Social Workers satisfaction – important assumption of quality of provided social work We are witnessing that social practice not only in our country, but also in many countries of Europe and overseas reveals significant problems in achieving the declared goals of social work. Authors such as Asquith, Clark, Waterhouse refer to social work as a profession in crisis. According to them, social work in Britain has lost direction and they point to the following areas of contention: crisis of professional identity, erosion of professional unions, lack of professional recognition, shortage of qualified social workers, insufficient recruitment, high turnover and alarmingly high numbers of people leaving professional social work, working conditions, lack of resources necessary to ensure effective social work practice and more (1). The aforementioned authors ask whether social work is suffering from a crisis of professional identity – or whether it is merely in the process of ongoing change and adaptation to changing social needs, political perspectives and service priorities. We could agree with many of the questions presented.

Despite twenty years of existence in the professional training of social workers, we encounter questions that have not yet been resolved. Social workers perceive their professional status as low compared to other "helping professions", their financial remuneration is often only 60-70 of the average wage in the national economy, the conditions for work, especially in public administration, are insufficient, moreover, there is no professional association that would support the strengthening of the social worker's position in society (2).

These persistent anomalies of professional identity are most often manifested in the field of social assistance, specifically in solving the problems of social protection of children and social guardianship. We have therefore tried to draw attention in the next section to some ongoing problems, especially in the area that requires competent, educated and satisfied professional employees.

In the performance of social work activities, social protection of children has a special status. We could say that the social protection of children is seen as a prestigious expertise in social work. The task of social protection in Slovakia is also to focus on preventive action within its individual levels and on related intervention. Attention is mainly focused on children who are or may be at risk of neglect or abuse, children with special health needs, delinquent children and children who do not have proper care.

In this context, the finding of the Child Welfare League of America, which presented the results of research in 2002, is also interesting, according to which public and private non-profit organizations report that in the field of child care there is an evident growing number of children requiring their services and, at the same time, a lack of qualified workers. It is the decline of a competent and stable workforce that has the most significant impact on the ability of the social protection system to effectively serve vulnerable children and families. Almost every industry experiences workforce reductions at some point, but the decline in the helping professions is particularly problematic. Success in working with children and families depends on the acquisition of practical professional skills, on the ability to gradually form relationships of trust between the worker and the client. An obstacle to this process is the fact that organizations face employee turnover, which annually exceeds the 50 percent level. The unfavorable situation is noticeable on three levels, in the area of:

  • there is an insufficient number of qualified candidates for labor force recruitment,
  • competition with other segments of the economy in terms of salary, benefits and working conditions,
  • stabilization of the workforce - professional employees.

From the research, it was also clear that the decisive comments of professional employees in the field of social protection were directed towards the growing complex of requirements for services and increasing workload, lack of resources for clients, inadequate financial evaluation, the area of ​​safety and responsibility, poor physical and organizational working conditions. The Child Welfare League of America emphasizes that the lack of progress in solving these problems, the continuing negative perception of the area of ​​social and legal protection of children by the public, as well as the reluctance to invest public resources in children, families and those who work with them, require a multilevel approach (3). On the other hand, the National Association of Social Workers in the United States of America sees a positive in the continued support of the partnership between schools of social work and the public child welfare system with federal funds.

Situation in Slovakia

Even in our conditions, the situation is not ideal. The Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family prepared an interesting informative material, the aim of which was to map the conditions for the implementation of measures of social legal protection of children and social guardianship in the departments of social legal protection of children and social guardianship of the Offices of Labour, Social Affairs and Family. It states that changes in the legislation of the Slovak Republic have seen a significant qualitative shift in recent years, and the legal regulation of the social protection of children and social guardianship in Slovakia is comparable to the social policies of the countries of the European Union. However, the real conditions for their implementation lag behind the legislative possibilities for the implementation of measures for the social protection of children and social guardianship, most significantly in the field of personnel security. The authors evaluated that the average number of resolved cases per employee per year is 248. It follows that the average working time of an employee who can devote to one case in the current situation is less than 1 working day per year, which cannot be enough time even for the minimum implementation of social protection measures for children in seemingly simple cases of social protection for children. However, resolved cases require an individual approach and time-consuming actions. According to information from discussions at various professional international forums, e.g. the number of families per social worker in England or Sweden is approximately 15. The comparison of these two numbers (248 and 15) certainly does not require comment, although, of course, we must respect the economic potential of the countries mentioned and the traditions in the field of applying the system of social protection, as well as the entire system of ensuring social assistance and social work with families.

In the context of the above-mentioned texts, the question of job satisfaction of social workers resonates.

2 Job satisfaction of social workers

A qualified and experienced workforce is a valuable asset for any employer. Measures to increase job satisfaction can also be the way to a stable and committed work team. This is also confirmed by research that indicates that employees who are satisfied with their work are more likely to stay in their jobs (4).

Overall job satisfaction includes various partial satisfactions. There is a relationship of mutual influence between both phenomena. Overall satisfaction significantly determines the degree of satisfaction with individual aspects of work, and satisfaction with sub-factors of work supports overall satisfaction. Job satisfaction theories point to factors related to external work conditions that are independent of the worker. They correspond to the so-called the hygiene factor from the two-factor theory of job satisfaction by Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman, who include: interpersonal relations, supervision, working conditions, salary and safety, and company policy. The second, separate group consists of factors that affect the content of work. They named them motivational factors, while their existence or fulfillment affects satisfaction. Rymeš, for example, classifies financial evaluation, the work itself, work procedure, management method, work group and working conditions as external factors (5).

Franěk – Večeřa claim that the situational model of job satisfaction suggests that job satisfaction is derived from working conditions. Situational factors include e.g. salary and benefits, promotion system in the company, working conditions, quality of the individual's relationship with the superior, social relations, work itself (6).

We know that it is generally true that the work environment affects employees mainly through their attitudes, and conversely, these attitudes shape employee goals and behavior. The working environment represents more than just the material, physical aspect, it is characterized by its social and psychological structure. The conditions of the working environment and the form of specific work characteristics such as the way of management, communication, variability of work tasks, stress, workload, degree of responsibility, safety and health protection at work, risk tolerance and many others, have a significant impact on the performance of practical social work. According to Allen, workers cannot be successful in their mission if they are not motivated, dedicated, satisfied and experienced. Their failure affects clients, families, co-workers, the organization and society. As Allen further argues, researchers have focused on examining the impact of job characteristics on social workers. Based on the obtained results, they recommend that managers create a supportive work environment and, in order to increase the job satisfaction and loyalty of workers, they should focus their attention mainly on the management method, work diversity, work stress and autonomy, as these work characteristics are important determinants of the job satisfaction of social workers. Research has shown that there is a more significant relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction than between personality characteristics (age, gender, skin color, education) and job satisfaction. In their opinion, focusing on adjusting the observed work characteristics will bring not only a higher level of job satisfaction, but also a reduction of burnout syndrome, turnover, an increase in work morale, performance and quality of services provided to clients (7).

Authors Dickens and Serghi also point to other research that aimed to increase understanding of the workforce structure in state social services with the perception of stress and levels of satisfaction experienced by social workers. The results of the research draw attention to this combination of the situation in Romania and in England, when they examined the opinions of respondents who came from four groups: managers, field social workers, domestic workers and workers in residential settings. The analysis of the data, obtained by the questionnaire technique, brought findings according to which the overall job satisfaction of social workers in Romania is clearly higher than in England. In only two factors, Romanian social workers expressed a lower level of satisfaction - variety of work tasks and opportunities to use their skills at work. A comparable level of dissatisfaction in both countries was recorded for two variables - salary conditions and career advancement opportunities (8).

Conclusion

The position of a social worker and his perception by society is often diverse. The reason may be the wide spectrum of problems that the social worker deals with, his status compared to other helping professions (working conditions, salary evaluation, traditions of social work in Slovakia, etc.). Today's social worker takes responsibility for a number of activities when working with target groups of clients who are in difficult life situations. Sufficient conditions are often not created for this demanding work. We think that this situation also affects the overall satisfaction of social workers, while we assume that there may be an uneven connection between satisfaction and, on the other hand, the motivation and quality of professional activities. This phenomenon will be the subject of our further investigation in the future.

Authors: Prof. PaedDr. Milan Schavel, PhD PhDr. Anna Danišková List of references

ALLEN, R.I., LAMBERT, E.G., PASUPULETI, S., CLUSE-TOLAR, T., VENTURA, L.A. 2004. The impact of job characteristics on social and human service workers. In: Social Work & Society. [online]. 2004, 2, 173-188. ISSN 1613-8953. [cited 2011-13-03]. Available online: http://www.socwork.net/2004/2/articles/454/Allen-Lambert2004.pdf. ISSN 1613-8953

ASQUITH, S. – CLARK, CH. – WATERHOUSE, L. 2005. The role of the social worker in the 21st century – a literature review. Insight. [online]. 2005, 25, ISSN 1478-6796, 1-8. [cited 2011-04-07]. Available online: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/47121/0020658.pdf

DICKENS, J. – SERGHI, C. 2000. Stresses and satisfactions for social workers in Romania and England. In: Social Work in Europe. [online]. 2000, 3, 14 – 23. [cited 2011-13-03]. Available online: http://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/repository/fulltext/0069867.pdf

21st Century Social Work Review. 2011. The vision of the social worker in the 21st century. [online]. [cited 2011-04-07]. Available online: http://www.socialworkscotland.org.uk/resources/pub/roleofsocialworkervisionpaper.pdf

FRANĚK, M. – VEČEŘA, J. 2008. Personal characteristics and job satisfaction. In: Economics and management. [online]. 2008, 4, 63-76. [cited 2011-22-03]. Available online: http://custom.kbbarko.cz/e+m/04_2008/06_franek.pdf

Child Welfare League of AMERICA, 2002. Child welfare workforce. [online]. [cited 2011-10-11]. Available online: http://www.cwla.org/programs/r2p/rrnews0209.pdf

National Association of Social Workers, 2005. NASW Standards for Social Work Practice in Child Welfare. [online]. [cited 2011-10-11]. Available online: http://www.socialworkers.org/practice/standards/NASWChildWelfareStandards0905.pdf

ŠTIKAŘ, J. – RYMEŠ, M. – RIEGEL, K. – HOSKOVEC, J. 2003. Psychology in the world of work. 1st ed. Prague: Karolinum, 2003. 461 p. ISBN 80-246-0448-5

(1) ASQUITH, S. – CLARK, CH. – WATERHOUSE, L. 2005. The role of the social worker in the 21st century – a literature review. Insight. [online]. (2) Note Research by Schavel (2004,2006,20011) on the satisfaction of social workers with working conditions, professional status and social recognition (3) Child Welfare League of AMERICA, 2002. Child welfare workforce. [online]. (4) Society for human resource management. 2009. 2009 employee job satisfaction. [online] (5) ŠTIKAŘ, J. – RYMEŠ, M. – RIEGEL, K. – HOSKOVEC, J. 2003. Psychology in the world of work. 1st ed. Prague: Karolinum, 2003. 461 p. ISBN 80-246-0448-5 (6) FRANĚK, M. – VEČEŘA, J. 2008. Personal characteristics and job satisfaction. In: Economics and management. [online]. (7) ALLEN, R.I., LAMBERT, E.G., PASUPULETI, S., CLUSE-TOLAR, T., VENTURA, L.A. 2004. The impact of job characteristics on social and human service workers. In: Social Work & Society. [online]. (8) DICKENS, J. – SERGHI, C. 2000. Stresses and satisfactions for social workers in Romania and England. In: Social Work in Europe. [online].