Placement Advisors as Innovators. How Professionals Use Enhanced Discretion in Germany’s Public Employment Services

Carolin Freier · Monika Senghaas

14 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Social Policy

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Public Policy and Administration Research Social Policy and Reform Studies Employment, Labor, and Gender Studies

Abstract

Abstract Employees of the public employment services (PES) are street-level bureaucrats who shape activation policy on the ground. This paper examines how PES staff use enhanced discretion in an innovation project carried out by the German Federal Employment Agency. Applying a bottom-up perspective, we reconstruct PES employees’ logic of action and the dilemmas they face in improving counselling and placement services. According to our findings, placement staff use enhanced discretion to promote more individualised support and an adequate matching of jobseekers and employers. The use of discretion is framed by organisational norms and reward mechanisms and by the current labour market situation. Our analyses are based on qualitative interviews and group discussions with placement staff.

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References

1981Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services 2008Qualitative Content Analysis 1995The “new public management” in the 1980s: Variations on a theme 1993Human Services as Complex Organizations.2004Street-Level Bureaucracy, Social Work and the (Exaggerated) Death of Discretion 2009NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS: THE DARK SIDES OF MANAGERIALISTIC ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’2011Policy Work: Street-Level Organizations Under New Managerialism 2015Standardisation—the end of professional discretion?

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2021Managing Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Performance by Promoting Professional Behavior Through HRM 2022Accountability in personalised Supported Employment-based activation services 2024Enabling street-level work: minimal structures for customized social services 2023A journey into the new employment service landscape of responsibilisation: Towards de‐personalisation of the caseworker–jobseeker relationship

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