Introduction
Job burnout describes an employee’s experience of being exhausted and/or overwhelmed by the demands of their job (Maslach, Citation2003). Burnout is harmful to both employees and their employers, as burnout has been linked to greater turnover and poorer service delivery across a variety of work settings (Salvagioni et al., Citation2017). Burnout is of particular concern in the context of child welfare, as burnout has consistently been linked to greater turnover within the child welfare workforce (Chernesky & Israel, Citation2009; DePanfilis, Citation2006; H. Kim & Kao, Citation2014; Leake et al., Citation2017; Strolin et al., Citation2006). Additional research indicates that emotional exhaustion, a recognized domain of burnout, is a particularly strong and stable predictor of turnover among child welfare workers (J. Boyas & Wind, Citation2010; J. F. Boyas et al., Citation2013; Travis et al., Citation2016). Due to the negative impact of burnout, understanding how to buffer burnout is an important aim for child welfare organizations seeking to improve both retention and service delivery among effective employees. The current study seeks to test a three-variable model of hope as a mediator of burnout, with hope being fostered by perceptions of organizational support (POS) among a sample of child welfare workers.
Job Burnout in Child Welfare
Job burnout is a work-related experience where work-based stressors tax job demands in a way that exceeds the available job resources (Demeroutri et al., Citation2001). The consistent overtaxing from job demands, coupled with insufficient resources to meet those job demands, is one potential cause of job withdrawal. Job demands are significantly and positively related to burnout (He et al., Citation2018). Burnout is thought to consist of two dimensions, including emotional exhaustion and work disengagement (Demerouti et al., Citation2001). Studies of child welfare workers demonstrate a link between burnout, job stress, and job satisfaction (J. Boyas & Wind, Citation2010; J. F. Boyas et al., Citation2013; Leake et al., Citation2017, Lushin et al., Citation2023; Travis et al., Citation2016). An array of workplace and organizational factors have been associated with child welfare workforce burnout, including supervisory support (Boyas & Wind, Citation2010; Phillips et al., Citation2020), time pressures (Phillips et al., Citation2020), dissatisfaction with workload and professional development (Griffiths et al., Citation2017), along with the structure (such as supervisory support, caseloads, time pressures), and function (peer relationship and availability of community resources) of the workplaces (He et al., Citation2018). In their longitudinal study of workplace demands on job burnout, Lizano & Mor Barak (Citation2012) demonstrate that job burnout increases over time for child welfare professionals. As job burnout can threaten job satisfaction, it may also be associated with job performance (Gunlu et al., Citation2010; Landsman, Citation2008) and ultimately may be a driver of employee intention to remain employed (DePanfilis & Zlotnik, Citation2008; Linzano & Mor Barak, Citation2015; Mor Barak et al., Citation2006; Strolin-Goltzman et al., Citation2007). In their meta-analysis evaluating reasons for turnover, H. Kim and Kao (Citation2014) found that employee stress and burnout had a medium to high influence on turnover.