Research nurses’, midwives’ and AHPs’ experiences of line-managers and mentors

Most nurses, midwives and allied health professionals (NMAHPs) employed in research delivery roles* said they had positive working relationships with their line-managers. Many felt they were given a good degree of independence, and liked that they were trusted to manage their own time and study commitments. Layla found this was quite different compared to working as a clinical midwife*. However, sometimes people wanted more support from their line-managers. A few people felt quite isolated and that they were left to make decisions that they didn’t feel they should have to make, or that their activities (including undertaking PhDs) were not championed enough and seen as valuable. Uncertainty about the renewal of fixed-term contracts could also be a source of tension with line-managers.

Sometimes line-managers were from the same health professional background as the research NMAHPs, other times they were not. Sian thought that having a line-manager who was a nurse was ‘really helpful to make sure that the two, that research and nursing, fits snuggly together like a glove rather than it being friction’. Whilst some people felt that having a line-manager who was from a different background to them was an issue, others saw it as an asset and some people felt it did not make a difference either way. For those people who felt it could be problem, this often stemmed from feeling that their line-manager might not understand their profession-specific priorities, values and career development needs.

Libby was due to be line-managed by a physiotherapist for the first time in her research career.

Age at interview 45

Gender Female

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I have to say I don’t have a bad relationship with my current line manager. I haven’t had bad relationships with any of my line managers. I think it will be really nice to have a physio, as a line manager and I think it’s nice to have a physio at that level. Not that we’re not capable of being at that level, but there’s just historically doesn’t seem to have been that way. It’s been a very nursing dominated environment.

So it will be really nice to see what happens with that person and I hope, I’m sure she will be, that she’ll be understanding of the issues. I say issues in the sense that it’s not a huge thing that plays on my mind daily, but it’s one of those things that just makes you feel a little bit different, you don’t feel like you’re part of the whole, because you’re being singled out as different, and I have to keep saying, I’m not a nurse, I’m a physio, I’m not a nurse, I’m a physio, and I feel I’m getting bored hearing myself say it, but I feel like I have to keep saying it, because I’m not a nurse, and yet I’m not saying it in any-, it’s not derogatory, it’s not meant to be rude, it’s just is I were to say to my colleague, Oh this is my colleague the speech and language therapist, she would turn round to me and say, I’m not a speech and language therapist, Libby, I’m a nurse. That’s all that I’m doing, I’m saying I’m not a nurse, I’m a physio.

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Over time, Layla adjusted to working with more autonomy than she had been used to as a clinical midwife.

Gender Female

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I’m so used to being-, having to account for every single thing that I do, and- whereas I have much more freedom to sort of plan my time and the workload and that. Which when you work clinically as nurse and midwife, you don’t. I mean, it’s very- it’s very rigid, you’ve got to do this, this, this and this, in this order, and hand over to this person. And, yeah, I think I was sort of telling my manager every little thing I was doing and it was like-. And I realised I didn’t have to. They’re just, you know. You have, you have more freedom to kind of work independently, I think, and-. Which is nice. But, yeah. It took a little bit of getting used to.

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Some people had more than one line-manager. This was sometimes because of the structures in their employing organisation, as was the case for Ellen who found it was sometimes unclear who she should contact about specific queries. For those who had a non-research clinical and research split in their workloads or in separate jobs, there were usually two (or more) line-managers.

A number of people talked about having mentors who were not their line-managers, from formal mentoring schemes or unofficially. Across thirty years of her career, Karen described a number of individuals who had encouraged her to pursue research alongside clinical work, but also some people who were supportive in the sense that they did not try to block or stop her from undertaking research.

Graham didn’t have any official training when he started as a research paramedic, but he had good mentors who also supported him in pursuing a doctorate.

Age at interview 40

Gender Male

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[Laughs] I went from working my shifts to Monday morning starting in research and right, here you go. And sort of learnt a lot as I was going, but that’s, I was lucky to have people that looked after me and guided me through that sort of process. And that’s why I think we need more paramedic sort of academics who can then help people to make that jump and get involved and give them an opportunity to get involved in research in a sort of safe and protected way.

I think I’ve been very lucky. I’ve had some very good mentors. Primarily from outside of the paramedic profession. They’ve, I think, shown me that research-, shown me what difference research can make, shown me how-, if I’m going to get involved in it, how I can get involved and who I need to talk to, what I need to do. Because really, I came into this blind with, with no plan, no career plan, no-, it was something interesting and new and I didn’t know where it would lead or what it could lead to. They’ve sort of really taken me under their wing and supported both with development academically for research but also encouraged me to keep involved clinically, and shown me that, through what they’re doing, that this is possible to actually do, and the sort of influence that they have and how they can change things, and hopefully make things better. What you can aim for. So and because of-, there is certain people within our profession who’ve helped and acted in that way as well but, as I say, they are very few and far between. But it’s, [sigh] I think they’ve been, [sigh] they’ve been very valuable, it’s difficult to sort of put into words how valuable they have been. But I really don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing now, which will hopefully lead onto better things, without, without their sort of guidance and protection and [laugh] mentoring.

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Those NMAHPs who were undertaking research as part of an academic qualification or skills development internship also talked about their supervisors.

Footnotes

*The people interviewed for this website were mostly research NMAHPs (i.e. those employed in a research delivery role). However, we also interviewed some NMAHP researchers (i.e. those leading research as independent researchers). The latter group included people who were undertaking or had completed academic research qualifications, such as PhDs, and many had previously been in (or continued to also be in) research delivery roles. For more information about the distinctions between these roles and the sample of NMAHPs interviewed for this project, please see the Introduction section.

*Many research NMAHPs and NMAHP researchers felt strongly that they continued to be clinical within their research roles. As such, the wording of ‘research’ NMAHPs/staff and ‘clinical’ NMAHPs/staff can be problematic for implying that research is not also clinical activity. Where the wording ‘clinical staff’ is used on the website, we mean for this refer to non-research clinical staff (i.e. those who are not currently employed to carry out research or enrolled to pursue research through an academic qualification).