The purpose of the work has been to investigate the causes of the difficulties in recruiting and retaining graduated social workers in the social services of the authorities. The method chosen has been a qualitative interview study with a semi-structured interview guide as the basis. Two questions have been formulated to find factors that are important for finding answers. The first: What makes the social worker happy with his work? Here it has emerged that good leadership where one feels listened to and taken seriously is of great importance. The areas that were mainly affected in this regard have been workload and appreciation for well done work. The second question was: what factors influence the manager to leave his/her work? The work has shown that support and appreciation from colleagues as well as trust from the management in the form of room for action to be able to promote the client's needs is of importance for not leaving. Decisive according to all respondents for the feeling of doing a good job that you want to stay in is time. Time to meet increased requirements for documentation, time for the client and time for reflection and recovery.
Key words: social work, exercise of authority, workload, support, recognition, organization