Organizational Bias and Workforce Outcomes Among Child Welfare Workers: The Mediating Role of Perceived Stress

Background/Purpose

A stable and skilled workforce is essential to deliver consistent, high-quality services to children and families involved in the child welfare system. Substantial efforts have been made to enhance child welfare workers’ well-being, performance, and retention, including increasing support, promoting self-care, and providing professional development opportunities. However, limited attention has been given to addressing organizational bias, as there is a limited understanding of its impact on child welfare workers. Given the diverse identities of workers, they may experience various forms of bias, including those related to gender, age, and race. Such experiences of bias may impact workers’ well-being and workforce outcomes. For example, prior research has demonstrated that gender bias among female nurses was associated with lower job satisfaction. To better understand the role of organizational bias and inform efforts to manage this challenge, this study aims to investigate how organizational bias relates to child welfare workers’ perceived stress, job performance, and intent to stay at their agency. In particular, the study examines whether perceived stress mediates the relationships between organizational bias and job performance, as well as between organizational bias and intent to stay.

Methods

This study utilized data from Wave 8 of the Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families (FSPSF), administered in 2020 to examine turnover and retention decisions among frontline child welfare workers in Florida. The sample included 931 child welfare workers across the state. Organizational bias was assessed using eight items that asked participants whether they had personally experienced bias related to disability, age, citizenship status, race/ethnicity, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Perceived stress, job performance, and intent to stay were measured using validated scales. Control variables included race/ethnicity (White = 1; workers of color = 0), age (in years), gender (male = 1; female = 0), and educational background (social work degree = 1; non–social work degree = 0). Mediation analyses were conducted using Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 4) to examine whether perceived stress mediated the relationships between organizational bias and both job performance and intent to stay.

Results

Results indicated that the indirect effect of organizational bias on job performance through perceived stress was significant and negative (β = -.0252, 95% CI [ -.0371, -.0154]), whereas the direct effect was not significant (β = -.0162, p = .3868), suggesting full mediation. For intent to stay, both the direct effect (β = -.0747, p < .01) and the indirect effect through perceived stress (β = -.0207, 95% CI [-.0348, -.0097]) were significant and negative, indicating that organizational bias reduces intent to stay both directly and indirectly via increased perceived stress.

Conclusions

Findings suggest that reducing organizational bias may decrease stress, enhance performance, and improve retention, contributing to more equitable and democratic workplaces. Therefore, child welfare agencies should implement strategies to reduce various forms of bias, including training to increase awareness of implicit bias and strengthen leaders’ capacity to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. Additionally, agencies should adopt measures to reduce worker stress by enhancing organizational support and promoting self-care practices.