Workplace conditions biggest influence on older workers staying in aged care: research

Organisational factors, such as a supportive working environment, pay and opportunities for career progression, are the biggest determinants of whether older personal care workers will choose to continue working – far and above personal factors such as age and health – a new study has found

Organisational factors, such as a supportive working environment, pay and opportunities for career progression, are the biggest determinants of whether older personal care workers will choose to continue working – far and above personal factors such as age and health – a new study has found.

The study, conducted by researchers at Griffith University and the University of Queensland, surveyed over 200 personal care workers over 50 to look at what circumstances influenced their decisions to stay in the workforce in both the short (next 12 months) and long-term (next five years).

It found that while personal factors, such as age, family responsiblity and health were important to personal care workers, organisational factors, such as job satisfaction and the working environment, carried far more clout.

In the short-term, almost 89 per cent of those surveyed reported organisational factors as likely to influence whether they stayed, compared to around 11 per cent of respondents who rated personal factors as more important. In the long-term, personal factors were more influential, although organisational factors still remained more important for 75 per cent of respondents.

Of personal factors, age was reported overall as the most important determinant in making a decision whether to stay. Of  organisational factors, job satisfaction, which included satisfaction with job itself, with clients and the overall sector was the most influential. The working environment was also rated as important in both the short and long term, including organisational culture and support, as well as relationships with managment and co-workers.

Respondents listed a ‘good work environment, company ethics and great management team’ and a ‘caring organisation’ as examples of what influenced their intention to stay.

Long-standing sector issue

How to retain staff has been an ongoing issue for the aged care industry. Recent aged care workforce censuses have shown the residential care workforce is, on average, older than the general Australian workforce. Furthermore, the proportion of the workforce over 55 is increasing: in 2012, 27 per cent of those in direct care were over 55, up from 23 per cent in 2007 and 17 per cent in 2003.

Personal care workers, while the youngest of aged care’s occupational groups, still have a median age of 47 – seven years older than the median workforce age in the general population.

Such statistics have raised questions of how the aged care industry best balance an ageing workforce and the increasing demand for services as the population ages.

Implications of latest findings

The authors of the study said their findings had significant practical implications for retention of older staff and reinforce “the importance of organisation in creating a supportive environment through its management, policies, practices and culture.”

“Organisations can (and do) influence older personal care workers’ intentions to continue working there. For example, culture, individualised management/supervision and the support provided play substantial roles. This is an important contribution to aged care organisational management and policymakers because they can now develop evidence-based staffing strategies and policies to encourage older PCWs to stay,” they wrote.

“This new knowledge can assist organisations to enhance strategic attraction/recruitment and retention polices and thereby reduce replacement and retraining costs and maintain a stable and skilled workforce.”

While the study recognised that many personal factors, such as age, were outside of employers’ control, there was scope for providers to mitigate personal factors as family responsiblity through things such as flexible job arrangements, as many aged care workers over 50 years old were often balancing care for both dependent children and elderly parents. The location of work relative to home was also rated as an important personal factor by respondents and the study recommended organisational recruitment strategies target local geographic areas.

The research, What makes me stay? An investigation into factors influencing older workers’ intention to stay, was published in the Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work. 

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