Social worker jobs can put professionals through higher than average stress and burnout. As local authorities are forced to make cuts, increasingly large caseloads in a job with strong emotional demands are placing more pressure on our social workers than ever before. Researchers in Calgary, Canada have attempted to find the key to happiness for those in social services jobs, hoping that policy makers will embrace their data to make social worker jobs more attractive. The study, by John Graham, a professor of social work at the University of Calgary, focussed on what makes these professionals happy, rather than concentrating on the well documented causes of stress. His work will be of interest to all employers who want to make sure they keep hold of their valued employees.
He was motivated by trying to keep people in social services jobs, after recent statistics showed that eight percent of teachers and 15 per cent of social workers leave their jobs every year. Graham’s team sent a survey to 2,500 registered social workers in Alberta, and received 700 replies. They took the 13 ‘happiest’ social workers of those who had replied and focussed their investigation on their lives, through job shadowing and in depth interviews.
They saw that the happiest social workers reported higher levels of fulfilment when they had flexible work schedules, work life balance and support in their jobs. Graham commented that social workers, by their nature, are caring, sociable people. When they suffer from high caseloads they need to be given support in order to do their jobs well. One of the findings reported commonly by the happiest social workers was having a high degree of freedom as part of their jobs, particularly having enough flexibility to manage the demands of heir jobs with their personal lives.
From victims of abuse to neglected children, people in social work jobs find themselves in many kinds of challenging circumstances every day. This makes social services jobs demanding, but also fulfilling, as long as social workers receive enough support. These findings have interesting implications beyond the remit of social worker jobs, as other employers might be encouraged to look at what makes their employees happy rather than tackling what makes them stressed. As the researchers point out, everyone is more effective in their role when they can find satisfaction and happiness in what they do. The most effective way to help your employees achieve this is to develop organizational cultures that reinforce these principles.
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