Attracting and retaining a regional aged care workforce: Overview of the research context and directions for research

Australia's aged care sector is in crisis, due to both increasing demand and workforce challenges such as indirect employment, poor pay and conditions, and high workloads. However, the sector is often discussed in homogeneous terms, with little attention to the complexity across public, private and not-for-profit service providers. Our research aim is to investigate differences in HRM models across different providers, and how these support or hinder staff attraction and retention. The first step is a thorough understanding of the little-documented nature of service providers. Utilizing secondary data available through government datasets, the paper provides a comprehensive picture of service providers across Australia. The paper concludes with reflections on how this institutional complexity affects our research design and research questions.