Child welfare worker stress as a function of cross-level effects: Informing organizational change strategies

Background and Purpose:

Social workers in challenging jobs are known to be at high risk for prolonged stress (Lloyd, King & Chenoweth, 2002). Further, changing demographics (i.e., generational, more dual-earner and single-parents) among employees bring increasing diversity, work-life concerns, and stress into the workplace (Families and Work Institute, 2004). From an organizational perspective, stress is associated with job dissatisfaction, lack of commitment, impaired effectiveness, and turnover affecting an agency's capacity to provide quality services (Hopkins, et al., 2007; Drake & Yadama, 1996). Thus, human service organizations are driven to develop more supportive and responsive cultures to ameliorate the damaging effects of stress. Yet, it is unclear the degree to which organizations have control over the reduction of stress. This paper reports on a mixed-method study that includes a multi-level analysis of social workers in a statewide public child welfare organization to determine the relationship between worker stress and organizational, individual and job factors within groups and across groups (i.e. 24 county agencies). It sought to answer two questions: 1) Is child welfare worker stress related to workers perception of organizational factors and workers personal and job factors? 2) Is the variation in workers' stress a function of differences between county agencies in a statewide system?

Methods:

Data was collected from self-report surveys (621, 56.5%) and multiple focus groups (203, 61%) across the state, with geographical and demographic representation. Valid and reliable measures captured organizational, job, and personal factors that contributed to employees' stress which was measured with a second order factor from the Organizational Social Context (OSC) Scale (Glisson, 2006, 2008). Stress was comprised of three first order factors that captured aspects of emotional exhaustion, role overload, and role conflict (Cronbach's Alpha = .94). Semi-structured questions were developed for focus groups to better understand employees' perceptions and personal and organizational experiences related to stress. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to explain the degree to which stress was a function of cross-level interactions.

Results:

Consistent with past research, the results indicated that factors mostly within the control of the organization explained significantly more stress than personal or job characteristics (i.e., salary, workload). For example, high levels of employee stress were a function of effort-reward imbalance, exclusion in decision making, lack of coworker cooperation and supervisor support, concerns about job safety, and work-life imbalance (Adjusted R Square = .57). Roughly 8% of the variance in worker stress was associated with county agencies in which the employee worked. Focus group data also confirmed these factors as primary contributors to stress that seemed to vary by agency.

Conclusions and Recommendations:

The findings suggest that factors contributing to public child welfare workers' stress are primarily within the organization's control. Therefore, managers need to become more effective advocates and strategists for reducing workplace stress through improving both (1) organizational structural factors (i.e., level of bureaucracy inherent in agency size, decision making and safety processes, and rewards), and (2) organizational support (i.e., supervisors, coworkers, work-life initiatives).