Money as a motivator in social work?

The government has a new scheme to attract more high-flyers to the profession of social work - particularly needed as recent high-profile and tragic cases such as that of Baby P have made it hard to recruit social workers. The carrot they are offering is cash - the new ‘Step up to Social Work’ scheme offers graduates at least £15,000 to retrain as children’s social workers under a new government-funded scheme. Candidates must have at least a 2.1 degree and some experience already of working with children and families, and this report says that it will be “up to local authorities who are employing those trainees to decide how to use the money” - they will receive the money from the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC), which receives most of its funding from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. So the money is not exactly paid directly to the 200 new recruits - there is a complicated bureaucracy which gets involved first.

There are a number of issues relevant to recruitment, training and motivation that strike me here: - this is an example of how poor reputation of the employer makes it hard to attract good candidates for vacancies - Herzberg makes it very clear that hygiene factors (including money) are just as important as the motivators; is money the most appropriate form of motivation for this kind of job? - what impact is this offer likely to have on morale amongst those already employed in the social work profession?