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Child welfare systems have historically dealt with the challenges of high employee turnover, but developing a workplace characterized by inclusive leadership is one way to keep workers on the job and maintain uninterrupted services for children and their families, according to a new study by researchers at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work.

When leaders are more inclusive, child welfare workers are less likely to experience workplace racial discrimination and more likely to stay in their positions and with their agencies, according to Qi Zhou, a social work graduate student at UB and the corresponding author of the study published in the Journal of Social Service Research.

"The compounding impact of high turnover of child welfare workers makes improving workforce retention a priority," says Zhou.

The study's novel approach looks at the issue of high turnover by investigating how administrators can contribute to improving retention, a view not widely taken in previous research that instead has surveyed employees rather than their managers.

High turnover increases workloads, decreases productivity and disrupts services, as agencies assign new workers—from a reduced staff—to additional cases. Turnover also hinders the development of a diverse child welfare workforce that's serving an increasingly diverse population of children.

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