The social welfare field has been expanding to a variety of areas not only in terms of social welfare facilities and community centers for children, physically & mentally challenged, and elderly, but also secondary fields such as hospitals, prisons, s...
The social welfare field has been expanding to a variety of areas not only in terms of social welfare facilities and community centers for children, physically & mentally challenged, and elderly, but also secondary fields such as hospitals, prisons, schools, and companies, along with the social trend. Among these, the social contributing activities of companies are one of the highlighted fields.
In this study, the effect of important players who play a critical part in the fields of private social welfare circles such as socially contributing worker’s supervision on burnouts are reviewed. However, since companies’ social contribution is not solidly settled as a proper identity among all social welfare fields, each variable of burnouts for socially contributing company workers and community welfare center workers were comparatively analyzed.
In this research, three factors as independent variables were selected as factors for putting impact on burnouts through preceding studies; individual characteristics, working environment, and supervision. For burnout which was used as dependent variable was implemented by Maslach & Jackson(1981)’s Maslach Burnout Inventory scale. For variables of working environment, the scale developed by Jayarant & Chess(1982) and translated by Lee, Young-mee and Seong, Gyu-tack(1991) was implemented. Lastly, variables for supervision were implemented by re-constructed questionnaires based on contents of Middleman & Roders’ Function and its role of supervision and the scale used by Lee, Jee-young(2004).
The samples were collected from socially contributing workers in 89 companies with social contribution teams, and social workers in Seoul’s 89 social welfare facilities. This research was taken for two weeks, from 9th of November 2009. Data used in the final analysis were 147copies, with statistical analysis including technical statistics, t-test, ANOVA, correlation analysis, and regression analysis.
The followings are the results for this study.
First, when reviewing the impact of working environment on burnouts through regression analysis, no difference were found between socially contributing companies’ workers and social workers in social welfare facilities. Challenge, role conflicts, and work volume had significant effect on emotional burnouts, and relaxation, challenge, and work volume had effects on non-personification towards clients. When looking at burnouts as a whole, role conflicts were high when challenge and relaxation were low, and as role ambiguity became higher, so did the burnouts.
Second, when looking at the impact of supervision on burnouts by regression analysis, there were differences shown in groups. In other words, when socially contributing companies’ workers were under more supervision, their burnout rates were high too. This means that the supervision empowered burnouts for workers at socially contributing companies when compared to the fact that supervision had preventive effect for burnouts. Also, it can be said that the supervision in socially contributing companies did not function as its intentional means. Factors such as changes, education, evaluation, and catalysts were putting significant impact on burnouts. With high administrations and changes of supervision with low education,
Emotional burnouts were highly recognized. Also, as education became lower, respondents answered that their lack of achievement became higher. In addition, when functions for change, personification, and catalysts were high, along with low evaluation and stress management function, the respondents highly recognized non-personification towards their clients.
Third, when examining the burnouts by regression analysis, there were no differences between the two groups. Also, the subordinate factors of working environment such as relaxation, role conflicts, and the subordinate factors of supervision desires such as administration, education, personification, and catalysts showed significant impacts. In a nutshell, when relaxation for working environment became lower with high role conflicts, burnouts too showed high results. Among supervision desires, high burnouts were shown by low administration, high education, high personification, and high catalysts. Accordingly, as each independent variable were analyzed, the subordinate factors of supervision such as education, socialization, evaluation, and catalysts functions were offset by the impact of subordinate factors of working environment such as challenge and role ambiguity. Also, the subordinate variables of supervision desire such as socialization, administration, education, personification, and catalysts function’s impact increased.
Through the above-stated study results, the influence factors of socio-demographical features, working environment, and supervision on burnouts of socially contributing companies’ workers and social workers at social welfare centers were reviewed. Also, by regression analysis on burnouts and comprehensive examination, it was found that supervision reacted as a preventive and alleviating measure for burnouts. However, for factors which supervision puts impact on burnouts, it showed a reversed effect; the supervision of socially contributing companies’ teams rather enforced burnouts, not reacting as its original function of preventing burnouts. Nevertheless, there are possibilities that the original function of supervision which can alleviate burnouts can be made through providing appropriate types of supervision at the right time for socially contributing companies’ teams.
There are three suggestions for this issue. First, studies on supervision which can prevent burnouts for workers in socially contributing companies should be made, along with searches for alternatives to enhance the supervision. Second, at the socially contributing companies’ teams, appropriate understandings and timely fashions of supervision can be achieved through benchmarking university professors and other experienced institutions.