Theme 1: Having mixed feelings as professional regarding performance measurement in social work The sub themes were: 1) having both doubts and curiosity about performance measurement in social work and 2) feeling being torn between what can be measured and what cannot be measured. Having both doubt and curiosity about measuring in social work highlights the feelings of doubts and curiosity that the interviewed talked about in relation to measuring in Social Work. Almost all informants described that they felt that it is problematic to measure changes within people whilst there are no problem to measure things related to more quantitative factors. Measuring in Social Work seems to arouse feelings that what is measured is just a snapshot of a more complex reality and not given a meaning of importance in relation to those in need of social services. All of the informant describes an uncertainty if everything that happens in Social Work is possible to measure. Some of the informants have a larger inner conviction …show more content…
We might think that it is social services that has done something [valuable], but in fact, it can be either a teacher [or someone else] that has said something liberating that has meant that it has" clicked ". [That´s] what [makes it] so incredibly difficult to measure. It makes it complicated (IP 2) The informants describe a coherent awareness of struggle when it comes to measuring in human service organizations. Doing a decent job, for instance, has diverse dimensions. The results visible today can be totally different from those visible tomorrow and in a distant future. How clients relates to themselves and how they live their lives ahead are things that cannot be fully measured by statistics or numbers. Because I do not believe that it is possible, I do not think that you can only control or direct the work on the basis of performance measure, but it can be a part of [a greater whole](IP