Are all workers influenced to stay by similar factors, or should different retention strategies be implemented? Comparing younger and older aged-care workers in Australia.

• Author: Radford, Katrina
• Position: Contributed Article - Report

Abstract

The global financial crisis led many older workers to delay retirement or to re-enter the workforce (O'Loughlin, Humpel and Kendig 2010). This has resulted in an increase in age diversity within organisations. This age diversity leads to improved creativity (Crampton and Hodge 2007) and improved productivity (Ilmakunnas and Ilmakunnas 2011). However, for human resource management professionals, age diversity can be challenging. Research comparing younger and older workers' intentions to stay is limited; this study continues that inquiry. To investigate intentions, a cross-sectional questionnaire was distributed to 2118 employees in the aged-care sector; 359 useable questionnaires were analysed. Results revealed similarities and differences between younger and older workers' intentions to stay. Variables such as perceived organisational support (POS), perceived supervisor support (PSS), and job embeddedness are analysed.

1. Literature Review

   The increased dependence on skilled staff by modern organisations has resulted in a change of power from the organisation to the employees (Rousseau and Shperling 2003).This has resulted in higher levels of worker mobility, which is the 'opportunity and willingness of an employee to seek employment elsewhere' (Rousseau and Shperling 2003, p. 559). This, therefore, has created significant pressure on organisations to develop appropriate strategies to retain their quality employees. It is particularly the case in aged care, where 48 per cent of residential aged-care employees and 50.1 per cent of community aged-care employees have been working with their current employer for less than five years (Kingetal. 2012). Additionally, recent evidence has suggested that if the aged-care sector is to avoid shortfalls in staffing of over 100 000 employees, there would need to be significant efforts directed towards increasing rates of employee retention (Buchan et al. 2015).

   However, the ability of organisations to develop appropriate human resource management strategies is hampered by the increased age-diversity of employees found in workplaces. This is evidenced by reports that nearly 60 per cent of employment spells in aged and community-care based organisations last for less than two years (Austen et al. 2013). If the aged-care sector is to meet the growing demands of an ageing population, organisations in this industry will need to retain younger workers, and take advantage of the increasing workforce participation of older workers. Contemporary research examining the factors influencing both older and younger employees' intentions to stay is needed. Meeting this need is the purpose of this article.

   The Ageing Workforce Challenge

   The global financial crisis has led many older workers to delay retirement or to re-enter the workforce due to their financial need to work as a result of lost savings (O'Loughlin, Humpel and Kendig 2010). In fact, the number of older workers re-entering the workforce or delaying retirement is climbing faster in Australia than in many other countries (OECD 2012). This was further emphasised in a recent review of the Australian labour force, which revealed an increase in participation rates between 2002 and 2013 for male workers aged 65 to 74 from 15 per cent to 26 per cent, and from 6 per cent to 13 per cent for females (AB5 2013). This increase in participation rates is expected to continue into the future as the population ages. Consequently, there has been a recent push by the Australian government to increase the retirement age to 70 by the year 2035 (Department of Human Services 2014).

   From a societal perspective, the push to increase the participation rate of older people in the workforce is one way--from an economic perspective--of softening the impact of the ageing population (ABS 2012). Yet from a practical perspective, the ability of older people to continue to work is influenced greatly by the working arrangements within organisations to meet the needs of older workers (Conen, van Dalen and Henkens 2012; Frerichs et al. 2012). Such arrangements include how accommodating and supportive an organisation is to retaining older workers, which is often influenced greatly by negative stereotypes of older workers. Some of these stereotypes include decreases in cognitive abilities, higher costs, and increased absenteeism due to illness (Patrickson and Ranzjin 2004; Gellert and Kuipers 2008).

   To begin to investigate these stereotypes, Australian research by Brough et al. (2011) examined differences between younger and older workers in Australian organisations. The results of that study found no differences between older and younger employees' cognitive skills. Additionally, no differences were found between older and younger workers' intentions to leave, perceptions of social support, commitment, or satisfaction. Further, research by Gellertand Kuipers (2008) found that teams that included older workers tended to produce better-quality outcomes than younger teams. However, teams with older workers did report more difficulties in keeping up with the fast pace of the work and were less inclined to tolerate high levels of strain (Gellertand Kuipers 2008). Overall, most research finds that older workers do not have a negative influence on organisational productivity.

   Despite this, many organisations still shy awayfrom policiesthat encourage the retention of older workers (Young 2013). However, as less than 20 per cent of the Australian population is comprised of young people, even with migration adding to the number of young adults (ABS 2012), it is becoming increasingly important to develop human resource management policies that encourage the retention of younger and older workers (Mountford 2011).To inform these policies, research is needed to investigate differences between older and younger workers' intentions to stay. This is particularly the case in the aged-care sector, where over 75 per cent of organisations investigated in a recent census of an aged-care workforce reported a skill shortage in at least one care role (King et al. 2012). This article investigates differences between older and younger workers' intentions to stay within the aged-care sector.

   The Aged-care Sector and the Aged-care Workforce

   The aged-care workforce consists of a direct-care workforce and a non-direct-care workforce. The direct-care workforce consists of occupations that exist only within the health-care sector, such as personal carers and assistants in nursing, enrolled nurses, enrolled endorsed nurses, registered nurses, allied health workers, directors of nursing, and other workers such as those who provide support services such as cooking, cleaning, administration, and maintenance services (Department of Health and Ageing 2010, Productivity Commission 2011). The non-direct-care workforce consists of occupations that are not health-specific, including engineering, project management, research, architecture, marketing, human resource management, information systems, accountancy, and finance. The focus of this article is the direct-care workforce.

   Employees within the aged-care sector can work in two different settings: residential aged care or community aged care. Residential aged-care services provide permanent and temporary accommodation to older people in the form of residential aged-care facilities; community aged-care services are provided for older people to enable them to live independently in their own homes for longer (AIHW 2015). In addition, while positions across residential aged-care and community aged-care service settings are found to be similar in the skills and scope of practice, they differ significantly in their employment status (King et al. 2012). Specifically, the community aged-care setting employs a higher percentage of full-time employees than does the residential aged-care setting (King et al. 2012). While both provide care to clients 24 hours a day on 7 days of the week, the community aged-care setting appears to provide the majority of its services from Monday to Friday within normal business hours, and only a small percentage of its services are provided over the weekend.

   These differences are important to note because, on average, the aged-care direct-care workforce is four years older than public and private sector health-care workers (AIHW 2011). In 2012, the median age of an aged-care worker was 47 years in residential-care settings, and 50 years in community-care settings. Additionally, the aged-care census revealed that in 2012 59.9 per cent of residential-care workers and 70 per cent of community-care workers were over the age of 45 (King et al. 2012). Little is known about the differences between the factors influencing younger and older workers' intentions to remain in this sector.

   Intentions to Stay

   Research examining employees' intentions to stay is still emerging (Shacklock and Brunetto 2011).This research is valuable because while much is known about factors influencing employees' intentions to leave, little is known about their intentions to stay. This was highlighted by Cho, Johanson and Guchait (2009) who argued that examining the factors that influence employees' intentions to stay-rather than just the factors that influence employees' intentions to leave--is important because lower intentions to leave do not necessarily result in lower turnover, but higher intentions to stay significantly increase employee retention. Thus, further studies of intention to stay are needed because employees are more productive and more focused on their roles within a stable workforce (Arnold 2005). Such stability leads to improved quality of work, improved organisational memory, competitive advantage through retaining a more experienced workforce, and reductions in training, advertising, and recruitment costs (Jones and Gates 2007). Additionally, Flavel (2007) suggests that an understanding of the factors influencing...