Well-being at work factors perceived by social work professionals during COVID-19: reflections for the generation of Healthy Organisations

Abstract

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 crisis brought with it many questions and highlighted the shortcomings of the different social protection systems, including the Social Services, with the consequent impact on their professionals in the form of stress, burnout, fatigue, etc., which do not emerge as a result of the pandemic, but are exacerbated by the fact that they are already present. For this article, 22 semi-structured interviews were carried out with social workers (as a reference professional in Social Services) in Spain, with the aim of finding out their perceptions and experiences derived from the changes in work organisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to extract strategies and good practices specifically identified by social workers, and for their specific professional field, that lead to an improvement in the quality of working life and well-being in their organisations. The results made it possible to identify some specific practices that could be incorporated into the praxis of these professionals for the construction of Healthy Organisations that could have a positive impact on their working conditions, which could also mean an improvement in the services provided by these professionals to the public.