Western Workforce: Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment

Background and Purpose The Western Workforce project tests a workforce assessment and intervention model focused on organizational health. The project builds on previous recruitment and retention and child welfare systems of care projects, and organizational theory and intervention research (Potter, Comstock, Brittain & Hanna, 2010). The Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment (COHA) was developed to both inform workforce interventions and evaluate improvements on various organizational domains. The COHA consists of a workforce survey and qualitative data collection components from workers, supervisors, managers, families and youth, and agency community partners. This presentation will examine the factor structure and reliability of the workforce survey, and illustrate the integration of qualitative and quantitative findings in the presentation of organizational assessment results. Method As part of a repeated-measures experimental design, baseline COHA survey administration was conducted with two child welfare organizations. 161 child welfare workers, supervisors, middle managers, directors were surveyed. The 305-item staff survey contains 21 scales measuring psychological capital, job satisfaction, coping, supervisor competence and support, cultural competence, vicarious traumatization and other constructs. The online survey contained six Likert response options and took approximately 40 minutes to complete. The response rate was 37% at one organization (urban) and 100% at the rural site. To assess internal consistency and underlying factor structure, reliability analysis (alpha) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were used. Qualitative data were gathered from 82 informants across the urban and rural sites, using focus groups and individual interview protocols. Qualitative transcripts were analyzed with the support of Atlas-TI, and yielded clear organizational functioning themes in each site. Results Reliabilities of COHA scales include: Professional Sharing and Support (.925), Psychological Capital (.850), Professional Quality of Life (.908), Vicarious Trauma (.919), Job Satisfaction (.906), Supervisor Competence (.932), Supervisor Support (.952), Team Cohesion (.811), Community Resources (.847), Shared Vision (.844), Leadership (.971), Inclusivity (.856), Readiness for Change (.708), Professional Development (0.896), Systems of Care (.898), Physical Environment (.886), Cultural Competence (.957), and Intent to Stay (.818). EFA findings indicated unidimensionality for Professional Support, Supervisor Competence, Supervisor Support, Team Cohesion, Shared Vision, Leadership, and Intent to Stay. Analysis confirmed known multidimensionality for Psychological Capital, Job Satisfaction, Professional Quality of Life, and several other scales, suggesting multiple facets may underlie these constructs. Qualitative findings strongly paralleled quantitative findings in identifying critical areas for organizational intervention, and in identifying pathways to improvement. Quantitative and qualitative findings were integrated into a user-friendly report format that supports the work of the organizational teams involved in the organizational intervention. Conclusions and Implications Initial psychometric examination revealed good to excellent evidence of internal consistency for all scales and subscales comprising the COHA survey. The factor analytic results have clear implications for instrument revision and use of further validation methods including confirmatory factor analysis and IRT as additional site data is gathered. In each intervention site, the mixed method COHA identified very clear areas of strength and need. This presentation will present the full findings for each site, and discuss the use of findings in structuring organization interventions.