Management Functions In Social Work Services: An Overview Essay.

Application and knowledge of theory

In an organization, people working in different positions are having a certain managerial approach to take into consideration in order to manage different activities within an organizational operation. This research is about discussing the major functions or components of management such as – planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Each stage are having certain characteristics based on which an organization work to meet its goals and objectives. The role of effective managers comes into consideration in order to understand how these components can achieve the success of an organization. An organization does not only limit to providing services to consumers but also works for social services in this modern era. This is because the more an organization will keep involved in social services, the more the business organization can make its brand image stronger by reaching the consumers in a more effective way. In order to deal with social services, an organization needs to adopt the main functions of management and those that will be discussed in the following search. In order to let the readers understand the management of social work services, there is a different reasonable good selection on upper-level management which will be showcased in the following research. Different theoretical frameworks related to management and social services will also be showcased in the below study. Different journals and articles related to organizational management in social services will be taken into account to have depth understanding of the management process.

Change management within an organization is one of the features of the services of social work. The satisfaction of workers within an organization in terms of the job with motivation is having positive organizational behaviour of social workers. This is because if workers can feel encouraged and motivated toward different social work activities, then the chances of more effective work and engagement also increase. Due to a lack of managerial approach, non-profit organizations are facing challenges in terms of raising funds for their agencies in terms of social services (Hall, 2010). Even if the board of directors are monitoring and evaluating the strategies of the outcomes, but still incapable of evaluating the performance of social care agencies. Due to having non-profit from the working activities of agencies, the motivation among the workers also does not seem to be effective and that is where the lack of management within the agencies of social work needs to be identified. According to the theory of conflicts, non-profit organizations use to face conflict perception due to a mismatch of decisions and ideas among the workers and board of directors. The roles and responsibilities in terms of management functions within the non-profit organizations include developing and promoting the mission of the agency, ethical and legal oversight and financial planning (Stoecker, 2007). In addition to that strategic planning, ensuring proper resources, and assessing the performance of the board are the other key managerial approaches managed by the non-profit agencies in terms of social care services. There are different models as well based on which non-profit organizations use to manage their operations as the hierarchical model helps the directors to set their values with mission and vision. In addition to that setting policy parameters for workers to follow the same path is another key consideration of management followed by agencies in the social care services (Drucker, 2006).

Logical development

According to Kotter's Eight Stage Process, an organization can effectively go for a change management process in terms of operational activities. This model with different stages can help an organization provide social care services to society. According to corporate social responsibilities, people within the business environment is having some responsibility towards society and thus need to have a managerial approach to meet the objectives and goals of CSR. The first stage of the framework is the sense of urgency where due to certain reasons organizations goes for providing social services to different groups of people and community (Kotter, 2008). Sensing the urgency of planning and implementation is one kind of managerial approach that an organization must adopt for business performance and development. In order to act as a carer for social services such as working for human rights, an organization must create a guiding coalition where based on different policies and combined action an organization can make sure about its effectiveness. Providing the workers with different rights irrespective of gender can encourage and motivate them to have better business performance (Smith, 2011). The third stage is about developing the vision and strategy of the business process. A manager within an organization needs to develop the strategic measurement for the social services where the first and foremost consideration is the workforce. The senior-level people are having different skills and talents compared to the young workers (Raineri, 2011). So managing or giving priority to senior employees can have better outcomes in social services where the young workers need more training and evaluation programs to ensure effective outcomes. Transferring knowledge from senior people to junior workers also needs to take into account where management with non-profit and profit organizations must ensure giving opportunities to the junior and senior workers to engage in the knowledge transfer management (Sherman, 2008). Communicating the change process and management with the team and empowering them to put input on those processes can provide effectiveness while working in social care services.  In terms of healthcare services supporting the senior and effective workers can provide good care treatment to patients with different conditions. In addition to that, considering the management in terms of rewards and recognition with providing needs to the workers can also ensure providing better care in terms of services for the needy people within the society (Perlmutter, Netting & Bailey, 2001).

Social work or service is one of the successful and rewarding occupations. It can be seen that workers while working for social services on a regular basis use to tackle different issues that most common people avoid doing. Thus it becomes challenging for an organization to retain social workers within a workplace (Minichiello, Aroni & Hays, 2008). Therefore an organization need different management approaches to manage the workforce for better social care services. A certain number of social care organizations are under economic rationalism and resources which can result in being force the organization to strive for efficiency than effectiveness. Even it can be said that many social care workers in different organizations are facing high workloads without having proper resources and that is one of the reasons behind the need for proper managerial consideration (Davys & Beddoe, 2010). The pressure due to lack of proper management functions can put the workers into negative cultural consequences, the breakdown of peer networkers and poor morale of the workers. Poor retention rates and high turnover of staff can be reduced by reducing the scarcity of resources and constant training and recruitment of staff. Maintaining the quality of services with proper training and evaluation program can maintain a good relationship with the society and community (Halbesleben, 2008).

Among different functions or components, the style of leadership is another key consideration where an alpha or traditional leadership defines the authority and power with a hierarchical structure where different levels of workers will have different roles and responsibilities to provide support and community. On the other hand, a beta leadership style involves the sharing of power and also puts the workers to provide an idea for the decision-making process (Perlmutter, Netting & Bailey, 2001). In addition to that giving attention to the staff in terms of satisfying their needs and problem-solving strategies can also ensure about effective management process in social care. In addition to that in social care services if an organization or agency can focus on protecting the core services and can also provide staff with creativity in the quality and efficiency of services, then the planning process and working with communities can be successful. The public sector agencies in social care are still having some unique challenges such as maintaining the mandate services and meeting the expectations of performance is also not meeting due to the decline of resources (Proehl, 2001). In order to get rid of that, many cutback tactics of management can come into consideration to provide benefits and effectiveness to workers and the level of performance also can increase. 

There are different kinds of management tools and processes of decisions that have been identified from the research as while conducting social services, an organization needs to have a good consultation with staff. This can let the workers feel like an asset within the organization and in terms of understanding the mission and goals, the consultation will be easier in terms of managing the operations (Bovaird & Davis, 1999). In addition to that effective meetings with the management team where the participants can input their ideas and accordingly decisions will be taken into account will be helpful for better operational activities. Along with that, there are different factors that are influencing the choices of management strategies as an organization must work on providing better services to workers which can minimize their negative impact from them. Based on setting positive regulations and policies within the services of social work, an organization ensure about complying with the expectations of performance (Ruch, 2008). Calculating the key performance indicators is another managerial approach which can make sure a social service agency about the performance measurements. The Analysis of risks and accordingly planning for mitigating the risks are other key considerations that management can work on to provide better services in social care.

In addition to that, there are different ethical considerations an agency needs to work on such as serving the neediest people, serving people with equality irrespective of gender, age, culture or background and seeking the greatest goods are other considerations that an organization must adopt in social services (Abramovitz, 2005). In terms of giving positions to workers, an organization must manage accordingly from different research and experiments. It has been found that the newly promoted managers use to have less experience and also feel unprepared for the shift in terms of identifying the problems, challenges and the responsibilities of the new position. Similarly, giving value and preferring the tenure workers rather than junior level workers is another key consideration because the skills, mindset and talent of senior workers might not match the level of low-level workers (Kearney, 2004).

In this 21^st century, the society of New Zealand is quite diverse socially with different pertaining such as gender, age, sexual orientation, culture, religion and many more other considerations. This social diversification can be seen in most of the English speaking western countries. Among different social services, the charity-based welfare services were established in the late 19^th century which is influenced by the British system. With the help of welfare agencies, voluntary charity services were developing. It has been seen from different research that, the government of New Zealand has developed a state of welfare in the first half of the 20^th century (O’Donoghue & Tsui, 2012). The categories of workers in terms of social workers and welfare officers were established and different workers have been chosen who can work as full-time workers in the section of child probation, welfare and different other social services. In order to have supervision of the workers, the government has chosen the model called apprenticeship and administrative to focus on the skills and job performance of the workers. It has been found that, in order to have proper management of the social care activities, the agencies of social care use to provide training to the workers and with effective supervision, the workers use to continue their operations without interruption from the welfare department. The confidence and the process of working seemed to be better after the training and evaluation program among the workers. The national training package of social care included development plans, a position paper and a brief outline of the supervision model of the practice setting. This is used to ensure about effective administrative and managerial approaches were taken into consideration to deal with the daily operations and activities related to the social welfare work (Virtue, 2007).

In terms of management functions, the government agencies and other welfare societies used to have a different model such as the feminist model and the bicultural model. According to the bicultural model, the practitioners and supervisors used to develop an understanding of Maori culture by emphasising and placing the concept of leadership, relationship and respect in the supervision of social workers and staff. Even if there was a wider awareness of bi-culture in the society and among social workers, but still the social workers used to face issues from a lack of culturally responsive supervision. The changes in terms of management, professionalism and organizations had an impact on the supervision internationally and most crucially in Great Britain and North America (Ruwhiu, 2009). In addition to that, the importance of professional or clinical supervision based on social care in practice was emphasized. Along with that, the supervision of social work has been linked with other forms of clinical supervision in mental health and psychotherapy professions. From the research, it has been found that professionally-oriented management can contrite to the development, learning and practice in terms of social services for different social care or welfare organizations. Within the organizations of social services, there has been development and implementation of the statement of supervision policy. The consideration and management functions of supervision made it successful for different agencies to work as social workers.

Conclusion:

The entire research is all about the managerial approach in the context of social care services. There are different considerations that can be taken into account related to management which has been effectively discussed in the above research. Different statement of literature has been selected for the report where it has been found that a business organization can make themselves responsible for social work or social care for different communities. It has been found from the research that with proper planning and execution of strategies with the power of workers an organization can effectively have positive cultured working activities.

References: 

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