The activating profession: coaching and coercing in the welfare services

Abstract

Anniken Hagelund2 Purpose: Activation policies are key elements of contemporary welfare reform throughout Europe. The paper aims to explore the consequences of more active and individualised welfare policies for conceptualisations of professionalism and competence in the welfare services.Design/methodology/apporach: The primary data are 25 qualitative interviews with streetlevel bureaucrats conducted in two local offices in The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). These data were supplemented by relevant policy documents. A distinction between the authorities discourse of organizational professionalism and the streetlevel bureaucrats' discourse of occupational professionalism is applied to structure the analysis.Findings: Efforts to professionalize activation work takes place in the absence of a specific professional knowledge base to guide daily work. The article explores how relevant competence and skills are defined in such a context, both from the perspective of the authorities and from the front-level workers themselves. A key finding is that such competence tends to be defined in terms of the ability to manage communicative processes and relations. Paradoxically, the active turn in social policy with its emphasis on work and activity seems to entail a competence ideal that is inward-looking and psychologized. Research limitations/implications:The qualitative approach implies limited generalisability in terms of statistical representativity. Furthermore, the results invite closer studies of the practical effects for social security users of the identified patterns. Practical implications:Policy makers who aim to make welfare services more work orientated should look for ways of increasing street-level bureaucrats concrete relations with and practical experience from collaboration with employers. This may entail reviewing the practice of outsourcing the implementation of active measures to private actors. Originality/value:The paper adds to a small literature on the implementation of activation policy in contemporary welfare states.

Frontline workers' competency in activation work

“…Thus, this dimension provides training courses, work skills, job counselling, psychosocial counselling and job inclusion assistance. Marchal and Van Mechelen (), in line with other observers (e.g., Dean, ), suggested that, like those of other Nordic countries, Norwegian activation frontline work is characterised by a relatively strong emphasis on the enabling dimension in terms of various skill‐enhancing activities (Hagelund, ), with inclusion in the labour market as the primary focus. Although activation work is mainly a mix of demanding and enabling elements (Aurich, ), the emphasis that is put on the enabling elements in the Norwegian context will plausibly have implications for service provision and frontline workers' attitudes and everyday practices.…”

“…Several researchers have argued that user‐oriented competency is relatively safeguarded, and have simultaneously stressed the need for higher market competency among frontline workers in labour and welfare administration (e.g., Frøyland & Spjelkavik, ; Hagelund, ). The results of the present study support this view, considering that they scored themselves somewhat higher on the user‐oriented competency subscale than on the market competency subscale.…”

“…Our results suggest that it may be important to treat market competency as an important aspect of activation competency, distinguished from user‐oriented competency, although in an integrative manner (Frøyland & Spjelkavik, ). Developing the market competency of frontline workers may be especially important for a successful implementation of activation policies, and market competency has been singled out as the competency area most in need of improvement (Hagelund, ).…”

“…Furthermore, in a comparative study of activation work in three European countries, Nothdurfter and Olesen () argued that because of the merging of employment and social welfare services in Denmark, frontline workers need both user‐oriented and labour market‐oriented knowledge and skills. However, neither Hagelund () nor Nothdurfter and Olesen () have explored the psychometric properties of the activation competency scale nor have they compared activation competency in different groups.…”

“…Efforts have been made to define the professional knowledge base of social work (e.g., Goldstein, ). In the specific context of the present study, it is useful to stress one aspect of the core competency areas of social work, namely the relational, motivational and communicative user orientation (Parton, ), which closely corresponds to the user‐oriented competency dimension in the activation competency proposed by Frøyland and Spjelkavik () and by Hagelund (). Thus, it may be expected that social workers will judge their user‐oriented competency to be higher than that of their colleagues with other educational backgrounds.…”