Video on Decision-making

Here’s a video I made relating to how to make better decisions. Please let me know what you think.

Flow chart with features 2

Using Knowledge for success,
Dr. Rick Hoefer

Long Time No See

This blog went dormant for a while as I was writing a book, Social Policy Creation and Evaluation, for Oxford University Press. While I can’t promise that I’ll be a perfect correspondent, I do promise to get going again! Thanks for your patience and here’s a little something to get back with.

A quick review of “Organizational Leadership and its Impact on Social Workers’ Job Satisfaction: A National Study” by Kathy Elpers and David Westhuis, Administration in Social Work, 32(3), 2008, pp. 26-43.

While the main finding, that organizational leadership impacts job satisfaction, comes as no surprise, the chief selling point of this manuscript is the methodology the authors use. They employ Structural Equation Modeling, a technique that is multivariate and allow multiple pathways to be examined, thus providing a very good way of looking at their data from 2,500 randomly selected social workers.

Thus, I put great credence in the following conclusion by the authors:

“Our analysis found that there were statistically significan differences between what social workers expected from their supervisors compared to what they perceived their supervisors provided, as measured by the total score for the LPI [Leadership Practices Inventory]. …the expectation scores were higher than the perceived leadership scores…as the difference between expected and perceived leadership increases, there is a corresponding lower level of reported job satisfaction…” (p. 36.

The practical significance of this is clear: give ’em what they want (if you can) and they’ll be more satisfied. Presumably, you’ll get more of what you, the supervisor, want in return!

Using Knowledge for Success,
Dr. Rick Hoefer

Another Financial Worry for Nonprofits

All good things must end, I guess.

Auto companies got stimulus funds, banks got stimulus funds, and even some nonprofits got stimulus funds. Nonprofits used their new resources to provide additional help to clients and to hire new staff to work these expanded programs.

But, these funds are ending, even though the increased need of clients has not yet ended. Workers may be facing layoffs.

In Florida, the state is examining the possibility of eliminating the Office on Homelessness and all the staff who work there will need to find other jobs. Nonprofit workers providing the services funded by this Office will also need to look for employment.

Legislative advocacy to keep the funds flowing may be a good idea, but will need to be seen in light of the Republican desire to be in the majority in the US House and Senate. It’s hard to think that their desire to cut the budget deficit will allow additional time for stimulus funding to exist.

Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer

4 Necessary Agency Practices with Bilingual Social Workers

In my review of interesting journal articles, I came across this one, relating to bilingual social workers. David Engstrom, Lissette Piedra and Jong Won Min interviewed 26 of them in San Diego County and what they report is somewhat surprising.

Turns out, this issue is as complex as many others. This research report provides important information from the view point of the social workers.

On the plus side, if a social worker is bilingual, getting a job is pretty easy.

On the negative side, these social workers

1. end up with more difficult clients to work with because the client English proficiency levels are very low;

2. are called upon to translate at a moment’s notice for monolingual colleagues, thus disrupting their own work;

3. tend not to get any workload adjustment for their more difficult caseload and extra job responsibilities; and

4. tend not to get extra pay for their more difficult caseload and extra job responsibilities.

Four agency practices around the topic of bilingual social workers are discussed.

First, agencies need to determine how much second-language proficiency is needed for the job. Not everyone who speaks Spanish, for example, is capable of translating legal proceedings.

Second, agencies need to understand that applicants’ proficiency needs to be tested before hiring, or, if already on staff, proficiency needs to be tested now, to determine if proficiency meets the job requirements.

Third, agencies must be willing to invest in additional training and capacity building of their bilingual workers.

And fourth, agencies should consider offering incentives for bilingual worker retention–a differential work load or additional pay are two options.

Because of the ease with which bilingual workers can get a new job, agencies that want to hire and retain the best bilingual workers need to use these strategies to get where they want to be.

Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer

SOURCE: Engstrom, D., Piedra, L., & Min, J. (2009). Bilingual social workers: Language and service complexities. Administration in Social Work, 33(2), 167-185.

4 Things Nonprofit Supervisors Must Do

Today’s article relates to the management of human service organizations. In the last post, we looked at what organizations can do relating to their environments. This post relates to manager and employee relationships, so it looks only at internal issues.

Cindy Juby and Maria Scannapieco conducted research on child welfare agency workers and managers. In line with other research, they find that:

“Supervisor support, availability of resources, and caseworker ability all are contributing factors associated with satisfaction with workload management. Having available resources was the most influential variable, however, supervisor support increased both the workers’ perceptions of available resources and their ability to adequately perform their job duties besides directly affecting satisfaction with workload management” (p. 103).

In non-academic jargon, regardless of what supervisors can provide in terms of resources, they should provide:

Case guidance;

Emotional support;

Availability; and

Help with problems.

This will help workers feel more satisfied with their caseload management, regardless of the actual size of the workload.

Of course, worker ability has an impact, but more supervisor support reduces the possible negative impact ability can have.

So, a word to supervisors:

While you can’t control the organization’s environment, you can have a big impact on the environment of your workers by providing support in terms of case guidance, emotional support, availability and help with problems.

Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer

SOURCE: Juby, C. & Scannapieco, M. (2007). Characteristics of workload management in public child welfare agencies. Administration in Social Work, 31(3), 95-109.

3 Things Nonprofits Must Do to Thrive

One of the original purposes of this blog was to be to disseminate research knowledge in short bursts—just a quick summary of some of the important papers that have been published in the past few years.

I’ve written for the past month on the horrid funding environment for nonprofits currently and the managerial problems that is causes. But there are three things that research indicate must be done to prepare to the future.

Julie Steen and Thomas Smith describe three primary areas where agencies can prepare: political connectivity, documentation of agency policies, and comprehensive strategic planning.

This research is based on the view that agencies are affected by their environment but that they also can have an impact on it. This is frequently known as the ecological model.

Political connectivity is the extent to which agency leaders are interacting with the leaders of organizations outside the agency, in its environment. This could include governmental leaders (elected and appointed), foundation leaders, business leaders, even university leaders. All of these leaders have resources that the nonprofit may wish to gain access to.

Documentation of agency policies is said to be helpful to running the agency, of course, but can also be helpful to deal with the ever-present threat of lawsuits.

Strategic planning is important because it represents the application of best thinking relating to the organizations strengths, and weaknesses, and relates them to opportunities and threats in the environment. Such planning can provide guidance to the agency as it chooses among various routes it could take to keep afloat. One of the most distressing results from the study is that “Less than a quarter of the organizations reported having a strategic plan that included attention to funding” (p. 37).

Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer
SOURCE: Steen, J. & Smith, T. (2007). An assessment of the minimization of risk and maximization of opportunity among private nonprofit agencies in Florida. Administration in Social Work, 31(3), 29-39.

Getting a Guaranteed Loan: Should Cities Provide them to Nonprofits?

A new twist on government aid to nonprofits. Is it an unalloyed good thing? I think it is very problemmatic for both the nonprofit and the city of San Francisco. Read more!
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March 24, 2010; San Francisco Examiner | As another example of the squeeze on nonprofits, and the inventive solutions being explored to help them continue to provide services in a down economy—as well as the risks some solutions pose—the San Francisco Examiner reports that the city is considering legislation to help the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community Center ward off a pending foreclosure.

If approved by the full Board of Supervisors, the city would set up a mortgage payment reserve fund and put $157,500 into it. According to the Examiner, “the fund is needed to convince First Republic Bank to restructure the center’s loan so the nonprofit could afford the monthly payments.”

While both a civic- and charitable-minded gesture, even backers of the legislation have concerns. On one hand, chair of the committee that approved the deal, Supervisor John Avolos, said he worries it might lead other stressed nonprofits to seek this kind of aid. But he also adds, “We need to continue with the investment, it would be a great loss to the city if there was a foreclosure and we wouldn’t have the LGBT Center.” Another supervisor, Sean Elsbend, opposes the plan, saying the city shoudn’t be on the “hook.”

For its part, the LGBT is looking for more ways its center can help the organization generate more revenue, such as leasing out space to a restaurant. Tough times require tough choices, and in some cases that means opening new doors to keep the doors open.—Bruce Trachtenberg

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Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer

Socialworkmanagement.net website up!

Just a quick announcement.

I’ve developed a new webpage that contains up-to-date information on social work management from across the internet, including news reports, blog postings, images, books, and so on.

It’s a work in progress, but you can see it as it currently is at
social work management website

Let me know what you think!

Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer

Self Assessment Tool on Nonprofit Finances

I’ve been helping spread gloom and doom on the nonprofit financial front. I wish I could be more upbeat, but things really have been dreadful and there’s no reason to be unaware of the challenges.

But, as in all things, we need to know what is happening in our own organization and not assume that we are in the same (or better, or worse) shape than everyone else. In other words, we need self-assessment.

I’m happy to share this tool for organizations to assess their own financial situation. You can access it if you click here:

Self-Assessment Tool

According to the developers (Nonprofits Assistance Fund):

“The Recession Preparedness Assessment is a starting point to help you identify potential risk factors and proactive steps to take right now. With this information, your organization will be better prepared to develop strategies and approaches to respond to the economy and plan for a sustainable future.”

It contains 20 questions to help any nonprofit figure out its level of risk in four areas: financial health, financial information availability, organizational change needed and leadership challenges.

The Nonprofit Assistance Fund is a Minneapolis-based organization that provides credit to nonprofits. Its mission is “to build financially healthy nonprofits that foster community vitality.”

This tool won’t talk long to use and would certainly spark important conversations that need to be started.

Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer

Grant Writing for Nonprofits

Today I went to a meeting where a team of nonprofit employees were hunkered down with a grant writer, all poring over the latest Federal Government request for applications. There was the COO, the CPA, the program director, the outside grant writing specialist, and myself, as the person who’ll write up the program evaluation section.

Why am I writing about this? Because I want to express my admiration to everyone in the room for doing a very tough thing–developing an idea that would:

1) Be feasible;

2) Be effective;

3) Fit the strict requirements of the funding agency; and

4) Help clients deal with their lives in a better way.

If funded, it woudl also provide jobs for workers!

This is not easy work, and the competition is fierce. So, a tip of the hat to them and to everyone else across the country who is doing similar work.

Using knowledge for success,

Dr. Rick Hoefer