Sometimes social workers may disagree with the central policy of the higher management, based solely on their own biases and views. Racism, sexism, ageism, lookism, and discrimination on many other grounds are not uncommon in modern society. Intolerance, hatred, suspicion, and mistrust became the reasons for how employees of social services endanger a company’s activities. Opposition can result in verbal aggression, refusal to provide assistance, repulsive and unethical behavior, and a direct violation of social services activities designed to help people regardless of their identity (Jansson, 2018). Additionally, a social worker who disposes of resources or interests in politics is likely to implement their views in the service (Lane & Humphreys, 2011). An example of this is the US judicial system, in which racial minorities receive more prison sentences, more often, and in stricter institutions than whites. Such an attitude leads to an unfair trial and a final verdict, thereby sabotaging those ideals of freedom, equality, and justice, which the court is supposed to demonstrate, like any service in our country.
Employees of government services often try to integrate their personal biases into the general system, creating a confrontation between them and the leading company policy. In addition to the above example, a frequent occurrence is a refusal to promote a person based on sexist views from their superiors or unwillingness to perform service tasks. An example is a more suspicious attitude towards single fathers trying to adopt a child, although there is no such prejudice against women. To eliminate such misunderstandings among social workers, a temporary system of penalties and rewards should be introduced for refusing to promote policy integration and promoting it accordingly. One should also regularly conduct collective training and discussions to convey to employees the importance and essence of the policy and the need for its implementation. The company’s task is to have a dialogue with employees and work on implementing its approach in the general system and communicating it to the working team. To summarize, people within a company will rarely support the policies it pursues based on their prejudices, knowledge gaps, and stereotypes.
As has been discussed, the opposition from social workers towards a policy can be caused by fallacies made in the implementation phase. I have participated in the execution of a novel approach to the novel treatment of non-serious offenders. Namely, alternative dispute resolution was to be implemented in a probation center. First-time criminals guilty of robbery or substance abuse, for example, had to enter the cooperative work program instead of being judged by the court. The innovation was meant to reduce the number of juridical cases and give a second chance to people who had not yet been registered as law offenders. However, the first people treated according to the approach displayed negative attendance at the assigned public work meetings and even committed crimes afterward. The reason for this was the confrontation towards the program from the social workers, whose job was to explain the details of assigned work and supervise the probated. As it turned out, the employees of the police station unit organized the schedule of meetings unsuitable for offenders. In brief, the outcome of the policy was ineffective because of ill management from the social workers.
However, the behavior of the employees was due to the poor implementation of the policy. Specifically, the probation length and content were equal for all offenders. Social workers had little to do with the general program. As a result, the schedules were not comfortable for people with families since they could not attend unofficial meetings and reunite with their relatives. Thus, the inadequacy in the management of the programs that underlie policy made it unsuccessful.
References
Jansson, B. S. (2018). Becoming an effective policy advocate: From policy practice to social justice (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Lane, S. R., & Humphreys, N. A. (2011). Social workers in politics: A national survey of social work candidates and elected officials. Journal of Policy Practice, 10(3), 225–244.