Political, Social, and Technological Factors in Human Services

Introduction: Shifting Social Expectations and the Workforce

Not so long ago, it was assumed that most young adults would become financially independent after college or even high school. However, fewer and fewer college graduates can expect to find a job immediately after graduation that will enable them to live independently of their parents. More and more adults are seeing their children return home to live with them, creating both financial and emotional strain for many families. What is considered "adulthood" has been pushed ahead to one's mid-twenties, even mid-thirties. Even under the law, children are eligible to be covered under their parents' health insurance long after they have gained the right to vote and to drink as "adults." The expectation that young adults will be independent past a certain age is changing, and this shift also affects the way that young adults function in the workplace.

Cultural differences can play an equally important role in the provision of human services, as culture not only affects how a person responds to particular interventions, but also whether that person is likely to seek out those interventions in the first place. Research in Australia found that social exclusion and cultural conflicts interfered with service organizations' ability to support clients, and that local organizations were not always aware of the cultural differences between local and immigrant populations (Grant & Francis, 2008). This cultural unawareness left some populations without resources because they were unaware of available services, and organizations did not know how to connect with them (Grant & Francis, 2008).

Companies are increasingly offering internships to young graduates. Human services departments have restructured entry-level positions as unpaid internships rather than paying roles. This is sometimes presented as a "win-win" situation: the company gains free labor, and the young employee gains experience to place on a résumé. Critics of this practice, however, argue that it postpones financial independence indefinitely, forcing students who carry high levels of debt to work without pay. The question arises: why should a college graduate be grateful to make copies and perform routine tasks in order to gain experience — tasks that are often the traditional duty of a student intern?

The government is exercising greater scrutiny of for-profit employers who rely on unpaid interns. As one analysis noted, "If you're a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren't going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law," which requires that "the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer 'derives no immediate advantage' from the intern's activities — in other words, it's largely a benevolent contribution to the intern" (Greenhouse, 2010). When using unpaid interns, human resource departments must be very mindful of how they structure such programs to ensure they are mutually beneficial for students and the organization. The cultural trend of extending adulthood has not changed the law: unpaid interns cannot be assigned the work of lower-level employees and simultaneously be expected to work for free.

Unpaid Internships, Legal Compliance, and Generational Challenges

Employers, however, have complained that the millennial generation is less prepared for the demands of the workplace, and this perception is reflected in the tasks allocated to them. A common allegation is that millennials "have been blessed with parents and grandparents laying the foundation to give them a better life… but that hunger is not really in them. The desire for success is — they want to make money but don't want to put in the required hours or effort" (Shapira, 2010). Given such perceptions, thorough training in workplace etiquette and organizational work ethic is essential for new hires, regardless of the caliber of school they may have attended. If internships are used, they must nonetheless prepare workers for the full demands of the workplace.

If social forces are extending adulthood, another trend affecting human services is that older Americans are working longer. Supporting adult children, depleted retirement accounts resulting from the Great Recession, and other pressures are all compelling older Americans to remain in the workforce. Being vigilant about age discrimination is essential, as is managing the cultural divide that can develop between younger and older workers. Assigning older workers the role of mentoring younger employees is one way some organizations attempt to bridge this gap and to ease younger workers ethically into the workplace.

Millennials have a great deal to offer — despite, or perhaps because of, the additional challenges they faced upon graduating during the era of the Great Recession. Acknowledging the cultural differences between generations and actively working to bridge that gap is essential to maximizing the value of all of an organization's human resources.

Technology has provided significant advantages for human services organizations, particularly in the medical and educational fields (Salamon, 2003). In health care, the electronic medical record (EMR) enables staff of community-based programs — such as home hospice services and visiting nurse programs — to be immediately updated regarding patient changes, medication adjustments, and physicians' orders from the field via computer. Health care staff can input information and chart patient visits in real time, from the patient's home, and that medical information becomes instantly available to all other staff working with that patient. This technology has greatly improved both patient care and patient safety.

Technology, however, is imperfect, and there are inherent problems with the EMR. The most serious is the potential threat to patient privacy: information transferred via the Internet, even within a closed system, is subject to interception. A related challenge is that the selection of software programs must be thoroughly researched to ensure the chosen program meets all of the organization's needs. This can be especially difficult for small organizations that lack knowledgeable information technology staff. In addition, organizations must be prepared to devote considerable resources — and patience — to training staff on the new technology.

In the educational field, technology is in the process of revolutionizing undergraduate and graduate learning. Online education provides valuable opportunities for adult learners to complete or advance their education while continuing to work. As in health care, however, there are inherent challenges. It can be difficult to ensure that students receive adequate feedback when students and instructors cannot meet face to face, and designing a student-friendly online curriculum that is thorough and clearly structured requires sustained effort and planning.

Older Workers, Mentorship, and Bridging the Generational Divide

A further concern involves data privacy more broadly. People who seek human services are typically doing so because they have encountered some kind of problem in their lives. They have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that expectation is central to the helping relationship. Technology simultaneously increases the potential for secure storage of client information and increases the risk that private client information could be compromised. Organizations must maintain a clear understanding of technology's limitations alongside a realistic picture of what they expect technology to accomplish.

Another financial dimension of technology deserves attention. Many organizations are improving their services to better serve clients and maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the public. The rapid growth of information technology has had a significant impact on human services (Patti, 2009). The Internet is a valuable tool for providing easy access to information about community needs, new service technologies, case-specific client data shared across agencies, and referrals to community services (Patti, 2009). Despite these benefits, technological change presents enormous financial challenges because it is resource-intensive (Salamon, 2003), and this gives larger organizations an edge over smaller ones in competing for government funding, grants, and business partnerships. However, technology need not always be prohibitively expensive. Running a basic web presence is affordable, and many individuals are becoming increasingly skilled with digital tools. Nonprofit organizations struggling with limited budgets might reasonably seek IT professionals willing to volunteer their expertise — an approach that could itself become a viable charitable model connecting skilled volunteers with organizations in need.

From a political perspective, the policies guiding most human services organizations are formulated by public and private governing bodies (Patti, 2009). These governing bodies routinely dictate the specific programs to be delivered, along with goals and the populations to be served (Patti, 2009). These factors may pose challenges to human services organizations when they are not aligned with actual community needs. According to Patti (2009), many administrators participate in the policy process by advocating for changes that address unmet needs as social problems emerge, and by representing the interests of populations that may be disenfranchised.

Technology in Human Services: Benefits and Privacy Risks

Social factors influencing human services organizations range from networking with other agencies to serve a single client to guiding clients through the web of community resources (Patti, 2009). These factors challenge human services organizations when there are insufficient resources to meet client needs or when a lack of interagency coordination makes it more difficult for clients to navigate a fragmented system (Patti, 2009).

Technological factors similarly influence human services organizations, from the ability to access word-processing documents to the management of client records. Technology affects the ability to access client information and to coordinate across agencies, allowing human services organizations to function more efficiently. These factors nonetheless pose challenges for administrators when staff resist learning new methods, and when rapid technological change creates financial difficulties — with larger organizations consistently better positioned to acquire updated systems (Salamon, 2003).

Political and social forces have also shaped the broader evolution of human services. Churches and church-related charitable organizations historically addressed social questions as they emerged in society, including contributing resources to state mental health institutions (Lamb, 1998). The political environment has repeatedly reshaped fiscal support for human services — the Reagan administration's modifications to nonprofit funding being one well-documented example (Salamon, 2003). During the Depression, the food assistance program emerged to help families in need (Randy, 2009), and social and political pressures have continued to drive the emergence of new service organizations ever since. More recently, state and federal fiscal challenges have resulted in budget cuts affecting departments of mental health, judicial systems, and social services (DSHS, 2010), including reductions in cash assistance for needy families and reduced access to medical services for adults (DSHS, 2012).

Welfare reform has also introduced new administrative demands. The welfare reform legislation of 1996 and the devolution of responsibilities from the federal government to states and local communities created additional demands on providers (Hasenfeld, 2010). Research found that nonprofit organizations have varying capacity to make the necessary programmatic and administrative adjustments these changes require, and that new program structures allow greater flexibility in structuring services to meet mandated goals (Hasenfeld, 2010). These overlaying trends coincide with a growing reliance on performance and outcome contracts by government agencies designed to improve effectiveness and efficiency — a shift that constitutes a major cultural change for nonprofit organizations (Hasenfeld, 2010).

The tension between program costs and program benefits is a persistent challenge in this context. If a better tracking system could ensure that fraud is more likely to be detected, but implementing and running that system costs more than the frauds it prevents, it is not clear that the system represents an appropriate use of public funds. At some point, the principle of fairness must weigh more heavily than a purely cost-based calculation — a question on which reasonable people can disagree.

Additionally, leadership frameworks matter in navigating these pressures. Public health leadership competency frameworks have identified four areas essential for meeting contemporary challenges in health services (Misener et al., 1997): political competencies, including politics, policymaking and implementation, and communication; business acumen, including fiscal management and marketing; program leadership, including evaluation and application of epidemiologic and research principles; and management capacities, including problem solving, staffing, and interdisciplinary team functioning.

The intersection of cultural difference and service access is a recurring theme in discussions of contemporary human services. Cultural considerations affect not only how clients respond to specific interventions, but also whether they are likely to seek help at all. This observation extends naturally to age-based cultural differences: are millennial-generation individuals, because of their increased sense of dependence, more or less likely to seek human services assistance? On one hand, increased dependence might suggest a greater likelihood of help-seeking behavior; on the other, it might indicate a preference for seeking assistance from family rather than from government programs.

Conclusion: Navigating Complexity in Human Services Administration

Shapira, I. (2010, April 2). Millennials accused of lax work ethic say it's not all about 9-to-5. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/02/AR2010040201452.html