Psychology Commons^™

The Impact Of Leadership Turnover On Child Welfare Workforce Initiatives, Courtney Harrison, Megan Paul

QIC-Takes

Turnover among public child welfare leaders is prevalent. Across the eight QIC-WD intervention sites, leadership turnover was one of the most common implementation challenges observed by the QIC-WD team. Leadership changes can disrupt the implementation of a workforce initiative by shifting agency-level priorities, the organizational climate, or key staff.

Child welfare leaders may be appointed or hired in many different ways in different jurisdictions. In some states, the Governor appoints a cabinet-level child welfare director who oversees a stand-alone agency. This means that child welfare leadership changes follow the political election cycle with new governors appointing new agency leaders every …

The Child Welfare Workforce Crisis – What We’Re Hearing From The Field, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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The Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD) and the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI) in collaboration with the Capacity Building Centers for States, Tribes, and Courts, recently worked with representatives of the Children’s Bureau to listen to concerns of state child welfare and human resources (HR) leaders about the child welfare workforce. This blog post highlights what leaders (representing 29 states) described as their biggest concerns and what strategies agencies have put in place to reduce turnover and improve the applicant pool. We have also included links to information about evidence-informed efforts that could help jurisdictions address some …

Addressing Mental Health Of Hospitality Employees: An Exploratory Study, Chase Izell

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Exacerbated by a global pandemic, mental health challenges within hospitality professionals are an area of growing prevalence and concern for the industry. Historically unaddressed, these issues are continuing to impact the morale of essential talent which is promoting a culture of turnover that defines the industry today. Aside from the direct costs incurred by voluntary employee termination, the indirect costs to workplace culture and guest satisfaction have furthered the overall financial impact of a largely untreated problem. The objective of this research is to provide evidence of declining mental health in the hospitality industry while illuminating the key contributors to …

Technology, Case Practice, And Turnover: Early Findings From Virginia, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Listening sessions conducted by Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) staff with child welfare staff across the state and exit survey results from the 120 local departments of social services (LDSS) found that the biggest complaint among caseworkers, particularly those leaving their jobs, was the lack of technological supports and flexibility to help them complete administrative tasks more quickly. VDSS, in partnership with the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QICWD), designed a multi-phase case-supportive technology intervention to help child welfare caseworkers complete their case notes and other administrative tasks required as part of their job. The goals of the …

Using Survival Analysis Techniques To Examine The Relationship Between Personality Facets And Employee Turnover, Devon Kinsey

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Employee turnover continues to have severe monetary, time, performance, and human capital implications for organizations. Due to these implications, multiple areas of research have examined the possible predictors of employee turnover, such as personality factors and the narrow facets that comprise those factors. This study examines the facet-level scores of the conscientiousness and openness to experience factors as predictors of employee turnover using data from the ETS® WorkFORCE™ Assessment for Job Fit (Naemi et al., 2014), an assessment based on the Five Factor Model (FMM) of personality. Survival analysis techniques were used in addition to logistic regression analysis when …

Worker Turnover Is A Persistent Child Welfare Challenge - So Is Measuring It, Megan Paul, Courtney Harrison, Jonathan Litt, Michelle Graef

QIC-Takes

Turnover and other workforce challenges for child welfare professionals have been the subject of attention for many years. Consider this statement from a study published by the Children’s Bureau in 1960, “Turnover of staff in social agencies has been a serious concern of agency administrators for at least the past 10 years. Repeatedly, at conferences and in the professional journals, the complaint has been heard that staff turnover (1) handicaps the agency in its efforts to provide effective social services for clients; (2) is costly and unproductively time consuming; and (3) is responsible for the weary cycle of recruitmentemployment-orientation-production-resignation …” …

How Can Public Child Welfare Agencies Get And Keep A Great Workforce?, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

Public child welfare agencies continue to face complex challenges including high workforce turnover. An examination of federal data found that, from 2003 to 2015, states experienced 14-22% annual turnover rates, with caseworkers staying on the job for an average of 1.8 years. Such turnover increases workloads for remaining workers and negatively impacts children and families. The QIC-WD is working with eight jurisdictions to better understand turnover and test interventions to improve workforce retention. The following tips were compiled based on the experience of QIC-WD sites. They are intended to help child welfare administrators, state legislators, or other local policymakers consider …

How Can Child Welfare Agencies Leverage Data To Address Important Workforce Questions?, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

Child welfare agencies experience workforce turnover (14-20% annually) that can be costly and result in poorer outcomes for children and families. Although turnover is often acknowledged as a significant problem, it is not one that is easily understood or addressed. The following tips and strategies being implemented by jurisdictions working with the QIC-WD may be helpful for child welfare administrators, legislators, and other policymakers seeking to utilize agency data to answer pertinent child welfare workforce questions.

• Understand what data is collected and stored, and where. Oftentimes, there are multiple systems used by agencies during the employee lifecycle that may contain …

The Relationship Between Criminal Records And Job Performance: An Examination Of Customer Service Representatives, Jakari N. Griffith, Todd C. Harris

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Between 70 million and 100 million Americans—or as many as one in three—have some type of criminal record (Vallas & Dietrich, 2014). Having even a minor criminal record often functions as a significant impediment to gainful employment and resultant economic security. This is especially problematic given that: (a) many companies now incorporate background checks within their hiring process and (b) little empirical research exists about the relationship between criminal records and job performance. Thus, this study examined the relationship between criminal records and objective performance of customer service representatives (N = 627) in a large telecommunications firm. Our regression analyses …

How Can Our Mission Be Fully Accomplished By Staff That Are Experiencing Secondary Trauma And Burnout?, Stephanie Reau

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My name is Stephanie Reau and I am a training supervisor at Summit County Children Services. We are an agency of 350 employees with a focus on recruiting and maintaining diverse staff committed to serving all children and families. Summit County strives to attract and retain wellqualified staff, but like many child welfare agencies in Ohio, this has been a difficult task to accomplish. The overwhelming pressures of the job cause secondary trauma, burnout and ultimately staff turnover. Staff turnover impacts the morale of the agency, is costly, and, most importantly, it negatively impacts the families we serve. Our mission …

Louisiana Progress Update- Redesigning The Child Welfare Worker Position, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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When there is a high workload, there is often a lot of turnover and when there is a lot of turnover the remaining workforce has an even greater workload. The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) was all too familiar with this negative cycle and the impact it was having on its child welfare workforce. When DCFS became a Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD) site, they were ready to make a significant change to their workforce operations. After a thorough needs assessment, DCFS decided to work with the QIC-WD on a job redesign project to strengthen …

Texas Decreased Caseworker Turnover. The Qic-Wd Is Implementing And Testing Some Of Their Strategies And Building Evidence, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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The QIC-WD is dedicated to building evidence. Foundational work in the early years of the Center included combing the literature from multiple fields (e.g., business, education, industrial-organizational psychology) to inform strategies to strengthen the child welfare workforce. In 2018, Casey Family Programs reported on how the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) reduced caseworker turnover by implementing multiple changes to system operations (How did Texas decrease caseworker turnover and stabilize its workforce?). This post discusses how the QICWD is working with eight other jurisdictions and building on what was learned in Texas. According to the report, Texas initiated …

Employee Development And Turnover: A Moderated Mediation Model Of Employee Perceptions Of Development, Job Satisfaction, Supervisor Support, And Intent To Stay, Ryan Kasdorf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As employee turnover continues to be a major concern for organizations, there is increasing evidence that providing development opportunities can be an effective intervention to decrease voluntary turnover. I propose that an integrated theoretical framework of combining Organizational Support Theory (OST) and the Job Demands- Resources Theory (JD-R) is best suited to explain the relationship between employee development and turnover. Moreover, a moderated-mediation model is developed and tested, whereby the relationship between employee perceptions development (EPD) and intent to stay is mediated by job satisfaction, and this indirect relationship is moderated by perceived supervisor support. A large sample (N = …

Effort Reward Imbalance In The Nursing Profession - A Novel Way Of Gathering Data, Dorailys Fagundo

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The effort-reward imbalance model allows us to see disparity in effort and reward and how this can be a predictor for a variety of constructs. The present study seeks to gather data utilizing the ERI modal in the nursing profession. Previous research has utilized the ERI model but methods for gathering data were not quick and efficient. This study seeks to utilize a database called Glassdoor to rapidly and effectively gather data. The researchers are interested in seeing the likelihood of nurses to recommend their company to a friend based on perceived effort and rewards. The sample included a random …

Introducing Virginia’S Mobile Solution, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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The Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) and the 18 local departments of social services (LDSS) identified the lack of technological supports to help child welfare workers complete the administrative tasks of their job as a cause of turnover. The Virginia site rolled out the first part of their intervention (transcription services) in 2018 and is now preparing to roll out a mobile application in late fall 2019. This one-page summary describes COMPASS, Virginia’s mobile app designed to make it easier for workers to manage the administrative aspects of their job.

Conceptualization Of Faculty Work Motivation: Overcoming The Impasse, Julie Nikolaeva Thompson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The work motivation literature is at an impasse. At the same time, changing economic and social conditions necessitate an ongoing transformation for how organizations motivate their workforce. Although changes in the nature of work have captured the attention of researchers, calls for more research to further develop work motivation theory have largely gone unnoticed. The scarcity of new theoretical research contributes to a lack of contextual understanding in work motivation. As such, organizational leaders continue to develop interventions based on the findings of potentially outdated work motivation theories. This may lead to diminished work motivation, productivity, and commitment, particularly for …

Louisiana Selects A Workforce Intervention: Job Redesign & Teaming, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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For several years prior to the current Administration, Louisiana suffered through an unstated policy of “Do More with Less”: Fewer employees, higher caseloads, less resources, and high employee turnover. In 2016, the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) leadership determined that supporting and stabilizing the child welfare workforce was a high priority. To strengthen its workforce, Louisiana will implement “Job Redesign and Teaming” as its QIC-WD intervention. The job redesign aspect of the intervention includes a comprehensive job analysis and process mapping to determine which tasks needed to be retained by the child welfare worker and which tasks …

Qic-Wd Site Intervention Selection – Fall 2018, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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The eight QIC-WD sites have worked with the QIC-WD to determined which intervention to implement and evaluate to strengthen their child welfare workforce. These decisions came after a thorough needs assessment through which human resources (HR) data was examined to uncover the root causes of child welfare caseworker turnover. The sites recognize that turnover is not caused by a single issue, so they had to consider which aspect of turnover they could address in partnership with the QIC-WD. The QIC-WD team simultaneously examined available interventions, study designs, and the needs of the broader child welfare field to help each site …

Understanding The Relationship Between Organizational Culture And Turnover, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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“Organizational culture” is a term used to describe the norms and expectations in a work environment. Research has found that there are three aspects of a human services organization’s culture that predict better outcomes related to the implementation of evidence-based practices, staff turnover, and the serviced provided: 1. Proficiency includes staff skills, competence, responsiveness, and a focus on client well-being. 2. Rigidity reflects issues related to decision making, transparency, micromanagement, and trust. 3. Resistance considers if staff are resistant to change or new ways of doing things. Healthy organizations are highly proficient and not too rigid or resistant. For example …

Leadership Ineffectiveness: The Interactive Effects Of Leader Personality, Job Demands, And Job Resources On Ethical Climate And Employee Turnover Intentions, Michelle D. Corman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Goals of the present research were to demonstrate that: (a) leadership personality is related to employee perceptions of the organization’s ethical climate; (b) leader job stress moderates this relationship for certain personality attributes; and (c) such leader-associated ethical climate, in turn, is related to employee turnover intentions and ultimate turnover (see Figure 1). Specifically, I investigated how individual differences in certain leadership “dark side” traits interact with leader job stress to influence the perceived ethical climate of their employees, to ultimately impact employee turnover intentions and turnover. Another goal of this research was to make unique predictions for the leadership …

Predicting Law Enforcement Officer Turnover And Use Of Force From Variables Measured By The 2013 Law Enforcement Management And Administrative Statistics (Lemas) Survey, Ryan Lee Radmall

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Law enforcement requires comprehensive hiring and training practices in order to curb misconduct and turnover. Some of the available data suggests a shift in the dynamics of law enforcement toward a more objective approach that favors education, cognitive ability testing, a community policing orientation, and technological advances, such as body cameras, that hold enforcers of the law and the American public, accountable for misconduct and violations of the law. The utilization of various technological advances requires assessment and dynamic, comprehensive analysis. The present study examined the influence of education and the professionalization of policing hiring requirements, cognitive ability tests and …

Work Ethic, Turnover, And Performance: An Examination Of Predictive Validity For Entry-Level Employees, Christina Banister

Dissertations

Work ethic is continually cited as a top factor in hiring new employees (Flynn, 1994; Shimko, 1990; VanNess, Melinsky, Buff, & Seifert, 2010). Research on the relationship between work ethic and job performance has typically shown positive results in a variety of contexts (Meriac & Gorman, 2017; Miller et al., 2002). The purpose of this study was to examine dimensions of work ethic and its relationship with turnover and contextual performance in an often-neglected segment of the workforce: entry-level employees. Data were collected from a large fast food franchise, including work ethic, turnover data, and supervisor-rated job performance. In Study …

An Interrogation Of Turnover Antecedents At An Automobile Manufacturer In Northwest Ohio, Emily Boyle

Honors Projects

The manufacturing industry is one of the largest industries in Northwest Ohio. With the growing influence of Lean/Six Sigma manufacturing systems, the industry is becoming much more automated and team-oriented. The manufacturing facility in question is a Tier 1 and 2 automotive manufacturer that is a part of one of the largest global companies in this sector and uses many Lean and Six Sigma processes across three shifts. In recent years, this company has seen a trend of high turnover and it is a constant point of contention for both supervisors and Human Resources. The current study aimed to determine …

International Student Adaptability: The Influence Of The Sino-American 1+2+1 Dual Degree Program, Michael C. Rose

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

An increasing reliance on expatriate employees makes it critical that multinational organizations make a concerted effort to facilitate the successful transition of employees from foreign cultures. The parallels between the experience of expatriate employees and international students suggests that the results of research investigating issues of cross‑cultural adaptability that are conducted in academic settings should generalize to the workplace. The current study investigated the influence of the Sino‑American 1+2+1 Dual Degree Program on the cross‑cultural adaptability, acculturation, and withdrawal intentions of international students. It was hypothesized that participants in the 1+2+1 program would demonstrate higher levels of psychological adaptability and …

An Exploratory Analysis Of The Commitment-Turnover Intentions Relationship: The Moderating Effects Of Embeddedness, Michael Eugene Sisikin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate the moderating effect of embeddedness on the commitment and turnover intentions relationship. Embeddedness was examined as a key variable that links the commitment and turnover literatures together. Job embeddedness was expected to moderate the relationship between job commitment and job turnover intentions, while organizational embeddedness was expected to moderate the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational turnover intentions. Responses from 154 employed individuals were collect for this study. Data was collected using a web-based survey format. Psychometric data was collected with the use of a demographics questionnaire, as well as embeddedness (job and organizational), …

Men And Women In Engineering: Professional Identity And Factors Influencing Workforce Retention, Caitlin Hawkinson Wasilewski

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to gain insight into professional identity and retention in the field of engineering, for both men and women, in an effort to mitigate the shortage of engineers in the United States. Although past efforts have predominantly focused on improving women’s retention since they represent a significant minority of this population, retention should be addressed in men as well, as both typically leave engineering within 10 years of entering the workforce (Frehill, 2012).

Professional identity and retention were evaluated with a mixed methods approach using archival data from a previous investigation on degreed engineers. Professional …

Effect Of Psychological Capital On Elementary Teacher Stress And Workplace Affect, Scott Stephen Casad

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Calling upon principles of positive psychology, the quantitative study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the relationships between teacher psychological capital (PsyCap), role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload, workplace stress, job satisfaction, job commitment, and intention to quit. Valid and reliable instruments from the literature were incorporated into a 64-item survey and distributed to 830 third through fifth grade teachers at seven northern Virginia school districts. In total, 225 complete responses were received. SEM testing rejected the exact-fit hypotheses and revealed insufficient overall fit between the study data and hypothesized models; thereby, providing no support for the proposed causal …

Student Employment In Organizations And The Relationships Among Commitment Levels, Turnover Intentions, And Absenteeism, Brittany J. Roy

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

To date, research that examines individuals who work and go to school generally aims to examine the effects of doing so on their academic performance. Little literature is available that examines the effects that these dual roles can have on the organization (e.g., lower levels of commitment and higher rates of absenteeism and turnover). Understanding such effects can assist organizations in managing their employees and developing programs tailored to them, such as career counseling. A literature review is presented which examines both the constructs of the multiple forms of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover, and the research currently available on student …

Examining Generational Differences Across Organizational Factors That Relate To Turnover, Kimberly Asuncion

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Turnover continues to pose a problem for all organizations across industries. This study examines the complex nature of turnover, by examining the relationship of turnover intentions with perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, growth opportunities, and recognition across age groups. Age groups will be used as a proxy for generational cohort membership. Results of the study confirm previous research that generational differences do exist; however, those differences are fairly small. Perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, growth opportunities, and recognition were found to be significant predictors of turnover intentions regardless of the age group.

Identifying Organizational Factors That Moderate The Engagement-Turnover Relationship In A Healthcare Setting, Stevie Ann Collini

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

It is essential for organizations to understand how turnover functions within their business and the potential other organizational factors have on affecting turnover, in order to know how to leverage these factors to effectively reduce turnover and the costs associated with it. The present study examined the relationship between employee engagement and turnover in clinical departments within a healthcare setting and the effects other organizational factors, such as respect, diversity, diversity climate and mission fulfillment have on that relationship. The results of the study demonstrate that although the relationship between engagement and turnover is significant, that none of the variables …