On the growth of modern society, the need to promote social welfare is increased. According to the situation, modern society shows a tendency that social welfare organs are on the increase in number as well as the number of social workers. However, ac...
On the growth of modern society, the need to promote social welfare is increased. According to the situation, modern society shows a tendency that social welfare organs are on the increase in number as well as the number of social workers. However, according to the sharp rise in demand of social welfare, social workers are exposed to job stress excessively due to additional duties, changes in work environment, or accumulated duties.
Based on the special qualities of social workers, job stress has effects not only on a personal matter, but also on the clients, social welfare centers, and by the large of local social welfare. Because social workers have an important role in kind service for client and increase of the effect and efficiency on social activities, there is the need to manage job stress of social workers.
From this view point, the objectives of this study are to increase the job satisfaction by an adequate control of job stress and to manage the job stress effectively. To meet the objectives, role qualities, which are the factors of social worker at social welfare center, are divided into role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. And then, the effect of role qualities on the job stress and the effect of job stress on the job satisfaction were analyzed. In addition, the effect of social supports and coping actions on the job stress and job satisfaction as moderate effects were analyzed and discussed.
From the study, the followings were obtained as results. First, among the role qualities, role overload and role conflict indicated much effect on the job stress against role ambiguity. Social supports showed much more effect on job satisfaction including emotional support and means support, and internalizing method and direct action were used as coping actions to job stress. Second, among the role qualities of social workers, role conflict and role overload showed much correlation and, between the social supports, emotional support and means support indicated extremely negative correlation. In addition, among the coping actions, role ambiguity showed extremely negative correlation to direct action and internalizing method, and role ambiguity and role conflict indicated much correlation to externalizing method. Job stress showed negative correlation to job satisfaction and, among the coping actions, job stress indicated much correlation to externalizing method. Besides, job stress showed negative correlation to direct action. Third, among the role qualities of social workers, role conflict and role overload had effects on the job stress. Between social supports, emotional support played a role as a quasi moderator between role overload and job stress. However, means support did not play a role as a moderator between role qualities and job stress. Fourth, job stress had an effect on the job satisfaction. Among coping actions, direct action played a role as a pure moderator between job stress and job satisfaction, and externalizing method played a role as a negative quasi moderator. Fifth, role conflict showed effect on the job satisfaction. Social supports and coping actions did not played a role as a moderator between role qualities and job satisfaction.
From the results, in the study, the followings are suggested to manage of social workers' job stress in social welfare center with details. First, to prevent the job stress of social workers, an improvement of organizing environment at social welfare center. Second, the management of job stress is desired by social supports of social workers and coping actions against job stress based on the organizing supports.
Consequently, from the results of this study, even though social supports showed effects on reducing job stress and increasing job satisfaction, concerning role qualities, despite social supports, job stress was not reduced and job satisfaction was not increased, either. Therefore, to manage of social workers' job stress effectively, improvement in organizing environment should be accomplished including supplement of the personnel and a work responsibility prior to the social supports.