For example, Sue’s residential home exists for children who have been abused, and her team aims to provide a care environment for the children to heal, develop resilience and grow. Keeping this in mind helps Sue stay focused on caring for the children’s psychosocial well-being. She is less likely to see the child’s academic progress as her key responsibility in the home.
Organisations must also find concrete ways to evaluate their impact. This goes towards identifying pitfalls and allowing employees to celebrate their successes and milestones. Imagine the joy that Sue would feel if the home can, with time, identify a reduction in anger outbursts or trauma symptoms in the children.
Therefore, organisations need to ask themselves, from time to time, the following critical questions: Who is the organisation serving? Is it clear to all staff who their key service users are? Are staff aware of the impact that the organisation aims to create? Is the impact achievable, clear and measurable?
ESTIMATING MANPOWER RESOURCES
Katijah knows that her team is suffering from burnout. However, she isn’t sure where to begin to gauge if her team has enough resources to make the impact they hope to achieve.
If she can accurately estimate her team’s workload capacity, she would be able to better articulate the manpower requirements her projects and programmes need. She would also be better able to advocate for fairer resource allocation with her senior management and funders.
After all, an organisation that aims to do too much with too little will wind up with frustrated employees and service users.
Organisations should thus ask themselves questions like: What are the key work activities required of a social service professional and how many hours are needed to fulfil each activity? How much full-time headcount will be required to fulfil daily activities and achieve desired outcomes?