I’ve been involved in my local CIC – Careers 4 Youth – since
2022. I work for Banksia Villages, a not-for-profit aged care provider on the
south coast of New South Wales in the Eurobodalla region. Eurobodalla is a
regional area, and I was approached at the conception of the local CIC to be an
employer representative. We’ve been fortunate that the CIC has decided to focus
most of its work on aged care, which is a large employer base in our area.
Aged care’s challenge in the Eurobodalla region: attracting young people.
One big workforce challenge we experience at Banksia is an ageing workforce, common with many providers. We have approximately 170 staff, with nearly 50% being over 50 years of age. One of Banksia’s strategic priorities is to grow our workforce for the future, which means engaging young people.
The CIC is playing a significant role in this. Being in a regional area, we see many of our younger people move away from the area after finishing high school for either greater career prospects or further studies such as university.
To give young people a reason to stay, we need to give them great career prospects, so the CIC’s focus on aged care has been fantastic.
Working with young people.
We have had a lot of exposure to young people because we have been involved [through the CIC] in activities organised with local schools like entrepreneurial workshops and career bootcamps.
Three different high schools were involved in the entrepreneurial workshops. Feedback through this workshop demonstrated how some young people view working in aged care. I asked the group of students I was working with in this workshop, “What does work in aged care look like to you?” and one young woman said, “It’s gross. I don’t want to be toileting and showering old people.” That comment stayed with me, and I realised, if this is how aged care is stereotyped among young people, something must change. In addition, feedback showed us young people often think aged care is only about care and clinical roles, we had to open their eyes up to the vast array of roles and career options available to them.
This led to a lot of work with the CIC and young people on breaking down the stereotype and getting young people to understand the career options.
One thing led to another, and Banksia’s new banner…
These insights from working with the CIC and young people have changed how we do some of our marketing at Banksia. During marketing committee meetings, discussions around career journeys and career options for younger people developed into the idea of a banner providing a visual representation of a roadmap. Our marketing lead provided a brief to our graphic designer which included a request for the aged care career journey to be depicted as a cartoon style road map. A hand drawn road map was provided to the designer, and the final product was simplified for ease of reading.
We never thought that a simple banner could open so much engagement and discussion with young people. Sometimes at job expos, we see them looking at it and absorbing the information. This gives us a great opportunity to start a conversation with the young person. They don’t realise we have maintenance, we have qualified chefs, we have horticulturists, there are so many different pathways, and it really starts to break down that stereotype for aged care. It gets the young people curious. We have got some great relationships with our local schools, and we encourage students to come in for work experience. It was incredible how one banner can open up conversations and engage young people.