The Street-Level Organisation in-between Employer Needs and Client Needs: Creaming Users by Motivation in the Norwegian Employment and Welfare Service (NAV)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
HEIDI MOEN GJERSØE ◽  
ANNE HEGE STRAND
Keyword(s):  
Supported Employment ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Frontline Staff ◽  
Welfare Service ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Employer Engagement ◽  
Structural Demand ◽  
Job Coaches ◽  
Oriented Approach

Abstract Employer engagement is increasingly emphasised in the context of efforts to bring more disadvantaged people into work. A new approach in the Norwegian Employment and Welfare Service (NAV) combines demand-side and supply-side measures in a ‘combined workplace-oriented approach’. Through qualitative interviews with frontline staff – including job coaches following the Supported Employment (SE) method – the paper examines the intermediary role of the street-level organisation (SLO) through the targeted use of SE methods directed at young users and employers. The findings suggest that young users are ‘creamed by motivation’ into the SE programme, which can be explained by the importance the SLO places: on maintaining inter-organisational relationships with employers, on job coaches’ performance goals and the need to uphold an organisational structure in the SLO that seemingly works efficient to shift caseloads of young unemployed into work. Hence, creaming is not specific to outsourcing but can also occur when insourcing employer engagement services into a public SLO. Although relational work directed at both employers and young clients is seen as the benefit of a combined workplace-oriented approach, it appears a rather flimsy foundation for successful ALMPs unless supported by more structural demand-side measures.

scholarly journals Good fences make good neighbors: Collaborating with families to create employment opportunity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Bethany Chase
Keyword(s):  
Parent Involvement ◽  
Developmental Disabilities ◽  
Supported Employment ◽  
Employment Opportunity ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Employment Success ◽  
Job Match ◽  
Employment Supports ◽  
Job Coaches ◽  
Employment Specialists

BACKGROUND: Collaboration between supported employment providers and parents/guardians of job seekers with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities is key to employment success. However, parents are often concerned about the efficacy of employment supports or the capacity of the professionals providing the service. Likewise, job coaches may consider certain kinds of parent involvement as detrimental to a successful job match. OBJECTIVE: This article provides context for why parents/guardians may be distrustful of the employment process, as well as why employment specialists may struggle to build strong partnerships with parents/guardians. METHODS: This article will discuss how to implement practices that not only welcome the critical input of families, but also maintain healthy and well-defined boundaries that affirm the autonomy, professionalism, and competence of the worker.

Labour Input Logic of Street-Level Bureaucrats: Evidence from Chinese Market Supervision Commission

2021 ◽  
pp. 147892992110215
Author(s):  
Chunna Li ◽  
Jun Yang
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Climate ◽  
Time Allocation ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Chinese Market ◽  
Frontline Staff ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Labour Input ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

The theory of street-level bureaucracy and its relevant data have proven the expected duties of the frontline staff of local government may be excessive but their time spent working remains quite low. Using data from participatory observations of street-level officials in a Chinese city, this study reveals the logic of this labour input paradox. Organizational climate incentive and promotional incentive jointly influence the time allocation of street-level bureaucrats. The organizational climate incentive reflects the weak incentive characteristic of the maintenance function of labour; promotional incentives have a strong impact on motivation, which is characteristic of the promotional function of labour. These findings reveal the costs of the New Public Management movement in an organization lacking an effective promotion mechanism and a positive organizational climate incentive. This is a snapshot of the dilemma faced by China’s public organization reforms, but it is also a problem other country must solve.

Natural Supports in the Workplace: A Reexamination of Supported Employment

1988 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 260-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Nisbet ◽  
David Hagner
Keyword(s):  
Supported Employment ◽  
Severe Disabilities ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Work Environments ◽  
Natural Supports ◽  
Job Coaches ◽  
Job Sharing

The purpose of this article is to examine some of the basic premises of supported employment initiatives. In particular, the role of agency-sponsored job coaches in supporting employees with severe disabilities in integrated work environments is discussed. A broader concept of supported employment is proposed, based on studies of the supports and informal interactions characteristic of natural work environments. Alternative support options, entitled the Mentor Option, the Training Consultant Option, the Job Sharing Option, and the Attendant Option, which involve the active participation of supervisors and co-workers, are presented with suggestions for implementation.

PP9 Managing alcohol intoxication in the night-time economy: staff and patient perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. e5.2-e5
Author(s):  
Andy Irving ◽  
Davina Allen ◽  
Joanne Blake ◽  
Simon Moore ◽  
Steve Goodacre
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Services ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Care Pathway ◽  
Alcohol Intoxication ◽  
Alternative Pathway ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Night Time ◽  
Ambulance Personnel ◽  
Frontline Staff ◽  
Street Level

BackgroundAlcohol-related harms arising in the Night-Time Economy (NTE) impose a substantial burden on emergency services (ES) especially ambulance services engaged in both street level care and transportation of acutely intoxicated patients to a hospital Emergency Department (ED). Alcohol Intoxication Management Services (AIMS) are intended as an alternative care pathway for intoxicated patients who would normally use emergency services and are often run by ambulance services in partnership with other agencies. Despite growing policy interest in AIMS as an alternative pathway it is not known what their users think of them nor the experiences of frontline staff engaged in and around AIMS.MethodsAs part of a mixed-method study semi-structured interviews were followed by a survey of users recruited from six different AIMS. A parallel ethnographic component used observations and interviews with ambulance staff in two cities with AIMS and one without.ResultsSurveys and interviews found AIMs users retrospectively viewed the decision to take them to AIMS favourably and highly rated the care they received, especially the friendly, non-judgemental atmosphere created between ambulance staff and other agents involved in AIMS. A majority of AIMS survey respondents said they would not have called emergency services (85%) or gone to the ED (75.6%). Ethnographic work showed ambulance personnel considered AIMS to have a positive impact on ES, freeing capacity to attend to other emergencies. Ambulance staff without AIMS worked to avoid conveyance to ED but this could result in extended periods risk assessing individuals at street level, which meant they felt unavailable to address other emergency calls.ConclusionsAIMS are viewed very positively by their users and the ambulance staff involved. Findings from surveys, interviews and ethnography suggest that AIMS and EDs are managing different patient groups in different ways, and thus may represent complementary rather than competing alternatives care pathways.

scholarly journals Who Is in Charge? The Provision of Informal Personal Resources at the Street Level

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Einat Lavee
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Personal Resources ◽  
The Public ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Informal Service

Abstract Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) nowadays provide services under conditions of increased demand for public services coupled with scarcer financial resources. The literature that focuses on how workers adapt to this situation mainly examines their provision of formal resources as part of their job. What researchers have not systematically examined is the delivery of informal personal resources (IFRs) by street-level workers to clients. Understanding the provision of IFRs is particularly important when “no one is fully in charge” of public services. Drawing on 214 in-depth qualitative interviews with SLBs who provide education, health, and welfare services in the public sector in Israel, we found a remarkable range of IFRs they provided to clients. We also found that four main factors influencing the provision of IFRs: lack of formal resources; professional commitment; managerial encouragement; and a work environment whose values combine old and new approaches to public service. The findings contribute to the public administration literature by exposing how public service function in a somewhat vague reality, and they contribute to the SLB literature by highlighting the unrecognized component of informal service provision.

Arbeitsvermittlung im Spannungsfeld von Dienstleistung und Kontrolle – Eine multimethodische Studie zu Eingliederungsvereinbarungen in der Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (99) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Monika Senghaas ◽  
Sarah Bernhard
Keyword(s):  
Service Provision ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Code ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
And Control ◽  
Back To Work

Zusammenfassung Arbeitsvermittler*innen wenden als Street-Level Bureaucrats die Bestimmungen des Sozialgesetzbuches II auf einzelne Bürger*innen an. Sie handeln dabei im Spannungsfeld der institutionellen Logiken von Dienstleistung und Kontrolle, die über die sogenannte Eingliederungsvereinbarung – einem Vertrag zwischen Jobcenter und Arbeitsuchenden – handlungsrelevant werden. Der Beitrag untersucht anhand standardisierter und qualitativer Befragungen von Arbeitsvermittler*innen, wie diese mit dem „doppelten Mandat“ des Dienstleistungs- und Kontrollauftrags umgehen und wie sie die Mehrdeutigkeiten der Eingliederungsvereinbarung in der Interaktion mit Arbeitsuchenden verarbeiten. Die Analyse zeigt, dass Arbeitsvermittler*innen fall- und prozessbezogen kooperative oder direktive Elemente der Eingliederungsvereinbarung akzentuieren. Sie beschreiben jedoch auch Fallkonstellationen, in denen sie ihren Entscheidungsspielraum zum Einsatz der Eingliederungsvereinbarung als unzureichend wahrnehmen oder in denen die Eingliederungsvereinbarung zu einer bürokratisch-leeren Übung wird. Abstract: Job Placement Between Service Provision and Control. A Multi-Method Study on Back-to-Work Agreements As street-level bureaucrats, jobcentre advisors apply the legal provisions of the Social Code II to individual cases. In doing so, they act along the institutional logics of counselling and control, which become relevant for action through the back-to-work agreement – a contract between jobcentre and jobseeker. Based on a standardised survey and qualitative interviews and group discussions in jobcentres, this article examines how jobcentre advisors reconcile the logics of service provision and control in their interaction with clients. It is shown that jobcentre advisors accentuate cooperative or directive elements of the back-towork-agreement on a case-by-case basis. They also describe constellations in which they perceive their discretion regarding the back-to-work agreement as insufficient or in which the back-to-work agreement becomes a bureaucratic and empty exercise.

scholarly journals Deserving of Social Support? Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Decisions on EU Migrants’ Benefit Claims in Germany

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Nora Ratzmann
Keyword(s):  
Market Integration ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
German Language ◽  
Cultural Performance ◽  
Host Society ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Societal Norms ◽  
Welfare Fraud ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Migration raises the question of how street-level bureaucrats treat non-citizens when it comes to the distribution of limited welfare resources. Based on a German case study, this article reveals how local social administrators rationalise practices of inclusion in and exclusion from social assistance receipt and associated labour market integration services for mobile EU citizens, who are perceived first and foremost as ‘foreigners’. The findings from fifty-five qualitative interviews with job centre representatives show how politics of exclusion are justified by nationalistic and ethnic criteria of membership. Insofar as EU migrants are considered outsiders to the imagined welfare community of their host country, they are seen as less deserving than German-born claimants. However, mobile EU citizens can earn their legitimacy to access benefit receipt through sustained participation in the host society, demonstrating knowledge of the German language and societal norms so as to appear ‘German’. Such a cultural performance-based logic of deservingness tends to be intertwined with nationality-based and racialising stereotypes of welfare fraud to frame exclusionary practice.

scholarly journals Welfare reform and the street level bureaucrat in homelessness services

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (5/6) ◽  
pp. 359-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Louise Alden
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Baseline Survey ◽  
Implementation Framework ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
Street Level ◽  
North East ◽  
Service Outcomes ◽  
Housing Options

Purpose – Lipsky’s street level bureaucrat conceptual framework is employed to assist in understanding the ways in which statutory frontline homelessness practitioners are engaging with the current welfare reform agenda. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Draws the street level bureaucrat framework. A national baseline survey of homelessness practitioners was followed by targeted qualitative interviews involving 12 local authorities in England. Findings – Homelessness practitioners are facing a twofold crisis due to an increase in service users and corresponding decrease in feasible housing options or resources to tackle this. It was reported that effective service provision for all who required it was becoming increasingly difficult, which in turn fostered an environment in which unlawful gatekeeping practices could thrive. Further, it was found that a service user’s position may be additionally weakened due to the new powers conferred in the Localism Act. Research limitations/implications – Qualitative data were limited to North East Authorities due to limited research resources. Social implications – The current austere climate is negatively impacting upon the delivery of statutory homelessness provision. Differing implementation of the Localism Act will lead to inequitable service outcomes. Originality/value – Application of the street level bureaucrat implementation framework to English homelessness services, a national survey of English frontline service delivery in an austere climate.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document