Confirmation of Candidature - Candidate : Jennifer Pollock

The Australian population, similar to other countries internationally, is continuing to age and societal ageing is affecting economic growth, patterns of work and retirement. While healthcare is currently experiencing workforce challenges across the whole of care and support, these shortages are being felt acutely in aged care. The two key elements driving these workforce challenges are - increasing service demands to meet the needs of an ageing population who are living longer and an ageing workforce. 
Personal Care Workers (PCWs) are the cornerstone for providing care to residents of Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs). However, finding skilled staff willing to work in RACFs in the sector continues to be a challenge. The Australian Government forecasts a gap greater than 250,000 employees in the aged care sector by 2050. To attract additional workers to this sector, employers need to align employment opportunities to the changing wants and needs of the PCWs. 

Organisations have used career planning as part of their human resources strategy to ensure sustained organisational performance since the early 1980's. Career life cycle planning (CLCP) is a newer process that employees use throughout their working life to decide what path they will take during their working life, and what opportunities they will take advantage of to accomplish this. This process is continually revisited by the employee as they move through their career considering the impacts of family, ageing and motivation. 
CLCP incorporates career management but extends this to include additional factors which impact on an individual's career such as family, health, age, and financial obligations. The action PCW take to balance their career with personal and aged related changes has become increasingly important due to the extension of working lives in most developed and many developing countries. 

While the workforce in the aged care sector has been studied in the past, the focus has been on nursing staff. There has been a lack of attention to the care services provided by PCWs and the skills and resources needed by these workers to perform tasks at a high standard. The objective of this research is to explore CLCP as a tool to improve the wellbeing of PCW that in turn may improve PCWs' performance and thus enhance the overall organisational performance. This gives rise to the overarching research question: What are the enablers, barriers, and benefits to implementing CLCP into the RACF?

For more information, please email the Graduate Research School or phone 0746 311 088.