The aged care workforce crisis is usually discussed in terms of frontline shortages. We need more care workers, nurses and allied health professionals. Of course we do, but another workforce problem sits behind the scenes.
Support at Home is being held together by experienced managers, care partners and operational leaders. Their workloads have changed so dramatically that many are now doing jobs that bear little resemblance to the positions they originally accepted. The reform has expanded while their working hours have not.
Two recent discussions on Invox QANDA struck a nerve. One person asked whether providers need to revisit position descriptions and have honest conversations about workload, responsibilities and remuneration. Others described administrative teams working overtime and weekends, feeling overlooked and approaching breaking point.
This is not resistance to change. Eight months into Support at Home, experienced people are increasingly compensating for the complexity of the system.
Competence becomes its own punishment
Every organisation has a few of these essential performers. They know which rule has changed, which portal cannot be trusted and who to call when the official process produces no answer. Because they are capable, every difficult issue lands on their desk. Competence becomes its own punishment.
These people become the shock absorbers for reform. They absorb the confusion before it reaches frontline staff, clients or executives. That may keep an organisation functioning today, but it is a terrible long-term workforce strategy.
When they leave, providers lose more than a position. They lose judgement, relationships, organisational memory and the ability to solve problems quickly.
The answer is not another resilience seminar
The answer is not another resilience seminar. Employee Assistance Programs can be valuable, but they cannot remove work from an overloaded role. They cannot repair a broken process, clarify a badly designed job or give someone their weekend back.
Excessive job demands, poor role clarity and badly managed organisational change are recognised psychosocial hazards. Employers are required to manage the causes of those risks through the design and management of work, not simply offer assistance after someone is already struggling.
Start with the work
Leaders should begin with a work-added review. Ask what has been added since Support at Home began. What now takes longer? What is being checked twice? What spills into evenings? What relies on one person’s knowledge? What are staff doing because the formal process does not work? Then make decisions.
Some work should stop. Some should be simplified. Some roles need more resources, reclassification or better remuneration. Every new recurring demand should displace something. Staff capacity cannot be treated as an infinitely expandable space into which each new requirement can be inserted.
Often the people most committed to the organisation are also the least likely to ask for leave when they need it most. They keep showing up, keep solving problems and keep reassuring everyone else. From a distance, it can look as though they are coping.
They may not be waving. They may be drowning.
Ask better questions
Providers need better conversations with the people they cannot afford to lose. “Are you okay?” is caring, but easily answered with, “I’m fine.”
Ask instead:
- What part of your role has become unsustainable?
- What work are you carrying that senior management does not see?
- What could we change now that would make the greatest practical difference?
Effective engagement and implementing change as a result is not only the right thing to do, it is economically sensible.
The cost of doing nothing
As we all know, turnover brings recruitment, onboarding and training costs, along with lost productivity while new employees learn the role. Errors rise, decisions slow and morale falls. Clients must rebuild relationships with new staff.
Psychosocial injury claims create another substantial risk. They can mean long absences, complex return-to-work processes, higher claims costs and pressure on workers compensation premiums.
Salary reviews, an additional team member or protected recovery time may look expensive as a budget line. They look very different beside the cost of losing a highly experienced employee or managing a preventable psychosocial injury.
If capacity cannot grow, expectations must shrink
Not every provider can afford another employee, a pay rise or additional leave. But a lack of money does not remove the need to act. Leaders can still stop lower-value work, simplify processes, reset priorities and be honest about what cannot be delivered safely. The worst option is to leave the workload unchanged and rely on committed people to keep absorbing the difference.
If an organisation cannot afford to add capacity, it will need to reduce expectations. Support at Home cannot continue to depend on committed people quietly stretching their roles until something breaks.
Good managers listen. Smart organisations redesign the work.