Introduction
When it comes to determining how much fair compensation for employees is, many employers are often not sure if they are offering the right wages. Without carrying out extensive research, it is difficult for them to know whether or not they are taking advantage of their staff or if they are paying for more than they get.
The objective of this paper is to carry out a critic of the market price in the context of healthcare social workers. Remuneration practices would be examined with the intention of determining if they are effective in projecting fair pay for this particular demanding career, especially in relation to heavy workload, commitment, and traditionally low wages.
Review of the pay ranges for a healthcare social worker
The median salary for health social workers was $13.87 an hour in May 2012 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). The lowest earners made below $9.34 while those at the top10 made more than $22.16. Their general duties include helping patients with complicated psychological needs as well as economic co-morbidities that make them dependent on social programs and funding sources.
The job also entails crisis management for family members who have psychological needs because of their relationships and interactions with patients. As a health social worker, one is expected to handle referrals for high-risk individuals from interdisciplinary teams, consisting of doctors, nurses, care managers, and others involved in primary patient care.
After carrying out research on the wages of healthcare social workers, which I then compared with those of professionals such as doctors, I concluded that their range of salaries should be between $30 and $40 an hour in consideration of the work they do.
How market price position is conducted
When employers are market pricing a position, they consider several factors, although there is no specific set of rules that they are required to follow in the endeavor. For many employers, they first consider the value they expect the worker would add to their enterprises (Joseph, Kilmartin & Miller, 2008).
However, this only works for a limited number of industries where one can directly measure the value an employee adds to a firm. In the field of social work, it is not always straightforward since it is near impossible to determine just how much work one does, except by counting hours by virtue of which they would probably be just paid equally like medical doctors.
An article in CNN Money claims that the job of social workers is to step in when everyone else has stepped aside in the quest to help vulnerable people and families (Dickler, 2014). They often have to provide education and counseling services to patients and sometimes even their families. Furthermore, they execute and make referrals in relation to other services.
Most of them work more than the standard 40 hours a week. Due to the fact that they earn only about 13 dollars an hour, it is easy to understand how they are overworked. Ironically, many social workers in the healthcare sector have a bachelor’s degree, which is what psychologists have, although in a different field. Their job descriptions are in many cases overlapping, but psychologists earn almost double.
Government statistics shows that a psychologist earns a median of $33 per hour against the $13 earned by a social worker (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014).
In many cases, social workers are engaged in counseling the very same patients some of whom have been referred to for reintegration into society by psychologists. Evidently, the criterion used to differentiate the pay is notably unfair to the workers since they work more hours under difficult conditions, but earn significantly less.
Critique of the market price position
Healthcare social workers often have to meet patients and their families after normal working hours as well as respond to distress calls even during the night when their clients call them. Because of the nature of their tasks, they cannot claim to be too busy to attend a client any more than doctors can.
As a result, they end up working a lot of unpaid overtime. On the other hand, doctors earn as much as between $33 to $45 on an hourly basis, since their abnormal shifts are taken into consideration, unlike the social workers’.
I also found that 70% of social workers have a college degree. They could work elsewhere and earn much more than the government pays them. On average, social workers can spend between 4 and 10 years in school, but it is ironic and unfair that an unskilled employee in Walmart may earn more than them, and even afford better lifestyle and health insurance (Razavi & Staab, 2010).
Today, social workers are some of the personnel that are receiving educational loan forgiveness because the government considers the career to be one of self-sacrifice choosing service over wealth (Elliott, 2013).
However, some of the social workers I talked to told me that they it would make more sense if the government would pay them enough for them to pay off their student debts without requiring “charity”. The fact that the state recognized that the pay of healthcare social workers is worth much less than the education they acquired to get it implies that they are grossly underpaid.
According to a research from the University of Liverpool, social workers and teachers were ranked among the top three in terms of careers that are poor in terms of psychological wellbeing as well as physical health due to working in stressful environments (Johnson et al., 2005).
Social workers often endure a remarkable amount of emotional stress because of dealing directly with the personal problems of their clients, most of which induce stress, especially if one remains objective. Health social workers have to handle cases of patients with acute disabilities, which could be both physical and mental. Sometimes, they help patients who have been abandoned by family members and/or rejected by society.
In some situations, a social worker will also be compelled to provide counseling for the family and the patient. Ideally, while they are qualified for this, it is only to some extent since the people in charge of counseling should be psychologists. However, the psychologists are rarely available. As a result, many social workers find themselves filling a role for which they are not adequately qualified.
In addition, the high levels of stress that are encountered by the workers have negative effects on their family life matters since they frequently have to sacrifice their personal time for the sake of their clients. Health social workers have similar responsibilities with many workers in the healthcare sector, yet earn only a fraction of what doctors and surgeons make.
Conclusion
After examining the factors that underpin the day-to-day performance of a healthcare social worker and making comparisons with other individuals working in various fields, I have concluded that the former are grossly underpaid. For my market pricing, I have based salary on the levels of stress, the degree of commitment, and the value added to a given firm.
Afterwards, I have analyzed the whole industry and determined the level of competition. An analysis of what related firms pay for similar services has also be been conducted.
In the case of health social workers, they add incalculable value to society as a whole and their roles have been statistically found to be among the most stressful, albeit least paid. On this basis, I arrived at the figure of between $30 and $40 per hour, which places them under the same brackets as doctors and government employees.
References
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2014). Occupational Outlook Handbook: Social and Human Service Assistants. Web.
Dickler, J. (2014). Stressful Jobs That Pay Badly. Web.
Elliott, P. (2013). Student Loan Forgiveness Program Available To Millions Who Aren’t Utilizing It, CFPB Says. Web.
Johnson, S., Cooper, C., Cartwright, S., Donald, I., Taylor, P., & Millet, C. (2005). The experience of work-related stress across occupations. Journal of managerial psychology, 20(2), 178-187.
Joseph, B. Kilmartin, J, B., & Miller, A, K. (2008). Understanding Market Pricing. Web.
Razavi, S., & Staab, S. (2010). Underpaid and overworked: A cross‐national perspective on care workers. International Labour Review, 149(4), 407-422.