A new report has found that annual staff turnover in the Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) workforce has consistently remained around 20% since 2011 and reached as high as 26% in recent years.
The report, developed by The Council to Homeless Persons and RMIT's Workforce Information and Development Institute (WIDI), estimates the cost of this workforce churn at over $20 million annually.
A new workforce planning platform to support Specialist Homelessness Services and the community and social services sector is the first to utilise a novel and innovative linked-data workforce planning and development approach designed for the social services workforce.
Deborah di Natale (COP), Chris Halacas and David Clements (WIDI) at the launch of the report
It makes extensive use of the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA), a platform to link existing federal government agency data for public benefit.
WIDI Director David Clements said that while the report reinforced a well-known story - that of very high rates of turnover within this skilled and dedicated workforce - insights gained through this report will inform why and when people exit the sector, and the support needed to respond to these challenges.
"This report provides us with new insights that can inform the development of a long-term strategy that responds to the issues," Clements said.
"It will help us deliver reforms and solutions to support the workforce that assists many people in crisis seeking housing support.
"We need to respond in practical ways that can harness the goodwill and skills of people who work in this sector.
"The benefit of this platform is that through partnerships with the sector and governments we can add to and refine these workforce insights further over time and grow the body of evidence to inform public investment decisions within a tight labour market and growing service demand."
Clements said the challenges this report has revealed are common across social services and not unique to homelessness services.
"Many of the recommendations we have made in the report could be trialled and applied more broadly across other sectors," he said.
WIDI's analysis was formulated by linking Victorian Government data with Census, tax, and business records. This new approach will enable tracking over time and facilitate easier comparisons with other workforces.
The approaches applied in this analysis demonstrates the value of PLIDA to the broader community and social services workforce - including an improved understanding of the SHS workforce.
