Strengthening Organizational Resilience and Equity at the Workplace: Exploring the Role of Social Work Professions in Supporting Nonprofits

Background and Purpose: The coronavirus pandemic resulted in the reduction of close to 651,000 work posts in the US social service sector, resulting in devastating social impacts in areas such as childcare and healthcare. To effectively respond to turbulence in social service organizations and restore their social impacts, it is essential to strengthening organizational resilience and workplace equity. This study, conducted both in Massachusetts and nationally, explores equity issues among ten employment systems and their relationship with organizational resilience. Given the importance of equity and the health and well-being outcomes of employees and the overall work environment, it is vital for the social work profession to provide equity training and strategic evaluation to organizations to enhance resilience. This research strives to clarify the disparities in equity of organizational systems and the interrelations between non-profit organizations’ resilience and equity.

Methods: This research is made up of two sections. Partnered with the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, the beginning part targeted key informants from 178 organizations in Massachusetts, with 87% being non-profit, 3% government public agencies, 7% for-profit, and the remainder classified as “other.” The survey addressed several issues, including pressures on organizations, perceived equity of their organizational systems, availability of flexible job structures, and organizational resilience. Regression analyses explored the predictors contributing to scores on the Workplace Equity Index and Organizational Resilience.

The second part targeted a nationally representative sample of 1,062 workplaces in the US, partnering with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) to conduct the National Study of Workplace Equity. Equity concerns across various employment systems were examined, and the correlation between equity and organizational resilience was assessed.

Results: No significant correlation was detected between employee or business pressures and organizational equity indices. However, larger employers, employees with higher proportions of full-time salaried employees, and racial/ethnic minorities reported higher equity (b=0.07,p<.05; b=0.01,p<.01; b=0.01,p<.001, respectively). Organizations with policies and practices perceived as “very fair” demonstrated substantially higher organizational resilience (b=0.25,p<.01), with a slightly stronger effect for proactive resilience (b=0.23,p>.01) than reactive resilience (b=0.28,p<.05). In the national dataset, a significant relationship was observed between overall equity in organizations’ employment systems and organizational resilience (p<.05), consistent with the Massachusetts dataset. Mean scores of equity on a 4-point scale across employment systems were as follows: lowest as 2.46 for resources and support, 2.55 for job structure, 2.59 for supervision and mentoring; highest as 3.03 for recruitment and hiring.

Conclusions and Implications: Results show that organizations embracing methods to build and uphold enhanced degrees of equity (e.g., higher ratio of full-time, racial/ethnic minorities) in the workplace tend to have higher organizational resilience, both in Massachusetts and nationally. The social work profession plays a crucial role in promoting the importance of job structures and employment systems, particularly resources and support, job structure, and supervision and mentoring, which exhibit lowest equity index employment systems, in creating organizational equity amongst employees. Furthermore, the implications for potential upcoming research perspectives in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the aftermath of the pandemic.