An Examination of Agency and Individual Factors Associated with Worker Retention in Public Child Welfare Agencies

Background: This study used administrative retention data from ten county public child welfare (PCW) agencies and surveys from county workers to examine how worker perceptions of agency culture and individual factors were associated with worker retention. Understanding how agency culture influences worker retention is critical for ensuring a stable workforce within county agencies. Few studies have examined how agency culture influence worker retention with actual administrative data over time.

Methods: Administrative data and survey data were collected from ten county agencies in California over a two-year period using a cross-sectional survey design. Survey data assessing job satisfaction, commitment to agency, agency culture (e.g., staffing & training resources; agency mission, communication, leadership, focus on outcomes, ability to change; staff cohesion, autonomy, stress), individual factors (e.g., levels of influence, efficacy, adaptability, stress, and professional development) using validated scales (TCU Survey of Organizational Functioning, 2005), and demographic information were collected from worker surveys. Administrative retention data were collected 6-12 months after all surveys were completed based on human resource department data.   

The sample included 534 county workers with females (85%) and males (15%) and was racially diverse, Caucasian (48%), Hispanic (24%), African-American (11%), Asian (9%), and Multi-racial/Other (7%). The average age was 38.5 years, with 12.6 years of experience in PCW and 5.6 years in their agency unit.

Results:  Results showed that several agency culture and individual factors were associated with worker retention. Findings showed that workers who stayed at their agency had significantly higher ratings of job satisfaction and commitment to agency, more positive views of agency culture (i.e., greater satisfaction with agency mission, communication, leadership, focus on outcomes, ability to change, and staff cohesion) and individual factors (e.g., higher levels of stress). In addition, analyses between county supervisors and line-workers showed that supervisors had higher job satisfaction and greater commitment to agency, and more positive perceptions of agency culture (i.e., greater satisfaction with agency training resources, communication, leadership, ability to change) and individual factors (i.e., higher levels of influence, adaptability, professional development, and stress).

Implications: Retention is a longstanding problem facing PCW agencies across the United States (Benton, 2016). Turnover in agencies has been linked to disruptions in services provided to clients (Ryan, Garnier, Zyphur, & Zhai, 2006) and reducing morale of staff (Westbrook, Ellett, & Asberg, 2012). Any steps that can be taken to alleviate this problem should be pursued since it will ultimately help the children and families services by PCW workers. These findings demonstrate that agency workers who are retained have more positive perceptions of agency culture factors and that agencies should monitor and foster these factors to help retain staff. In addition, similar agency and individual factors were also associated with differences between supervisors and line-workers. Possibly, becoming a supervisor protects against turnover and agencies should foster these factors for line-workers to help with the transition from line-worker to supervisor. Future studies could examine how these agency factors change over time within agencies to better understand and improve retention in county agencies.