LeadingAge center tackles workforce challenges

LeadingAge has launched a new workgroup to examine challenges in long-term care staffing and workforce management. The Center for Workforce Solutions offers online resources for calculating turnover costs, engaging direct-care staff and keeping informed of workforce policies.

The decision to create the center stemmed from conversations with provider members across the country who are facing enormous workforce challenges. Recent survey results from LeadingAge’s 6,000 members identified the top challenges as an insufficient number of qualified applicants (83.7 percent of respondents), competitive wages (65 percent) and staff turnover (63 percent).

The LeadingAge Center for Workforce Solutions will be directed by Susan Hildebrandt, vice president of workforce initiatives. “We need to develop messaging that portrays the aging services workforce as a valuable and critical profession,” Hildebrandt said in a LeadingAge release. “We need to demystify aging and aging services and convince prospective workers that these really are the jobs of the future.”

The center’s Promising Practices database includes more than a dozen innovative provider initiatives implemented to address workforce challenges, including ways to nurture leaders, reduce turnover, train employees and gain staff with high-quality skills.

Pamela Tabar

Pamela Tabar was editor-in-chief of I Advance Senior Care from 2013-2018. She has worked as a writer and editor for healthcare business media since 1998, including as News Editor of Healthcare Informatics. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University and a master’s degree in English from the University of York, England.