Satisfaction, Professional Commitment, and Retention in Child Welfare: Future Directions for Research and Practice

Abstract

Background/Purpose: The extant literature in Child welfare (CW) is replete with studies of job satisfaction (JS) among CW workers and how JS is linked to other variables (e.g., supervision, leadership, pay/benefits, degree). JS has also been viewed as an important variable explaining retention/turnover rates in CW. High turnover costs agencies training dollars, lost expertise, and breaks services continuity to clients. The problem addressed by this paper is the gap in knowledge about variables other than JS related to employee retention/turnover in CW. While JS may be an antecedent of turnover/retention, JS does not explain why some highly dissatisfied employees remain and why some highly satisfied employees leave. The literature also reflects conceptual and operational tensions between how much JS contributes to employee productivity and organizational effectiveness. JS continues to be conceptualized and studied as an important organizational outcome and/or a variable that is important for strengthening employee retention. This research demonstrates that professional commitment (PC) (an element of human caring) is a more potent variable related to CW employee retention than JS (and many other variables reflected in current studies).

Research Questions (RQs)

1. To what extent does PC explain variation in CW employee's intentions to remain employed when examined in conjunction with JS?

2. What is the contribution of JS to the explanation of variation in IRE over and above that accounted for by PC?

Method: Three large studies (n=768; n=1423; n=786) that surveyed all CW employees in the state agency with measures of JS, PC, self-efficacy beliefs, and work morale (independent variables), and a measure of Intent to Remain Employed (IRE) as a dependent variable were reviewed and synthesized. Analyses in these studies included descriptive statistics, Principal Components Analyses, bivariate correlations, and stepwise regressions.

Results: Results of these large-scale studies clearly showed the following for RQ1: a) the PC variable has the strongest bivariate relationship with IRE among all variables examined (r=.63, r=.71, r=.45; p<.001); and b) PC shows a much stronger relationships to CW employees' IRE than JS (the amount of variance in IRE explained by PC measures is 10 to 20 times greater than that explained by JS measures); and c) JS accounts for very little IRE variance not accounted for by PC (RQ2).

Conclusions/Implications: Results included in this paper support the argument that too much attention in past research has been paid to the importance of JS among CW employees. Thus, increasing employee retention in CW must be understood within the context of strengthening professional commitment (PC) to children and families and the larger CW profession. While enhanced JS among CW employees may be a useful organizational goal, enhancing JS alone is not sufficient to strengthen employee retention in CW. Implications of the findings are discussed for: a) selection of students for CW education programs; b) including content and internship and other experiences that focus on PC in degree programs; c) selection procedures for new CW employees; d) supervision and support of CW employees; and e) future research on workforce issues in CW organizations.