SA Innovation Hub in partnership with Kalyra, Bene Aged Care Barossa Village, Resthaven, BeWellCo, Flinders University, and COTA SA has been awarded an ARIIA grant for their ‘Interventions to support retention of female workers aged 50+ in the aged care workforce’ project.
This project will implement interventions to support retention of female workers aged 50+ within residential aged care across four SA Innovation Hub Member Organisations in SA. The interventions have been developed based on evidence of factors that influence workforce retention and workforce exit in this segment of the workforce.
Female aged care workers aged 50+ are being targeted due to:
- This group contributes significant skills, knowledge and experience;
- They are motivated by vocational rewards;
- They play an important role in supporting new staff by providing mentoring & cultural leadership;
- They are at risk of exiting due to work / life balance impacts, emotional exhaustion and burnout, loss of vocational rewards due to a focus on basic care tasks as opposed to resident engagement necessitated by existing workforce shortages.
We will test the following interventions:
- Roster Stability. Strategies will be implemented to ensure participants are not asked to extend current shifts or take up additional shifts at short notice to cover staff shortages with aim to improve work life balance;
- Wellbeing. The SAHMRI Be Well Co wellbeing program will be implemented, to support staff mental health and quality of life, preventing emotional exhaustion and burnout.