This study seeks to explore evidential bases for policy directions and efficient human resource management and also to strengthen professionalism of public social welfare service delivery system, which are needed to effectuate the optimal social welfa...
This study seeks to explore evidential bases for policy directions and efficient human resource management and also to strengthen professionalism of public social welfare service delivery system, which are needed to effectuate the optimal social welfare administrative services in the midst of rapidly changing social welfare conditions and of decentralization taking place.
With this objective, the study explores the current status of supervision for public social workers, the central figures in public social welfare delivery system and then attempts to examine the mediating effects of current supervision functions on the relationship of social worker‘s job and organizational environment with their job satisfaction and organizational commitment through a structural equation modeling analysis.
For the study, surveys were distributed among 560 public social workers with 7th~9th rankings, currently employed in welfare offices in 14 gu-and dong- offices in Seoul from February 14th to March 31st in 2007. Among 459 returned surveys, responses from 378 surveys used for the data analysis, had been filled out by supervisees.
The findings of the study are as follows.
Among 378 supervisee-level of public social workers, 72.2% (273) reported of receiving supervision. As for the relationship among work-related variables, first, job environment and organizational environment were found to have direct effect on the social worker‘s job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This indicates that the more role conflict, role ambiguity, and role and job overload these social workers experience, their satisfaction stemming from internal values of job itself and the level of satisfaction with external rewards of the job are decreased. In the same way, the level of psychological attachment such as their sense of belonging, pride, devotion, and satisfaction with job, and the degree to which the workers internalize the organization's goal, value, and mission also decrease as they experience difficulties in their role.
In addition, this finding shows that the more integrated and comprehensive service system, which is the main reorganization strategy of current delivery system is, and the higher level of the organizational environmental integration, inclusion, and professionalism is, the levels of social worker‘s job satisfaction and organizational commitment increase. This finding suggests that positive organizational environment is needed to improve the worker’s job performance and organizational performance.
Second, as job environment and organizational environment influence the worker‘s job satisfaction and organizational commitment, supervision was found to play an important mediating role in this relationship. In particular, the functions of supervision was found to have a partial mediating effect on job environment and organizational environment's relationship with job satisfaction and a full mediating effect of supervision was found on the relationship of job environment and organizational commitment. This finding shows that supervision plays a critical role in improving the government employed social worker’s job satisfaction and organizational commitment under current job and organizational environment and that supervision is a crucial interactional support mechanism that should not be overlooked in increasing the worker‘s job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
Above findings provide evidential needs to further systematize supervision provision for public social workers at organizational level which has so far been carried out in an informal manner. In addition, it provides evidence that the provision of proper supervision is only feasible when it is implemented with an organizational effort to expand quantitatively and improve qualitatively, not just with an individual's effort.
Also supervision provides opportunities for the social workers to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills to work and receive feedback and support on their job performance. Therefore, the finding suggests needs to reflect worker‘s individual needs for job assignment and to considerately allow workers to perform their job duties more flexibly through well-managed supervision in human resource management system.
Previous research on supervision and related topics have been mostly conducted on social workers employed in social welfare organizations in private sector and they have identified a dependent variable only through sociodemographic variables of these social workers, not with other various work-related variables.
This study sets itself apart from the previous work in that it has positively identified structural and theoretical relationship model of job-related variables of public social workers through multidisciplinary literature review such as social work administration, practice, management, and organization theory. It is significant in that the study promotes the needs for establishment and formal operation of supervision system for public social workers just as the application of supervision in professional social work field is being emphasized.
The findings propose a direction to improve the organizational performance and provide an important data for future research on public social workers as well as work-related factors and social work human resource management.