Lean social care and worker identity: The role of outcomes, supervision and mission

Abstract

Since the 1980s, many social care jobs have shifted from the public to the nonprofit sector, accompanied by funding cuts, government contracts, managerialism and performance management. Qualitative data collected in Australia, New Zealand and Canada show that agency mission and immediate supervisors remain centrally important to workers’ identity and willingness to remain employed in social care. With the exception of one study site (where targets were jointly resisted by managers and staff), outcome measures were seen by workers to detract from the quality of care and erode social justice. This article argues that agency mission and supportive supervision buffer the impact of poor wages and conditions in the sector, while outcome measures undermine workers’ identities as caring people, in effect making the ‘self’ a site of struggle and discontent. Resistance strategies that agencies, workers and unions have used to challenge the hegemony of outcome-oriented funding and management models are explored.