Social Work Commons^™

The Influence Of Strategic Entrepreneurship And Individual Development On Competitive Advantage In Social Entrepreneurship Organizations (Case Study Of Taulan Community), Amelia Nurkasih, Jusni -, Shinta Dewi Sugiharti Tikson

BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi dan Organisasi

A social entrepreneurship organization is an organization running entrepreneurial activities primarily oriented to the welfare of the community and its social mission. As a business, social entrepreneurship needs to gain a competitive advantage in similar businesses and other businesses that are the main competitors. This can be achieved when social enterprises have human resources who are aware of opportunity-seeking behavior and profit-seeking behavior, which are the main dimensions of strategic entrepreneurship. In addition, in the face of changing business conditions, organizations need to provide space for their members to learn through individual development, both in terms of opportunities and facilities. …

Turnover, Megan Paul, Sarah Stepanek

Umbrella Summaries

What is turnover?

The definition of turnover tends to somewhat vary in practice and research. The most common element is an employee leaving their job. Beyond that, turnover can be further defined as internal vs. external, voluntary vs. involuntary, functional vs. dysfunctional, and avoidable vs. unavoidable.

• Internal vs. external: Internal turnover means that the employee moves to a different job within the organization, whereas external means that the employee leaves the organization altogether. In child welfare, however, the “organization” may be defined as all of state or county government, which means that a lot of movement is considered internal.
• Voluntary …

Job Crafting, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is job crafting?

Job crafting is defined as “the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task and relational boundaries of their work” (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001, p. 179). Job crafting is a proactive work behavior by which individuals adapt their job or their perceptions of their job in order to change their identity, shape their job tasks to their liking, and alter the meaning of their work (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001).

Job crafting is most often conceptualized along four categories of increasing structural job resources (i.e., expanding one’s autonomy or variety of resources), increasing social job resources …

Job Design, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is job design?

Every job has an inherent design—the collection of duties, responsibilities, required competencies, environment, relationships, and resources involved in the job. This design may be intentional or unintentional. The concept of job design, however, is a more purposeful process of shaping a job’s characteristics with the goal to increase employee motivation, performance, and job satisfaction as well as lower turnover and absenteeism in the workplace (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). According to Job Characteristics Theory, this is done through enhancing the five core job dimensions of skill variety, task identity, task significance, job autonomy, and feedback from the …

Meaningful Work, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is meaningful work?

Meaningful work is defined as “work experienced as particularly significant and holding more positive meaning for individuals” (Rosso et al., 2010, p. 95). In general, meaningful work is considered to be work and work accomplishments that are viewed as valuable, worthwhile, and aligning with one’s values (Allan et al., 2018). Current theory suggests that meaningful work tends to result from self-actualization or from working towards a higher purpose (Lepisto & Pratt, 2016). More specifically, meaningful work may come from feeling a sense of unity with other people, serving others, from developing oneself, or from working towards …

Personality Tests, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are personality tests?

In an employment context, personality tests are tools that assess candidates’ or employees’ enduring dispositional traits, for the purpose of hiring, training, or employee development. Personality is generally thought to reflect one’s authentic personal disposition and lasting mental structure (Allport & Odbert, 1936). Although individuals may behave differently in different conditions and environments and may experience passing moods, personality is thought to be displayed through broad patterns of behavioral tendencies over time in each individual (Allport & Odbert, 1936). Though there are hundreds of individual personality traits and measures in existence, the majority of those that …

Competency-Based Personnel Selection Oklahoma - Key Findings, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

Other QIC-WD Products

Background

The QIC-WD began working with Oklahoma Human Services (OKDHS) in 2017. At that time OKDHS had an average turnover rate of 25% among Child Welfare Specialist (CWS) I and IIs. Agency leaders expressed a desire to better understand turnover rates with an eye toward increasing the retention of more competent performers. A thorough needs assessment led to the decision to design and implement a competency-based personnel selection intervention to address inconsistencies in hiring and better identify candidates with the desired competencies to be hired as a CWS. The evaluation was designed to include an implementation evaluation; a validation …

Organizational Change Process Milwaukee - Key Findings, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Background

The QIC-WD team engaged with the Department of Milwaukee Child Protective Services (DMCPS) in 2017 to conduct a thorough needs assessment to understand the root causes underlying a high turnover rate among Initial Assessment Specialists. In 2016, the overall turnover rate, including both external turnover and internal movement, was just under 49%, with a little over 11% due to internal movement and 37% due external turnover. The Organizational Social Context (OSC) baseline survey showed that there were several aspects of both culture and climate that were in need of improvement, including: 1) a hierarchical decision-making structure, 2) high …

Onboarding Program Eastern Band Of Cherokee Indians - Key Findings, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Background

The QIC-WD worked with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) Family Safety Program (FSP) to address workforce challenges. FSP is a relatively new agency, established in 2015, and when they began working with the QIC-WD in 2017, FSP employed approximately 20 social workers, who provided direct service to children and families. Persistent vacancies were of greater concern than turnover. The QIC-WD partnered with FSP to conduct a needs assessment and identify areas of need that could be addressed through a workforce intervention. Three areas of need were identified as offering the strongest opportunities for intervention through the QIC-WD …

Frontline Job Redesign Louisiana - Key Findings, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Background

In 2017, the QIC-WD began working with the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). At that time DCFS had an average turnover rate of 24% across the state with one region having a rate of 51% and another with a low of 8%. A thorough needs assessment identified that high caseloads and a large number of administrative tasks were barriers to caseworkers’ ability to effectively engage in the clinical aspects of their work and led to the decision to redesign the frontline caseworker job.

The intervention created a new job, the Child Welfare Team Specialist (CWTS), …

Supportive Supervision And Resiliency Ohio - Key Findings, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Background The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) started working with the QIC-WD in October 2017 to better understand its turnover problem. Eight counties volunteered to be part of the entire study. They participated in a thorough needs assessment process which led to creation of Coach Ohio, a multi-level blend of two interventions that addressed key needs across the counties regarding work-related traumatic stress and supportive supervision. Four counties and half of the largest county participated in the intervention while three counties and the other half of the largest county participated as comparison counties. Among these counties the …

Addressing Work-Related Traumatic Stress Nebraska - Key Findings, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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Background

Nebraska’s Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) started working with the QIC-WD in 2017 to better understand its turnover problem and found that, among workers who left the agency in 2017, it typically happened within the first two years and the turnover rate in 2017 was about 30%. The team examined many contributing factors through a needs assessment and designed CFS Strong to improve employee retention by addressing work-related traumatic stress among the child welfare workforce.

According to the Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) scale administered in December 2017, the overall presence of STS symptoms in DCFS staff was …

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 …

Measuring Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

Workforce Analytics Resources

What is Diversity?

Diversity refers to the degree of differences in the composition of the workforce in terms of such constructs as race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, national origin, language, or other social identities. Though there are certainly other types of employee differences worth assessing (e.g., acquired diversity characteristics, such as education, skills, personality, preferences, attitudes), the focus here is on inherent social identities, especially those that are related to differences in representation, power, and privilege. Note that diversity is a characteristic of a group, not an individual.

How is Diversity Measured?

To …

Job Posting, Megan Paul, Nina Williams-Mbengue, Courtney Harrison

QIC-Tips

A job posting must be informative, clear, transparent, and appealing to potential child welfare job candidates. It should also be candidate-centric and answer questions candidates often ask, especially any key information that has turned out to be a dealbreaker for people later in the process. This QIC-Tip is designed to highlight actionable strategies to create a good job posting. Please note that the information presented is not meant to override or supersede local, state, or federal legal civil service or human resources guidance.

Think of the job posting as a marketing opportunity for your agency and highlight the positive aspects …

Measuring Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In The Child Welfare Workforce, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

Some child welfare professionals have stated that there is a critical need for systemic changes to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, but where do child welfare agencies begin? Although change is never easy, the starting place on the journey to have a diverse, equitable, and inclusive (DEI) workforce is relatively simple. It starts with you—a child welfare supervisor, manager, or administrator. Start by considering what you think you know. Is your knowledge based on perception or data? What experiences shape your perceptions? What tools do you have to measure your workforce? Administrative data sets and surveys that gather both qualitative …

Career Interests, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

Career interests reflect individuals’ “trait-like preferences for activities, environments, and outcomes that motivate goal strivings and achievement” (Jones et al., 2020). Simply put, interests are a series of likes and dislikes that develop alongside one’s cognitive abilities and personality to shape human behavior (Jones et al., 2020; Low et al., 2005). Interests, thus, drive the amount of time and effort individuals spend acquiring knowledge and abilities within a certain domain and their pursuit of educational and career goals (Jones et al., 2020). According to vocational choice theory, individuals tend to seek work that aligns with their interests, and when this …

Virtual Training In Child Welfare, Penny Putnam Collins

QIC-Takes

Child welfare offices and training centers had to transition their classroom instructor-led training to virtual platforms when the pandemic hit. Some training systems were already using virtual platforms or asynchronous learning tools to deliver training content, but no agency was 100% virtual pre-pandemic. The transition was sudden and there was a steep learning curve for some trainers. Changes made when the pandemic hit may now be the new normal. This QICTake highlights what our QIC-WD sites and team members experienced as child welfare agencies shifted to, and are now embracing, virtual training. What We’re Seeing Finding the Right Tools for …

Supporting Virtual Supervision As Part Of A Hybrid Workforce, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

More and more public child welfare agencies offer the opportunity to work in a hybrid environment, combining remote work with in-office work. This has raised questions among supervisors about how best to manage a remote workforce. Since research on virtual supervision is fairly limited relative to the popularity of remote work, studies are needed to understand the ways and conditions that influence effectiveness. Available research on remote work indicates that it is moderately associated with greater perceived autonomy and modestly associated with better supervisor relationships, performance, and job satisfaction. It was also modestly associated with decreased role stress and turnover …

Developing An Ecological Model Of Turnover Intent: Associations Among Child Welfare Caseworkers’ Characteristics, Lived Experience, Professional Attitudes, Agency Culture, And Proclivity To Leave, Dana M. Hollinshead, Rebecca Orsi

QIC-WD Journal Articles

Almost a quarter of the child welfare workforce leaves their job each year, and despite clarion calls over the decades, our insights into dynamics underlying turnover remain limited. Using survey data from 276 caseworkers in a Midwestern state, this analysis explores an array of personality, stress, attitudinal, and perception measures and their association with three measures of turnover intent: thinking about quitting, intending to search, and intent to leave. Findings indicate that controlling for demographic factors, burnout, and confidence in decision support from agency leadership had consistent and strong associations with all three outcomes (positive for burnout; negative for decision …

What Can Child Welfare Leaders Do To Improve Job Satisfaction?, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

There is a saying, “a happy worker is a productive worker” and research suggests there is a modest relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. But what can child welfare leaders do to create a satisfied, productive workforce when the work is stressful, complex, and challenging? There is a lot of evidence on what employers should be aware of among worker characteristics and the work environment that is related to higher employee job satisfaction. For example, employees who thrive at work are less likely to experience stress and burnout. Positive experiences related to coworkers, supervisors, and the organization show strong …

How A Professional Describes Reasons For Working In And Ultimately Leaving The Foster Care Field In The State Of Missouri: A Case Study, Lauren Williams

MSU Graduate Theses

The foster care field continues to have a high turnover rate of the professionals working in the field. While support and work balance are available for some professionals, many face the challenges of heavy workloads, unrealistic expectations, and health sacrifices that lead to many professionals leaving the field. This case study of one former foster care professional’s description of reasons they worked in the field, and reasons they ultimately left the field provides insight of the challenges and support as a foster care professional. The findings of this study are organized into three major themes including “Challenges for Foster Care …

Diseño Para La Innovación Social: Análisis De Las Teorías Del Diseño Y La Innovación Social, Laura María Muñoz Torres

Maestría en Estudios y Gestión del Desarrollo – MEGD

No abstract provided.

Training Transfer, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is training transfer? Training transfer is formally defined as “the degree to which trainees effectively apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes gained in a training context to the job” (Baldwin & Ford, 1988, p. 63). Training transfer has been conceptualized based on three main factors, which are detailed further below. ► Maintenance versus generalization: Maintenance consists of the degree to which knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) from the learning environment are able to persist over time, whereas generalization consists of being able to take KSAs acquired from a learning environment and apply them to situations or settings that are …

How Can Supervisors Support New Employees?, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

When the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD) recently asked public child welfare agency staff and leaders about their concerns related to improving the workforce, one of the questions was, “How do we support new employees?” This QIC-Tip aims to answer this question with research-informed recommendations and practical advice from the field.

The process by which newcomers make the transition from being organizational outsiders to being insiders is known as onboarding, or organizational socialization (Bauer et al., 2007). The overall goal of onboarding is to facilitate newcomer adjustment, meaning that new employees understand the key tasks of …

Wellness Practices’ Contribution To Social Sustainability: A Review Of The Literature, Zeina Mazloum

BAU Journal - Creative Sustainable Development

Despite being emphasized as one of the main pillars of global sustainable development, social sustainability has been vastly neglected in research, and its importance has been undervalued. This paper aims to highlight the important role that wellness practices play in enhancing social sustainability by uplifting individuals and progressing communities. In turn, social sustainability strengthens the circular economy, resulting in global sustainable development. The paper also raises questions about future sustainable communities, quality of life, and wellness programs, which open up new avenues for future research and implications.

Counterproductive Work Behavior, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is counterproductive work behavior? Counterproductive work behavior (CWB), also sometimes referred to as workplace deviance, is defined as “voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and in so doing threatens the well-being of an organization, its members, or both” (Robinson & Bennett, 1995, p. 556). CWB is one of the three main domains of workplace performance, along with task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB; Dalal, 2005). CWB and OCB are thought to be conceptually opposite constructs; CWB is behavior that harms an organization, whereas OCB is behavior that helps an organization. Indeed, CWB and OCB are modestly and …

Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is organizational citizenship behavior? Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is defined as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization” (Organ, 1988, p. 4). This definition has been further refined to specify that OCB supports task performance in organizations by enhancing the work environment where task performance takes place (Organ, 1997). OCB is one of the three main domains comprising workplace performance, along with task performance and counterproductive work behavior (CWB; Dalal, 2005). OCB is thought to be conceptually opposite …

Work-Family Enrichment, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is work-family enrichment? Work-family enrichment is used to describe the positive benefits derived from spillover between work and family. Specifically, work-family enrichment is formally defined as “the extent to which experiences in one role improve the quality of life in the other role” (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006, p. 73). This is often contrasted with the concept of work-family conflict, which represents the negative spillover between the work and family domains. Work-family enrichment is often distinguished by the direction of its effect; benefits from work that are applied to the family domain are termed work-to-family enrichment (WFE), and benefits from …

Work-Family Conflict, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is work-family conflict? Work-family conflict is defined as “a form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect” (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p. 77). Work-family conflict is often contrasted with work-family enrichment, which represents the positive spillover that can occur between the work and family domains. The idea of work-family conflict is grounded in resource drain theory, which suggests that individuals have limited physical, psychological, and social resources to draw on while performing in different roles. When individuals devote large quantities of their resources to one domain …