168,000 new jobs between 2018-2023

The story

Yep, that's right. According to the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business, that's how many new jobs will be required between 2018 and 2023 to meet the increased demand for healthcare and social support. Combined, they are the leading two jobs growth sectors in Australia.

Well, we are one year in now, so presumably there are just 134,300 to go.

83,000 of these new jobs between 2018-2023 will be in Social Assistance services alone.

That's another 66,400 new jobs in the pipeline for Social Assistance services (most of which are NFPs) over the next 4 years.

"WOW! Where are they coming from? It's already hard to find good staff"

WOW! Where are they coming from? It's already hard to find good staff. I'm not sure about all support assistance sectors, but let's have a look at some of the issues in the disability services sector (and I strongly suspect, other support assistance areas would have similar issues) that contribute to make finding and keeping good staff hard:

• 40% of the disability sector workforce have casual job status compared with 23% in the general workforce;
• 77% of the permanent disability sector workforce have part-time jobs and average hours of employment are decreasing;
• 21% of the current disability sector workforce are over 55 years of age (you could reasonably expect a number to drop out of employment over the next 4 years for age related reasons e.g. retirement - nothing to do with any other factor);
• 70% of the current disability sector workforce are women (NB not a problem, just very different to the general workforce);
• The entry level pay rate for a full-time worker with a Certificate 4 qualification in the disability sector workforce is $54,528 per year (the average full-time wage in Australia is circa $83,000 per year - though it varies significantly from state to state);
• And anecdotally, it's not a sector that heaps of kids at school are thinking about.

These issues are mostly a concern for attracting new staff, as current staff generally rate their job satisfaction very highly. That said, things like low pay and fear of casualisation of the workforce do have a significant impact on current staff.

How to keep good staff

"Every day as every new job is created, current good staff become more valuable - that's what happens in markets when demand outstrips supply"

Every day as every new job is created, current good staff become more valuable - that's what happens in markets when demand outstrips supply. So how do you keep staff from shipping out to a competitor organisation?

Performance management

First, train or get rid of all the crook staff. Nothing grits good staff off more, than working with people who are incompetent, lazy, or who behave inappropriately. NFPs have in the past been notoriously bad at addressing staff performance issues. When done properly, performance management enables all the good staff to exhale an enormous collective sigh of relief.

NB *pet rant warning* I said performance management NOT annual staff appraisals. If you are a narcissistic type of boss, you think staff appraisals are a wonderful opportunity to bully people. If you are a truly humble leader, you think staff appraisals are a wonderful opportunity to help the person grow and develop; and to get feedback on your own performance as a leader and how you can best support your staff. Most leaders fall somewhere between these two extremes. And what do staff think? Staff don't care what any type of boss thinks about staff appraisals. Staff just hate staff appraisals! *rant ends*

Performance management is addressing matters as and when they occur in a culture of constant 2-way communication and feedback. Performance management is also about providing leadership, training, and other resources that staff need to do their job.

Give staff mission, mission, and more mission

Every staff engagement survey I've ever been a part of in the NFP sector indicates, that staff have a passion for the purpose of the organisations they work for. Sadly though, in many organisations the smell of the sizzle is far better than the taste of the sausage. The glossy brochures and fancy websites say one thing, the reality is something less.

How do you give staff more mission? First your mission needs to be succinct and meaningful. Your mission needs to be directly translatable as a compelling call to action for staff. You then train and empower staff to be more responsive in accordance with the organisation's mission to meet the individual needs of the people they support.

"Your mission needs to be directly translatable as a compelling call to action for staff"

You also celebrate success. I know an organisation that starts every staff meeting, no matter where it occurs in the organisation with a good news story about the implementation of the organisation's mission. A different staff member is responsible for telling the story each time (this is particularly helpful for back of house staff to feel the vibe of what you do - and they have to talk to someone front of house to get a story when it's their turn to share - win win).

Communicate, communicate, communicate

It sounds simple, you may think you already do it. You're wrong. Staff surveys always indicate that staff feel leaders of organisations do not communicate enough. I wrote about this in my last article here.

Fix up your facilities, equipment and technology

One of the bigger gripes for staff in the NFP sector is that their facilities, equipment and technology are just not up to scratch, or some is and some isn't. Poor tools frustrate the bejeebus out of them. Answer? Make everything fit for purpose. If it's all really crappy now and you can't afford to fix all of it at once, create a plan with timelines to fix it all up. Circulate the plan to everyone and then report to everyone on progress. People will endure a lot if they know that the organisation is trying and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

It also helps if execs don't flaunt their latest bit of nifty kit that they SAY they absolutely have to have to do their job. I like a saying I learned in the army reserve, 'officers eat last'. By all means tuck into your nifty kit to your hearts delight, ONCE the staff have the proper tools for their job. The same goes for junkets, nothing breeds resentment faster in an organisation than staff trying to work on continuously crashing computers, as their boss says "cheerio" as they head off on what staff perceive is a junket (whether or not it is, is irrelevant).

The big 3

"Career advancement opportunities, and remuneration always score worst in the surveys I've been involved in"

Career advancement opportunities, and remuneration always score the worst in the surveys I've been involved in. Given the constraints that exist for the majority of NFPs, these are often difficult to address. ANYTHING you can do in these 2 critical areas will help.

Sometimes you just have to face it, you may just be training up your best staff to go and work as a supervisor, manager, or executive for another organisation. Live with it and celebrate it when it happens. Count it as one of your organisation's successes and let the remaining staff now how proud you are of their colleague's achievement.

As for the pay... do what you can, where you can. That's it, that's all I got! Perhaps the best thing you can do, is excell in all the other areas above and below.

Cross unit cooperation

This one applies for any organisation that is big enough to have teams, branches, operating divisions, or back of house operations (Accounts, HR, IT, Marketing etc). Cross unit cooperation usually scores somewhere just ever so slightly north than career development and remuneration in staff surveys. Having everyone singing from the same song sheet on the mission helps with cross unit cooperation. It really is back to mission, mission, and more mission.

The sad part is, often this discord comes directly from the tone set by the leader of a particular branch. And the discord is often centred around the P&L. Operational branches revile against corporate recharges ("we pay how much? For THAT!") and the money makers are often disdainful of the money losers. CEOs and execs need to nip this stuff in the bud immediately it rears it's ugly head. The worst part is, I've seen execs nurture this skullduggery to help meet their own internal political ends. Stop it!

It helps for staff to have the opportunity to mingle with other staff from different areas of the organisation. Not just at work social thingees, but during formal work time, so they can see the things they do and better understand the pressures they are under. That way true relationships form, not just transactional ones.

As an old mentor of mine once said, "if we all want the same thing and we can't achieve it, then someone isn't trying very hard!".

Do staff engagement surveys!

How can you fix something if you don't even know about it? Make doing the survey a big deal and then act on the results. Share the results with all staff and ask them for their input on how to make things better. Then create a DRAFT action plan and circulate that to all staff for comment - don't be so arrogant as to think you will arrive at the right answers first go! Then develop the final action plan and disseminate that. Oh, and it's not just a 'HR thing', the CEO and executive team have to (and have to be seen to) fully embrace and drive the whole process - as well as personally be active in reporting progress on the action plan.

Part 1 conclusion

In short, it may not always be possible to pay people more, but there are other ways you can add value to their experience with your organisation. As staff become more valuable every single day, you can't afford not to!

Part 2 - How to attract new staff

PS I'm also looking for a job in the NFP sector, I'd really appreciate you watching, liking, commenting, or sharing this 39sec video. Ta much.