to take in others opinions and comments.
- Reports will improve a working partnership, if you all keep a record of your daily tasks. This allows other to know where you are up to with each service user. If reports are not kept then others will not know what needs to be done to meet the criteria set out for the service user’s needs.
There are many different skills and approaches needed for resolving conflicts for example:
- Negotiation to enable you and someone else to negotiate what is best for the service user’s needs and coming up for a better care plan for the service user.
- Listening to others views and opinions and taking them on board when making decisions to provide the best care for service users.
- Empathy to allow you to be able to feel the other side of the conflict and
put yourself in their position. - Risk assessment to allow you to assess the risks involved and what could arise from the decisions made by yourself and others.
You can access support and advice about partnership working and conflict resolution from the following people:
- Colleagues as there experiences may be invaluable in directing you to a resolution to the conflict
- Supervisors as they can offer you professional advice and support in making decisions when handling conflicts
- Managers as they will be able to assist you on legal and professional matters and can support you in the policies and procedure you have to follow when dealing with conflict.
- You can also access support from other agencies outside of the work place for example: Social Services, Union etc.
