Speed is the Winner in the Battle for Support Workers

By David Cuda – Managing Partner - Support Worker Co.

Working closely with executives leading Community Service providers we commonly hear statements such as:

 “We have massive Support Workforce shortages”

“We can’t find the Support Workers we desperately need”

“How do you guys find Support Workers and we can’t”

“What are your secrets on how you provide us with Support Workers which we can’t source ourselves”

“Our rostering and service delivery teams are always crying out for more Support Workers”

“If we could only find more Support Workers’ we would be able to grow our revenue”

“We are losing participants because we can’t fill their rosters of care”

When it comes to today’s market, it’s simple, time is the killer in Support Worker recruitment.

What’s Changed?

Support Workers have choice like never seen before in the Community Services sector.  Roles are in abundance with Community Service providers across Disability, Aged Care and Youth Services due to all the well-publicised workforce shortage issues and ongoing growth of the sector, just look at what’s occurred with the NDIS budget blowouts.

Furthermore, in the Disability sector, the advent of Independent Support Workers has quickly enhanced the workforce challenges of Disability Service providers.  Independent Support Workers are now a new competitor of Disability Service providers as they are a new force in directly supporting participants that would otherwise have been supported by Disability Service providers. 

Rather than be an employee for a Disability Service provider, Support Workers are kicking off their own direct Disability Service provider business by registering an ABN and charging for their services as per the NDIS Price Guide and Limits. 

$60 worked for a day shift looks a lot more attractive on the surface than $31 as a perm employee!

Why Is it Speed?

Community Service providers are dealing with an ecosystem of workforce shortage factors like never experienced before which will only continue to accelerate into the future.  Besides delivering on the basics when it comes to recruitment such as having diverse sourcing strategies and executing a thorough process, we are increasingly seeing Community Service providers struggle to get candidates through their process quickly, so that they don’t lose the candidate to another provider.

One of our clients recently outlined that they estimate losing 75% of candidates going through their organisations recruitment process to other job offers – that’s scary!

Support Workers are not going to stick around and go through a long recruitment and assessment process any longer, they are now in charge and have all the power as Support Workers can find plenty of roles with providers or register an ABN in a few minutes and get their business going.

Time is now the killer of recruitment for Community Services providers. 

Providers who expect to keep a candidate engaged in a 6-to-8-week recruitment process is problematic in today’s workforce environment and likely the main contributor to causing a large drop off in candidates along the way.

Support Workers no longer tolerate lengthy recruitment and assessment processes, they are now the master of their own fate with the power to either apply with many other providers and/or register an ABN to begin their journey as a private support worker.

Doing It Better and Faster

Community Service providers have a significant number of improvement opportunities at hand which provide solutions to the challenges associated with all-things Support Workforce recruitment.

Leveraging technologies combined with generating efficiencies from improving systems, workflows, processes, and people can all dramatically assist in reducing the candidate recruitment and onboarding journey so that drop-off rates are reduced, and the self-defeating cycle is changed for the better.

There is an abundance of opportunities for all of us to do Recruitment better, faster, and cheaper, it just needs the investment of time and energy to achieve improved outcomes, which is difficult to do when you are so deep in a hole of day-to-day recruitment within the same frameworks which haven’t changed for years.