Lean social care and worker identity: The role of outcomes, supervision and mission

Abstract

Since the 1980s, many social care jobs have shifted from the public to the nonprofit sector, accompanied by funding cuts, government contracts, managerialism and performance management. Qualitative data collected in Australia, New Zealand and Canada show that agency mission and immediate supervisors remain centrally important to workers’ identity and willingness to remain employed in social care. With the exception of one study site (where targets were jointly resisted by managers and staff), outcome measures were seen by workers to detract from the quality of care and erode social justice. This article argues that agency mission and supportive supervision buffer the impact of poor wages and conditions in the sector, while outcome measures undermine workers’ identities as caring people, in effect making the ‘self’ a site of struggle and discontent. Resistance strategies that agencies, workers and unions have used to challenge the hegemony of outcome-oriented funding and management models are explored.

Customer-driven management models for choiceless clientele? Business process reengineering in a California welfare agency

“…In the present case, this article highlights the universalist and managerialist orientation adopted by management at all levels, in contrast to other cases where senior state managers gave local managers real autonomy to define local priorities (Foster and Hoggett, 1999) and where middle-and lower-level managers adopted a social work orientation (Baines et al, 2014).…”

“…Among three agencies, devolved teams were embraced only in one due to its distinct office culture, a 'close-knit working community', which shaped the approach of local managers. Even when senior state managers emphasize quantitative efficiency targets, where lower-level managers and supervisors adhere to a social work or social justice ethos, they can moderate such pressures (Baines et al, 2014). In the California agency studied here, County managers explicitly aimed to implement uniform reengineering across local Centers.…”

“…In a UK Contributions Agency after reengineering, staff reported work intensification and reduced autonomy (Harrington et al, 1998). Across three social service organizations in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, lean was implemented in a way that fragmented case management and reduced staffing so much that the social service workers performed unpaid, volunteer work in order to provide service for their clients (Baines et al, 2014). Similarly, at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in the UK, under lean whole-case working was fragmented, work Taylorized and autonomy reduced (Carter et al, 2011).…”

Employee perceptions of HRM and well-being in nonprofit organizations: unpacking the unintended

“…Particularly in the nonprofit setting where employees accept lower wages than in for-profit organizations (Leete, 2000) and often have ethical or ideological motives for working in the sector (Baluch, 2012), employees can be expected to prioritize HR practices differently and vary in their responses to HR practices. For those who view the altruistic, caring aspects of their job as part of their identity and possess a seemingly self-perpetuating commitment to the mission (Baines et al, 2014;Baines and Cunningham, 2011), these employees may have quite low expectations about the level of support their employer…”

Towards a Cognitive Cultural Approach to Public Management Reform

“…Table 2. Qualitative empirical studies referencing Hood and Peters (2004) Article reference Method of data collection Almqvist, Catasús, and Skoog (2011) Da/Int Anderson and Klaassen (2012) Da/Int Azzone and Palermo (2011) Da/Int Baines, Charlesworth, and Cunningham (2014) Da/Int/Obs Baines, Charlesworth, Turner, and O'Neill (2014) Da/Int/Obs Cloutier, Denis, Langley, and Lamothe (2016) Int/Obs Gleeson and Knights (2008) Da/Int Goh, Elliott, and Richards (2015) Da/Int Grimaldi and Serpieri (2013) Da/Int Da/Int Hall and McGinity (2015) Int/Obs Kann-Rasmussen and Balling (2015) Int Kartalis, Tsamenyi, and Jayasinghe (2016) Da ISSN 2161-7104 2018 We first studied the way in which the content of the change was included. It appeared that some studies do not define this content at all, because they do not actually go into a concrete change process.…”