Greater attention needed on community service workforce

Professor Greg Marston, Dr Robert Arcidiacono and Dr Arianna Gatta from UQ’s Centre for Policy Futures collaborated with Anglicare Southern Queensland to investigate the factors turning potential employees away from community care jobs.

Project lead Professor Marston said the workforce, which includes aged care, disability support, youth work and family services employees, remains significantly undervalued, despite being one of the fastest growing employment sectors in Australia.   

“We found many people had strong motivations to contribute to community well-being but pay levels and casual contracts were factors that prevented this” Professor Marston said.

“With the rise of cost of living, many employees want to ensure they have a secure and stable job that can lead to career growth.

“There’s certainly a systemic issue at play where the community care sector is not receiving adequate funding and therefore these fundamentals are not feasible.”

The report presents a suite of innovative workforce strategies aimed at improving diversity, attraction and retention in the workforce.

These include public education campaigns to improve job perception, promotion of diverse entry pathways, offering permanent full-time and part-time contracts, and introducing “casual plus” models that combine casual employment with the opportunity to accumulate leave.

Research fellow Dr Arianna Gatta found it surprising the community care industry’s funding model was so under-resourced, considering the integral role care workers play in society and the high level of responsibility and interpersonal skills required for the job.

“You would never imagine hospitals, for example, having casual doctors on staff, but that’s the norm for community care,” Dr Gatta said.

“Casual contracts are a standard in the industry, and introducing permanent contracts would increase attraction across the board as well as attracting more men into the sector.”

Anglicare Southern Queensland Chief People Officer Anna Zilli said it is the responsibility of governments at all levels, the sector and communities to work together to ensure the sustainability of the community services workforce.

“By providing clearer career pathways, greater opportunities for training and development, improved wages, more funding certainty, and consistency in working hours, we can improve retention and attraction of community service workers,” Ms Zilli said.

The researchers hope the outcomes of the report will lead to collaboration across government, community care providers and communities to inform policy changes.  

Collaboration and acknowledgements