Nursing Home Social Services Directors Who Report Thriving at Work

Abstract

Nationally representative data from a sample (n = 928) of full-time nursing home social services directors were used to investigate whether knowing characteristics of the social environment at work can help to explain which directors report job thriving. Two-thirds of directors reported they were thriving in their jobs. Multiple regression results show that thriving is increased by job autonomy, being treated like an important part of the team, having enough time to identify and meet resident psychosocial needs, not having to do things that others could do, and being clear what the social services role is. Findings suggest that addressing these aspects of the social environment and social services role will likely contribute to increasing a sense of thriving at work among social services staff members.

Keywords:

• social environment
• administration
• human resources
• social work
• nursing facility

Notes

¹ The complete survey questionnaire is available online: http://www.uiowa.edu/~socialwk/NursingHomeResource/NHSocialServicesStudy.html.