As our society and helping organizations and systems adjust to CoVID-19 being endemic to our world, the human services system continues to hear about the amount of organizational stress our systems have worked through and the impact that it has on the professionals in those systems. Much of the research and conversation around this subject includes how workers’ levels of Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) are impacted by the level of organizational stress their agency is experiencing, as well as how their agency responds to its own stressors and that of their workers. We know that human services systems and employees were experiencing elevated levels of organizational and work-related stress prior to the pandemic, however, the pandemic placed a spotlight on these issues and the spotlight is staying on them.
In researching the reasons for “The Great Resignation” that began in the Spring of 2021, causes of resignation such as a lack of connection for workers (driven by the shift to remote work), lack of investment in employees, lack of direction, and employers’ inadequate responses to shifting needs and expectations of their workforce have been identified (Emory University, 2022). Many helping professionals have the added stress of experiencing STS due to the day-to-day work that they go through in addition to stressors from the pandemic. Typical human service organizational stressors and changes that agencies made to continue providing services coupled with worker STS have created a dynamic that has led to higher-than-normal rates of turnover. There is no fault in these situations as typical stressors, recent events, and overall system changes combined to create a perfect storm that overwhelmed organizations, systems, and their workforces. However, there have been lessons learned that inform how well those organizations and systems can move forward to recruit, engage, train, and maintain their workforces for the future. There are things that will remain out of organizational spheres’ of control such as policy and law changes that impact practice and the severity of the cases handled. However, there are salient lessons learned from the past few years that organizations and agencies can utilize to inform new practices that will impact how well they move forward with their current and future workforces. We will be discussing these in further detail in future blogs, so stay tuned!
Reference
Emory University Corporate Learning, Emory Continuing Education (2022). Training as a Solution for Retention. https://ece.emory.edu/corporat...ampaign-wp/index.php
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