Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Toward an Inclusive Organizational Culture: Employees’ Perceptions of Equity and Belonging within Oregon’s Department of Human Services

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/m326m861b

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  • Social and human services employees are on the forefront of social justice issues in the United States through their direct work with a wide array of oppressed and vulnerable people. As a field, these workers are proximal to people most acutely impacted by injustices. In Oregon, the principal agency for interacting with and supporting vulnerable citizens, and one of the state’s largest employers of social and human services workers, is the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS). A 2018 audit of ODHS conducted by the Office of Oregon’s Secretary of State found that substantial structural problems within ODHS, such as overwhelming workloads and poor workplace culture, were leading to chronic employee turnover and lawsuits related to endangerment of children in the state’s care. In response to that audit, ODHS is investing heavily in reimagining its workplace culture to become more inclusive. As a part of the early design of a workplace culture intervention, called RiSE, a team from ODHS’s Office of Reporting, Research, Analytics, and Implementation conducted semi-structured listening sessions with over 1,200 employees across the state in spring of 2019. The present study leveraged bioecological theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Xia, Li, & Tudge, 2020) and an organizational justice framework (Colquitt, 2001) to conduct a two-pronged qualitative analysis of data from those listening sessions, utilizing both a content and a thematic analysis, in order to answer the following research questions: 1. How do employees describe their perceptions of diversity, equity, inclusion and/or belonging at ODHS? 2. To what extent, and how, do ODHS employees connect their perceptions of diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or belonging to specific contexts within and outside the agency? The content analysis indicated that about one fifth (n = 1,004) of the comments ODHS employees from across the state made during those listening sessions were directly related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and/or belonging (DEIB) over the course of 39 listening sessions. The thematic analysis of each DEIB code individually resulted in 16 themes including, for example, “Ability to be authentic in the representation of identities” and “the centrality of human connection as a desired state.” When weaving those themes together, three broader thematic stories emerged related to (a) dehumanization, (b) “childification” of ODHS employees, and (c) a substantial disconnect between decision-makers and frontline workers. These themes and stories cut across contexts both inside (e.g. relationships with supervisors) and outside of ODHS (e.g. navigating structural racism). This study shines a light on the proximal processes driving individual-level development and feelings of belonging within workplaces with day-to-day work deeply rooted in societal injustices. The findings will inform the ongoing development of the RiSE initiative at ODHS and potentially other organizational culture change interventions.
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