Attracting and retaining personal care assistants into the Western Australia (WA) residential aged care sector

ABSTRACT

The Australian population is ageing, with around one quarter being 60 years and older, and the proportion is expected to grow in the future. These trends have led to government projections for the number of personal care assistants (PCAs) needed to meet the demands of the ageing population, estimated to be more than double the current workforce by 2050. Consequently, the challenges associated with attracting and retaining PCAs in the aged care sector need to be urgently addressed. This qualitative study is based on a large and distributed residential aged care organisation located in Western Australia. Its focus is on the employment conditions of PCAs, their satisfiers and dissatisfiers, and the human resource management practices which might assist the organisation and its sector to better address PCA concerns, leading to more effective PCA attraction, selection and retention. A number of strategies have been proposed that are intended to help advance policy and debate, including attention to various HRM practices and factors relating to job quality.

KEYWORDS:

• Aged care
• human resource management
• employee attraction
• employee retention
• personal care assistants

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre;

Notes on contributors

Subas Dhakal

Subas Dhakal is a Lecturer in the School of Management, Curtin University, Perth, Australia. His research interests include sustainability, precarious worker employment, and graduate work-readiness in the Asia Pacific.

Alan Nankervis

Alan Nankervis is an Adjunct Professor of HRM at the Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Australia. His research interests include comparative Asian HRM, HRM and organisational effectiveness, graduate work-readiness in the Asia Pacific.

Julia Connell

Julia Connell is an Adjunct Professor at both Curtin University (Perth) and  University Technology Sydney, with research interests in contingent employment, job quality, and graduate education to work transitions.

Scott Fitzgerald

Scott Fitzgerald is a Senior Lecturer at Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, with research interests in corporate governance, stakeholder engagement, industrial relations, organisation and management theory, and organisation behaviour.

John Burgess

John Burgess is a Professor of HRM in the School of Management at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Research interests include contingent employment, job quality, and graduate transitions to employment.