Steve Holden, Guest Contributor – An experienced senior People and Culture manager and practitioner in the Aged Care sector
THE SITUATION
The current workforce shortage in Australia is creating problems across all industries and sectors. As we gradually move away from the Covid pandemic and business activity increases, we’re seeing more competition for staff across the wider workforce.
Our clients in the Aged and Disability Care sectors are being hit especially hard. They face an immense challenge, with aged and disability carers in the top 3 most in-demand skills.
This is even more challenging when you factor in the sector’s ever-present elephant in the room: staff attrition.
In among these challenges, there are opportunities. Being proactive with a willingness to demonstrate a strategic approach, even in the current climate you can position your organisation to thrive in both organisational culture, and the customer experience you deliver.
In this piece we’ll look at where aged and disability care providers find themselves, and how they can create a path through staff shortages to emerge in a stronger position.
CAUSE FOR ALARM
The reports are alarming, claiming 110,000 extra aged care workers are required within the next decade without urgent action being taken. The disability sector faces an even more pressing challenge: 83,000 workers needed by 2024. None of this is made easier by the fact it’s happening in the tightest labour market in 50 years!
Governments and peak bodies are being challenged like never before. Policy makers and industry leaders are brainstorming, planning, and consulting research in an attempt to generate new ideas – and a broad, diverse range of new ideas at that – to be implemented as they attempt to address the staffing issues.
In reality, we know this will not be a quick solution.
Aged and disability care service providers already compete within a tightening sector. Now they’re in competition with other sectors and industries; many with more resources and incentives available. Expect them to address their own staffing demands by broadening their recruitment to target “our” traditional labour pool. Almost overnight we’re facing an unprecedented level of competition for workers.
THE ELEPHANT
Which brings us to the elephant in the room: staff attrition.
In our work with providers, we’ve seen a range of reasons for staff leaving the aged care and disability sectors, including:
- Lower pay than other potential employment sources
- Stress around reforms and planned changes that have either impacted their roles negatively or simply never been implemented
- Burnout amid relentless pressure to do more with less, and
- High levels of non-value-add tasks preventing staff from doing what they’re employed to do - and what they want to do
It’s not just organisations that suffer. The struggle to fill positions, compounded by high staff turnover means customers are feeling the effects which adds to the uncertainty in the sector.
THE IMPACT ON CLIENTS AND RESIDENTS
Clients and residents in the aged care, disability care, and community care sectors are already more vulnerable than most. Staff shortages and turnover impacts them at the most basic level: the human connection they have with their carers and support network. It can lead to an inconsistent roster of support workers and leave clients/residents having to rebuild relationships with staff over and over again.
In a role where trust is so incredibly important, this is a huge emotional burden for both clients/residents and staff.
We’ve worked with a lot of organisations on redesigning their customer experience and seen the benefits of empowering businesses with a customer-centric approach.
IDENTIFY THE OPPORTUNITIES
While the impact to service delivery quality can be severe for clients/residents, it also has ramifications for providers. With established routines disrupted and the usual quality of service not guaranteed, each day becomes a potential minefield to be negotiated. In this highly legislated sector any potential breach of standards can be met with penalties, and lead to a loss of clients. Brand equity is critical in aged and disability care, and ongoing or repeated issues inevitably expose service providers to negative publicity and a loss of reputation.
Despite the challenges, there are numerous areas which can be examined and better managed at the enterprise level. At Emergent we’ve worked closely with providers to identify and address issues causing problems for organisations, their staff, and their customers.
| Challenge Solution | Solution |
| Non value add tasks that prevent staff from doing what they were employed to do. | Continuous Improvement to remove waste from processes |
| Systems that prevent staff from doing what they were employed to do. | Optimise systems or be on the path to replace |
| Availability of current staff is not being maximised | Maximise staff utilisation through dashboard reports to highlight shift gaps, excessive travel, and to clearly see demand so it can be levelled |
BECOME THE EMPLOYER OF CHOICE
As leadership teams are subjected to ever-tighter operating budgets, they have to deal with ongoing costs in recruitment, onboarding and training. The staff shortage means experienced, dedicated workers are more valuable assets than ever before, and we’ve seen positive outcomes for businesses that remunerate competitively.
Consider the difference between a pay raise for proven, dedicated team members against the cost of onboarding and training new staff, who still represent a risk to smooth operations.
Salary isn’t everything either. You can offer staff incentives for actively assisting in the referral and recruitment of new staff. Workers rarely recommend people they don’t genuinely think can contribute; there’s a level of personal pride involved in suggesting anyone to an employer.
Strengthening the workplace culture can also play a huge role in staff retention.
Creating a positive culture sounds obvious, but how many organisations commit to surveying staff regularly and examining any resulting early warning signs? By encouraging input, and ideas and asking for on-the-job frustrations, you not only increase the engagement workers have with the business, but you access a wealth of data that can be used to strengthen the organisation. A word of caution though - ensure confidentiality and anonymity when you do this to ensure genuine feedback is received. It can reveal patterns, trends and underlying causes for dissatisfaction and enable you to instigate important conversations with your team.
In this same spirit, don’t overlook the value of honest exit discussions, which can provide information you may never otherwise receive.
ENABLE AND EMPOWER YOUR TEAM
More than ever, employees are looking for purpose in their work. In the aged and disability care sector, that purpose is front and centre, as staff see the genuine – and often immediate - difference and contribution they make to the lives of customers. This is an advantage over most other industries on the planet. And in many ways, it’s a troubling failure by service providers when we see people leaving the sector in high numbers.
It’s up to operators to ensure staff have all obstacles removed, so their time is maximally spent on value add tasks – not wasted on pointless and emotionally draining admin tasks that either take them away from frontline work with customers or keep them at work longer. While this may give the perception of a dedicated employee, it is actually them sacrificing their free (or family) time. Make no mistake; resentment will build over time!
If you look to maximise the time community-based staff are utilised, you’ll reduce travel requirements and ensure shifts are filled. Combine these steps with providing career development opportunities, and staff will see their need for purpose fulfilled and reasons to stay with you moving forward.
These simple measures will contribute to ensuring your frontline workers feel valued and respected.
At a broader perspective, strengthening your links and partnerships with Registered Training Organisations and maintaining connections with employer and industry associations will help you to better understand what’s happening at a national or state level and opportunities for collaboration on ideas and problem-solving.
THE FUTURE’S STILL BRIGHT
The workforce shortage is a real and immediate challenge for Aged and Disability Care Services. Even in this climate, you can work to improve and create competitive advantages for your organisation.
A strategic approach will allow you to retain the best workers, strengthen and streamline processes, and position you to move forward and recruit for values and behaviours over skills, knowing you’ve established a culture to effectively onboard and train new staff – and the systems to help them succeed.
At Emergent, we understand the difficulties the sector faces and bring ideas, solutions and processes to improve organisations – all underpinned by experience. We can get you started on your continuous improvement journey; we can support you to optimise your systems, or support you through the next steps on system replacement.
We can even gather insights from your current data to help you maximise your staff utilisation through dashboard reporting.
We’d love to hear from you and work on strengthening your organisation. Contact us to discuss any issues in this post further, or you can book a meeting with us to discuss your situation.
