Individual and work group influences on turnover intention among public child welfare workers: The effects of work group psychological safety

Abstract

The antecedents and consequences of workgroup psychological safety were examined in a statewide study of 1040 public child welfare workers nested within 239 supervisory work units. Work group psychological safety mediated the effects of individual-level antecedents on turnover intention. Structural equation results indicated that when controlling for supervisory work unit-level clustering, a worker's perception of supervisory support and their office administrators' attention to human resources were significantly and positively associated with a worker's level of work group psychological safety. In turn, group psychological safety was significantly and positively associated with workers' intent to remain employed in their current organization. These findings underscore the importance of the supervisory work group in shaping individual attitudes and behavioral intentions, as well as the importance of including work units in the conceptual, measurement, and analytic models used in future studies of staff retention.