Understanding and Preventing Employee Turnover

Child welfare agencies have identified worker turnover as a particularly problematic organizational issue. In children’s mental health agencies, turnover also seems to be an issue for residential care services. Do people voluntarily leave child welfare and children\u27s mental health organizations because of the work itself, because of the workload, or because they find “success” difficult to experience? These are often given as reasons by departing employees, but to develop a comprehensive understanding why turnover takes place in these organizations, this paper looks at the research on turnover in organizations generally and in child welfare and children\u27s mental health organizations specifically. Research on unwanted employee turnover has produced thousands of articles. We begin by exploring the major themes in this literature and then relate these themes to research done in human services organizations, and child welfare and children\u27s mental health organizations specifically. We conclude with a list of research questions to pursue in our study of workers’ experiences in the workplace

A Workplace Study of Four Southern-Ontario Children’s Aid Societies (FULL REPORT)

Rationale Children’s Aid Societies have experienced extensive change since the implementation of recent child welfare reforms in Ontario. Agencies are facing a number of challenges including recruiting and retaining staff, high workloads, extensive requirements for documentation and administration, and less time to serve families and children. The purpose of this study was to understand employee experiences as workers in child welfare. Research Design A survey was distributed to employees of four children’s aid societies. Completion of the survey was voluntary and all individual responses were kept confidential. Completed surveys were returned directly to researchers. Six to eight months after the distribution of the survey, employees voluntarily participated in a series of targeted focus groups. Focus groups were used to facilitate the interpretation of survey results. Survey Results Four hundred and three surveys were completed (for a return rate of 49.3%). Forty-nine percent of employees reported low levels of intention to leave, and 12% reported strong intention to leave their organization. However, intention to leave among direct service workers was higher at 15%. Forty-six percent of all employees who responded to the survey indicated high levels of overall job satisfaction, and even among direct service workers, 42% reported high levels of overall job satisfaction. However, 43.5% of direct service workers also reported being highly emotionally exhausted. Thirty-nine percent of all employees responding to the survey reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, suggesting that high levels of stress are affecting a significant proportion of individuals working in child welfare organizations. Twenty-nine percent of all respondents scored in the high range on a scale measuring an unfeeling or impersonal response to clients; among direct service workers, 39% were high on this scale, and among direct service workers in Intake departments, 49% reported high scores in terms of an impersonal and unfeeling response to service recipients. Focus Group & Survey Comment Results The experience of child welfare work itself was mixed. Feelings of gratification were associated with believing one’s work is important and meaningful, and dissatisfaction was linked to increased documentation and less time for client contact. Employees emphasized the importance of a solid team, collegial support, and supervisory support in counterbalancing dissatisfaction with the work itself. A perception of inadequate support from the organization and a lack of resources (both within the organization and in the broader community) were identified as problems. Employees reported needing more equitable distribution of caseloads, improved communication between departments and from management, and the establishment of an agency culture that cares for the well being of all employees. Discussion & Implications Despite experiencing high levels of emotional exhaustion, almost half of all survey respondents reported being highly satisfied 4 with their jobs. This is an interesting paradox that warrants further study. We suspect that the paradox is related to the female dominated workforce in child welfare agencies, and the tendency of women to sacrifice their own needs for those they see as requiring care. We argue that current levels of emotional exhaustion among employees in child welfare are unacceptable. Emotional exhaustion is clearly a significant contributor to employee turnover. Policies and practices that promote a more balanced approach to the work, as well as fostering cultures that are both caring and committed to service excellence are needed. The relatively high rates of depersonalization especially among DSWs raises concerns about the attitudes of some workers towards the families receiving child welfare services; do unfeeling and impersonal responses contribute to resistance and a lack of cooperation from some families? Employees are very satisfied with the intellectual challenge of the work. Job satisfaction could be increased by maintaining the intellectual challenge and, at the same time, improving the “doability” of the job. Employee turnover will improve as ways are found to decrease emotional exhaustion, improve workers’ perceptions of being treated fairly, and improve job satisfaction

Injection of clarity needed?

The legal status of children who stay in hospital for three months or longer gives rise to considerable confusion among managers in social services and social work departments. And the number of young people affected is significant. NHS statistics for the year ending 31 March 2000 suggest that in England around 2,800 children aged 0-19 on admission were discharged after spending more than two months in hospital, as were more than 500 children in Scotland. (A small number of these would have been discharged as adults.) A two-year study, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation1 and carried out by the universities of Stirling, Durham, Newcastle and York, investigated the numbers, characteristics and circumstances of children and young people with complex needs who spend long periods in health care settings. Interviews were conducted in England and Scotland with 11 social services or health managers responsible for these children. The findings show a worrying degree of uncertainty about the position of young people who find themselves in a hospital or other health care setting for at least three months. One social services manager believed such children become looked after under the terms of the Children Act 1989. Another said children are not formally looked after but nevertheless receive the same services and safeguards as those who are. One Scottish social work manager did not know whether children going into health care settings for short-term (respite) care are looked after or not. And discussion with the research team's advisory group indicated that the confusion is not confined to our fieldwork areas

A Workplace Study of Three Children’s Mental Health Centres in Southern Ontario

Rationale Recent cuts to resources for children and families requiring children’s mental health services coupled with an increase in the number of children needing these services have left staff in many agencies feeling extremely challenged in providing positive service environments for children and families. In this context, agencies are faced with the challenge of providing working environments that attract and retain staff, particularly in children’s residential mental health services. The purpose of this study was to explore sources of job satisfaction and stress, and why employees stay with and leave these organizations, in an effort to understand what contributes to a positive work environment in children’s mental health services. Research Design A survey was distributed to employees of three children’s mental health services agencies. Completion of the survey was voluntary and all individual responses were kept confidential. Completed surveys were returned directly to researchers. Survey Results Ninety-eight surveys were completed (for a return rate of 44.3%). Forty-eight percent of employees reported low levels of intention to leave, and 18% reported strong intention to leave their organization. However, strong intention to leave ranged from 13.5% to 35.3% across the three participating children’s mental health agencies. Over 55% of all employees who responded to the survey indicated high levels of overall job satisfaction. Across the three participating agencies overall job satisfaction ranged from 43.2% to 70.6%. The majority of respondents, however, were only moderately satisfied with salary and benefits, as well as with promotion availability and process. Twenty-three percent of all employees responding to the survey reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, suggesting that high levels of stress are affecting almost a quarter of survey respondents. However, the majority of respondents reported low to moderate levels of emotional exhaustion. Over 70% of children’s mental health employees who responded to the survey reported high levels of personal accomplishment, or a feeling of competence and successful achievement in their work with people. Discussion & Implications The majority of employees in all three organizations are only moderately satisfied with the financial rewards and benefits, and in all of the organizations it seems that the front-line staff are the group least satisfied with this aspect. Front-line staff and clinicians are more likely to be high on intention to leave, and less likely to be highly satisfied with their jobs overall. They are less likely to feel that their jobs are highly “doable” and more likely to be unsatisfied with promotional opportunities. Clinicians, along with front-line staff, are also less likely than employees in other positions to be highly satisfied with their pay. Overall job satisfaction, while in the high range for 55% of children’s mental health employees as a whole, varies considerably across the three organizations. Employees with low job satisfaction are 4 more likely to have high levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, to perceive a lack of fit between their personal values and goals and those of the organization (image violation), and to see the employment relationship as inequitable. The scales that are statistically associated with high intention to leave for all three organizations include “perceived inequitable employment relationship” and “image violation”. It may be that those employees who are feeling most strongly about pay levels and limited promotional opportunities perceive that they are giving more than they are receiving from the organization

Understanding and Preventing Employee Turnover

Child welfare agencies have identified worker turnover as a particularly problematic organizational issue. In children’s mental health agencies, turnover also seems to be an issue for residential care services. Do people voluntarily leave child welfare and children\u27s mental health organizations because of the work itself, because of the workload, or because they find “success” difficult to experience? These are often given as reasons by departing employees, but to develop a comprehensive understanding why turnover takes place in these organizations, this paper looks at the research on turnover in organizations generally and in child welfare and children\u27s mental health organizations specifically. Research on unwanted employee turnover has produced thousands of articles. We begin by exploring the major themes in this literature and then relate these themes to research done in human services organizations, and child welfare and children\u27s mental health organizations specifically. We conclude with a list of research questions to pursue in our study of workers’ experiences in the workplace

Don’t get involved: an examination of how public sector organisations in England are involving disabled people in the Disability Equality Duty

The Disability Equality Duty (DED) came into force in December 2006. It stipulated that all public sector organisations were to develop policies to promote the equality of disabled people as staff members, consumers or visitors. Its emergence comes as part of a network of social policies developed over the last 20 years to promote disability rights and citizenship in the UK. However unlike previous legislation, the DED set in place the need for organisations to be pro-active in their policies and work with disabled people to move towards change in public sector cultures and working practices. This article reports on this early stage of implementation in England. Findings show that whilst some progress has been made in securing change, practice varied greatly. Therefore if a fundamental change in the culture of work and service provision is to be secured, this key requirement will need to be given a higher priority by organisations

A Study of Cutter Number Adjustment at the Ohio State University Libraries

"The authors conducted a study of cuttering practice at Ohio State University Libraries to determine the extent of effort presently devoted to the practice and to suggest changes that would result in less work without adversely affecting the public. They determined that there would be little deleterious effect if cuttering were limited to classes M, N, and P, while the effort involved would be halved.