Taekyung Park, MSW, Ph.D. Candidate Indiana University School of Social Work

1. A Theoretical Approach for Policy Analysis for Social Worker Turnover: Synthesizing Social Values and Systems Theory Taekyung Park, MSW, Ph.D. Candidate Indiana University School of Social Work

2. I HOPE TO DISCUSS... • The importance of building work environment that regards social workers as professionals to prevent social worker turnover. • The logic that leadership styles and human resource management should be considered preventing social worker turnover, reviewing theories of social values and systems theory. • The importance of leadership styles to change work environment

3. Overview • Problems: Workforce Issues in Social Work • Significance • Recent Research Results: Factors for Turnover • Social Values • Systems Theory: Introducing a Complex System • Conclusion • Q & A

4. Problems: Workforce Issues in Social Work • Effectiveness of Organizational Performances • Integrating a variety of resources, such as financial resource, human resource, and network • Human resource: High quality of social work services and practices by qualified, skilled social workers • High turnover rate among social workers • Not a new phenomena • Across the social work fields, across the nation and across countries • Unstable workforce in social work comparing to other profession (Daly, Dudley, Finnegan, Jones & Christiansen, 2001) • High turnover rate among social workers: • 20% - over 50% • Highest estimated: 75% in child welfare

5. Problems: Workforce Issues in Social Work

6. Significance of (Un)stable Workforce • Impacts on clients : Indirect & direct impacts on vulnerable populations • Quality of services, program sustainability, poor relationship between clients and workers • Research in child welfare: Child permanency, safety, & well-being • Impacts on social workers: Indirect costs • Physical influences, emotional influences, relationships among colleagues • Impacts on organizations: Both direct & indirect costs • Indirect costs: Quality of services, effectiveness & efficiency of performance, image of agency, agency’s successes and failures (Lambert et al., 2012), • Direct costs (Mor Barak et al., 2001): Recruitment costs, & training costs • Impacts on social work profession and the system • Increasing demands for social workers (Wermeling, 2009), negative public perceptions by supplying with unqualified workers, status & values of the profession • Clients’ mistrust of the system

7. Recent Research Results: Factors for Turnover • More than 20 Factors (80 predictors by Mor Barak, Nissly & Levin) • Demographic Variables: Age, gender, level of education, marital status, parental status, ethnicity, professionalism • Economic Variables: Compensation or pay & labor market • Psychological Variables: Job satisfaction, job stress, workload, role ambiguity, role conflict, dangerousness, burnout, job autonomy, organizational commitment, supervision, job embeddeness, professional commitment • Organizational Conditions: Organizational culture, organizational climate, organizational support, Leadership

8. Recent Research Results: Factors for Turnover • No concrete theories, or models, & inconsistent instrument in social work • Inaccurate citation • Confusion of factors: Professional commitment & organizational commitment -> cited as the same factor • Disparate effects of variables (Inconsistent findings) • Different findings of same factors depending on the model • Recent research trends • Test complicating relationships among variables • Complex model for turnover factors • Lead to complexity of social work organizations

9. Social Values • Social values of human nature: 2 approaches of understanding human nature • Economic motives: Market mentality • Economic theorists: Human beings work only for economic profits and self-interest (Uzzi, 1997). • Policy for workforce: Develop policy to facilitate an individual to work for his/her own interests; reward systems or compensation • Economical factors of employee turnover • Social motives • Relationships of economic actions to social structures and social relations (Uzzi, 1997) • Social structure impacts economic actions • Social positions, social assets, social supports & social relations within which the economy is embedded (Feldstein & Dolgoff, 2006) • Psychological factors of employee turnover

10. Social Values • Social values of a society • Social values of social workers as professionals in a society • Fighting for the professional status in a society • Social workers as professionals in a society • Determine status of social workers in an organization • Influence the work environment that is highly related to economic, psychological and sociological factors for social worker turnover

11. Social Values • Being recognized as a profession: Critical for social workers who work in a complex and wide variety of settings with multiple professionals; Job autonomy & authority issue • Working in complex organization: Compromise social workers’ professional ethics by organizational perspectives; Ethical issues • U.S. labor law: Protect professionals in their right to exercise judgment and discretion (Feldstein & Dolgoff, 2006; Popple & Leighninger, 2004) • Care management practice & traditional bureaucracy: Social workers lost autonomy as a professional

12. Systems theory: Introducing a Complex System • Rational system (Closed system) • Simon’s (1955) model: Support the rationality of individual decisions and activities • Simple and isolated organizations: work specified in detail and distinct operational units • Control over organizational elements when facing uncertain and unpredictable environments (Gummer, 1980) • Ignore complex interactions among individuals and the dynamics within organizations (Dougherty, 2006; Marion & Uhl-Bien, 2002) as well as the dynamics between an agency and its external environment

13. Systems theory: Introducing a Complex System • Natural system (Closed system) • No distinction between organizations and other types of collectives or social forms (Davis & Scott, 2007) • Social groups & informal structure: Recognize the influences of external environments embedded within their performances • Organizations’ nature to survive by adapting to external environments in which the organizations embody • Force its member to comply to its rules and laws (Reed, 2006) • Operation rather than functions

14. Systems theory: Introducing a Complex System • Open system • Views an organization as loosely coupled image & recognition of subsystems • Close connections with its environments (Anderson, 2005; Davis, & Scott, 2007) • Each subunit: independent organization which interacts with other organizations which are its external environments • Organization in which social workers practice consists of different types of subunits • Complex systems: Interactions among subunits or environment

15. Systems theory: Introducing a Complex System • Features of complex systems • Complex systems consist of a large number of elements • These elements interact dynamically: not discrete actions • Interaction are rich; any element in the system can influence or be influenced by any other • Interactions are non-linear • Interactions are typically short-range • There are positive and negative feedback loops of interactions • Complex systems are open systems • Complex systems operate under conditions far from equilibrium • Complex systems have histories • Individual elements are typically ignorant of the behavior of the whole system in which they are embedded Source: Cilliers (1998) cited in Macuire, Mcklvey, Mirabeau & Oztas (2006)

16. Systems theory: Introducing a Complex System • Complex system: Social work organization (workforce) • Tension and conflict: Natural and try to cope with instability, uncertainty, unpredicted deviations rather than abolish, eliminate or control them • Uncertainty: Far-from-equilibrium conditions & room for evolution & continuous change • Non-linearity: Butterfly effects-disproportionately large effects by small causes • On going interactions: Irreducible random effect

17. Systems theory: Introducing a Complex System • Complex system: Social work organization (workforce) • History: Complex systems’ evolution over time is one of path dependence • Emergent system-level phenomena • Relationship-oriented behaviors: Thinking together • Holistic view: System changes & each part’s changes (Zlotnik, 2002) • Minimum specifications: Not be able to control the future or predict future behaviors of organizational ensembles

18. Conclusion • More than 20 factors discovered • Conflict findings • Poor contributions to organizational practice for preventing social worker turnover • Traditional system theory can help understand existing organizations: Useful for understanding why we operate as we do but… • Fragmented mechanizations: Reductionism & specification

19. Conclusion • Agent as a part of complex systems: Time to look at the interrelationships, interactions and inter-influences among multiple factors based on complex system theory and social values • Continuous process of design, construction, redesign, and reconstruction • Developing a conceptual model to explain intricate relationships of multiple factors of staff turnover to help social work service organizations improve their effectiveness. • Holistic human resource policy for stable workforce in social work organization at organizational level-culture, climate and leadership: from recruiting to career ladder

20. Questions? References available upon request Eamil: taekpark@iupui.edu Thank you