Reprinted with permission from 'Brand News', the newsletter of the Cerebral Palsy Association of Western Australia, December 2005.
John Knowles, CEO, Cerebral Palsy Association of Western Australia and President, CP Australia
One of the critical issues facing all
of us who work in human service
areas such as disability services is
the very real challenge of
recruiting and retaining staff for
the many services that we provide.
Too often I hear about staff
turnover, staff shortages and the
poor remuneration levels for the dedicated people who work in our
services.
These are issues that are not
confined to the Cerebral Palsy Association of Western Australia (CPAWA), but are
challenges for all employers in the
disability sector. In my role as a
board member of the Western
Australian Council of Social
Services I also hear a similar story
being told in refuges, legal aid,
aged care, relief, counselling and a
host of other social services.
As President of Cerebral Palsy
Australia, I also see this is a
national issue with all
organisations I speak to facing
similar challenges. One very large
service provider in the Eastern
States has contract labour or
agency staff filling nearly 20% of
all their carers shifts. More
disturbingly, there are reports of
situations where no staff are
available at times under any
circumstances! Thankfully CPAWA has not yet been faced
with this issue.
The reasons for this situation are
complex, but I believe can be
distilled to five key drivers:
• A strong economy has seen
workforce participation rates at
their highest and
unemployment levels at their
lowest for many years. There is
a shortage of people in all
workforce areas, for example the skilled labour shortage
facing Australia.
• The disability services sector
in WA and nationally has
grown dramatically over the
last ten years. Our demand for
carers in particular, has
outstripped the supply of
people wanting to work in
these areas.
• Market surveys indicate that
the people who most want to
work in our sector are women
returning to the workforce,
students and older people. Many of these people are not
looking for full time work or
wanting to make long-term
work commitments.
• Wages in the disability
services sector across Australia
are lower than other sectors.
The Australian Bureau of
Statistics shows that many of
our staff in Australian
disability services are on
average paid nearly $40 per
week less than those in the
Health and Community
Services Sector and a further
$20 per week less than all
other industries. This is a huge
difference that should not be
allowed to continue.
• Employees in like Government
services have been given or are
being offered pay increases
that are 40% to 50% higher
than those we can offer our
staff, whilst the same
Governments are providing
increases to our funding of less
than 3%, making it very hard,
impossible in fact, to compete.
What is being done about this? I
am hopeful that some of the
following initiatives will, in the
medium term, redress this issue.
The National Disability Services
Administrators have commissioned
a project to meet the following
objectives:
• an analysis of the true impact
of an ageing workforce on the
disability sector;
• the development of a strategic,
sector-wide approach to
recruitment into the future, that
is, not only making
government-funded disability
services an 'employer of
choice', but making disability
an 'industry of choice';
• a strategic analysis of
recruitment practices, with a
focus on developing best
practice strategies for
recruiting high quality
applicants; and
• a strategic assessment of
training strategies, with a focus
on improving standards
industry-wide.
This of course, does not address
the important issue of
remuneration. To its credit, our [Western Australia]
State Government during the last
election promised in its disability
policy, “the Gallop Government
has a record of working across
government to fix problems and
improve the delivery of services to
the community. A second term
Gallop Government will lead a
strategy to address the workforce
issues that face all disability
service providers and their direct
care workers.”
To this end, a Workforce Planning
Group has been established
through the Disability Services
Commission to deliver on this
commitment: work has only just
begun.
Employers in the field have
through ACROD WA (our peak
organisation in Western Australia)
commissioned the Chamber of
Commerce and Industry to
specifically look at working
conditions that will deliver a stable
workforce, improve sector viability
and the promotion of work in our
sector as important to the
community.
In addition, CPAWA and
other employers continue to lobby
Government for an improved level
of support so we can in turn
improve the conditions of
employment for our staff. This of
course will be made more difficult
as the industrial relations agenda of
the Federal Government confuses
the industrial relations area.
For longer term issues and trends
for the Australian workforce and
economy I commend to readers of
an excellent
publication from the Productivity
Commission of Australia by its
Chair Gary Banks, titled “Policy Implications of an Ageing Australia”.