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January Currents Issue, 2005
Focus Group Findings
Recognizing the Human Element at Work –
Benefit to the Worker, the Employer, and the Public
What do corporations, hospitals, educational and cultural institutions, city government, and labor unions all have in common?
One answer is that they are all organizations that employ or represent
people as workers.
Another answer is that many of them engage professional social workers
to provide services to their employees.
Social workers in these settings address a range of issues, from stress,
depression and addictions, to family problems, serious illness, as well
as trauma from disasters and other catastrophic events.
On November 23, 2004, the New York City Chapter of the National Association
of Social Workers, convened 10 experienced social workers representing
a range of employment settings to participate in a focus group. The purpose
of the group was to help clarify the nature of services in what is now
referred to within the profession as “social work in the world of
work”.
The participants were told that their names and the organizations that
they work with would not be identified in the reporting of the meeting
in order to permit an open and frank discussion.
Addressing
The Impact Of Illness On Maintaining Employment
Over the course of two hours, the participants described how they enable
workers to remain in their jobs when faced with serious challenges. One
social worker, for example, described a large setting employing Ph.D.’s.
She told of helping staff undergoing cancer treatment maintain their employment.
She said that the greatest impediment to continuing to work is often not
the cancer itself but the accompanying depression, which can be exacerbated
by the fear of being unfairly stigmatized, as not being able to work in
as productive a manner as prior to the illness. Counseling has been helpful
in these situations in dealing with the depression; it is often of limited
duration, and allows the workers to remain productive.
Not Just Counseling
All of the participants emphasized that counseling is only one form of
intervention utilized by social workers in the workplace. They spent a
good deal of the time describing a range of activities that are necessary
to truly deal with the needs of a situation.
A story illustrating this was shared where an employee was accused of
assaulting a member of the public who was experiencing difficulty getting
services. The social worker explained that there is an increasing amount
of frustration in obtaining services in some communities. He said that
workers are sometimes attacked, and it was the employee’s claim
that she had been the one who had been assaulted in the situation being
described.
The social worker said that while the employee was suspended, his services
included, in addition to counseling, helping this woman obtain legal and
union representation, and assuring that her health benefits were not discontinued.
Had they been discontinued, not only would she have been without coverage,
her grandson, who she was caring for, would have lost coverage as a dependent,
as well. It was pointed out that the child had chronic asthma and that
a loss of health coverage could have put his life at-risk.
In this case, the social work intervention prevented a domino effect being
set in motion in which a dispute on the job could have resulted in crises
beyond the life of one person.
In another situation, a central member of a team of employees died just
hours before the critical deadline for their work, involving the public.
The social worker recounted how she partnered with a psychiatrist in determining
which of the surviving workers could complete the job. In addition, while
the psychiatrist provided bereavement counseling, the social worker arranged
for the family of the deceased to be notified and provided support, as
well as helping the family arrange for the funeral and deal with related
financial matters. Follow up for the other staff was also provided.
When the Public is Put At-Risk
Many people work in situations where, if they make a mistake, members
of the public can be killed or injured. One social worker said that because
of this, she sees the public as her “client”, not just the
employee who has a problem, nor the organization that retains her services.
This social worker said that she feels that her first obligation is to
assure that the public will be safe, if the individual that she works
with is going to be engaging in activities that could directly endanger
lives. She explained that the staffs that she sees are often about to
lose their jobs because of the use of illicit drugs, and would not be
permitted to return to work, except for the rehabilitation services that
she and her colleagues provide. She said that she has the responsibility
to certify that an employee is fit to return to work. She was obviously
pleased to share that after many years, not one of her service recipients
was ever involved in a situation that compromised the public’s safety.
She pointed out that when she was first brought on board to provide services,
several officials of the organization strongly opposed trying to help
workers keep their jobs in light of the use of chemical substances. She
said that she was asked, “why are you pandering to all of these
drug addicts?”
One of these organization officials recently remarked that she is making
a significant contribution to the organization by returning productive
employees back to the workplace. He observed that when someone is fired
and needs to be replaced, a great deal of experience is lost and that
it is very costly to train someone new.
Diversity in the Workplace Mirrors Society
The workplace, like the rest of society, is comprised of people from many
backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, and races. The focus group participants
pointed out that social workers typically take this diversity into account
when providing services, recognizing that workers experience things in
very different ways. Awareness of difference and how to work with it is
essential to providing effective service, as well as assuring a productive
workforce.
One social worker, who provides services through a major labor union,
told of a situation where members of the union were experiencing racial
tensions with other workers in their work setting. This was not a typical
labor-management problem, and the organization itself was not engaged
in discrimination.
The social worker determined that the problem was that the organizational
management was not doing what it possibly could to deal with the tensions
among its employees. She intervened by taking a team approach, collaborating
with managers in helping them understand how they could address the problem,
along with the union.
When Trouble at Home is Behind Problems at Work
There was strong agreement by the focus group participants that attending
to the internal, psychological and emotional experiences of people struggling
with problems in the workplace are important but insufficient. One of
the things they felt that professional social workers bring to “the
world of work” is an interest in examining what is going on around
the person, in the work environment, within their families, and, often,
helping workers access resources and services in their communities.
One social worker told how she determined that a female employee who was
having trouble at work was the victim of domestic violence at home. The
social worker went beyond counseling. She persuaded the employer to increase
its security on behalf of this woman, and she helped the woman receive
assistance from a crime victims’ service organization that specializes
in issues of domestic violence. Only addressing this woman’s internal
experiences would have been ineffective.
The Challenge of Providing Services in the Workplace
Before the focus group discussion ended, the participants were asked what
challenges they face in providing services to people as workers.
While there was universal agreement among these social workers that they
feel they are effective in addressing workers’ issues and that the
employing organizations recognize the benefit of these services, there
is a continuous need to be able to communicate the value of these services
within organizational settings. Organizational leaders who understand
the benefit of addressing the human element within the workforce will
often come and go, and the process of proving the worth of services has
to start over.
The social workers also said that it is continually important to let the
members of an organization know of the availability of services; program
promotion is essential to assure that workers and their supervisors seek
out the services. Related to this, there is often a stigma attached to
acknowledging that one needs help, although stigma may have been reduced
following 9/11, when so many people received social and mental health
services.