Organizational commitment among residential care workers

The growth of the older adult population and documented demand of health, allied health, and social care professionals contrast starkly with the reality that the eldercare field, including care organizations, struggle to attract and retain committed workers. Extant studies evaluate organizational capacity to engender commitment by examining various job and workplace factors. Drawing on 44 interviews, observations of 62 meetings, and a 5-year immersion, this organizational ethnography looks at commitment factors at a large, urban, faith-based residential senior care organization. Commitment factors are delineated on three levels such as daily tensions and rewards, value-based tensions and rewards, deal breakers and clinchers. Identity-based factors such as affective bonds with older persons and sharing in faith values sustain commitment on the person level whereas interprofessional tensions may detract from commitment. This study extends the knowledge base by incorporating perspectives of care workers such as social workers, chaplains, rehabilitation, recreational, diet and environmental services workers in addition to the more commonly examined groups such as nurses and certified nursing assistants, and in a setting that includes Assisted Living in addition to long-term care.