Privatization in the Human Services the Challenge of Managerialism

Background & Purpose

Privatization poses a “grand challenge “to social work, leading agencies to import business models into their organizations. The results, New Public Management or Managerialism, are dramatically changing service provision, working conditions, and client-worker relationships. Yet little is known about how frontline practitioners experience these developments.

Methods

Based on empirical studies, 68 indicators of managerialism were identified and vetted by 2 focus groups of human service workers (HSW). From 1/2014-4/2015, with 6 community/labor partners, an anonymous electronic survey was developed and distributed in the New York City area.  Through member lists of partners purposively selected to represent human service sector diversity, a voluntary sample of participants was obtained.

HSWs were asked about the presence/absence of each indicator in their workplace, and if they experienced it as problematic, not problematic or not applicable. Univariate and bivariate analysis was performed using SPSS (v22).

We predicted that most HSWs would find managerialism to be problematic but that views would vary by job titles, employment sector, and field of practice among other variables. We expected greater concern among supervisors/directors, at contracted nonprofit agencies, and among HSWs at child welfare and mental health agencies and that managing managerialism would contribute to burnout and job dissatisfaction

Results  

2468 HSWs completed the survey. Females represented 82.4%; whites 52.7%; persons of color 46.3; MSW 55.0%; BA/BSW or below 23.0%; frontline workers 48.7% some managerial responsibilities 51.3%. Also, 64.2% worked for a nonprofit; 27.4% for a public and 4.7% for a for-profit agency; 33.9% were unionized.

More than 50% of the respondents reported 24/68 managerialism indicators as problematic. Responses clustered into 4 rank-ordered categories: Indicators related to Pace of Work were reported problematic by the largest percent of HSWs, followed by, Accountability, Efficiency and Relationship Building.

HSW’s experience with Managerialism also varied significantly. Program managers were more likely to report pace of work and accountability as problematic, while for frontline workers it was efficiency, accountability and relationship building. Child welfare and mental health practitioners reported more indicators as problematic compared to HSWs in other fields. Non-profit HSWs were significantly more likely to report “increased workload”, “time spent on documentation”, and “mismatch between staff and funder definitions of successful outcomes” as problematic. Public sector HSWs found the “number of new policies”, “replacing higher with lower paid staff”, “job routinization” and measures not “capture[ing] what staff think is important” as problems in their workplace. Greater concerns about managerialism were associated with burnout and job dissatisfaction.

Conclusion and implications

Findings suggest that Managerialism is changing service provision, working conditions and practice relationships in ways that concern HSWs, yet experiences vary. The areas of greatest concern for HSWs—pace of work, accountability, efficiency and relationship building-- suggest that doing more with less in the context of increased attention to outcomes and productivity may have detrimental effects on client practitioner relationships, and job satisfaction. Since HSWs play a key role in providing services and implementing social welfare policy, data reflecting their voice is critical in setting effective research and policy agendas.