LeadingAge Launches Center for Workforce Solutions to Help Operators with Labor Issues

by Jeff Shaw

WASHINGTON, D.C. — LeadingAge, a seniors housing industry association representing nonprofit operators, has launched The LeadingAge Center for Workforce Solutions, which will focus on workforce resources for the aging services field.

The center features promising practices, ideas for key partnerships, tools to calculate turnover, member testimonials, podcasts, policy news and more.

LeadingAge decided to found the center following a survey of 6,000 of its members. Respondents listed an insufficient number of qualified applicants for vacancies as a top challenge (83.7 percent of respondents). Respondents also reported that competitive wages (65 percent) and staff turnover (63 percent) were pressing concerns.

“LeadingAge has made it a strategic priority to address these challenges,” says Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge. “We’re excited to find solutions for the aging services field and provide ways for the workforce to grow and succeed.”

Susan Hildebrandt, vice president of workforce initiatives, will direct The LeadingAge Center for Workforce Solutions.

The goal of the Center for Workforce Solutions is to reposition the field of aging services to attract and support a quality workforce at all levels. It includes the following strategies:

  • Framing/messaging working in aging services.
  • Gathering promising practices.
  • Supporting and developing workforce policy at the state and federal levels.
  • Developing key partnerships around this issue.

The center plans to collaborate with traditional partners, such as community colleges, as well as non-traditional partners, including businesses, to find practical solutions to workforce challenges.

“We need to develop messaging that portrays the aging services workforce as a valuable and critical profession,” says Hildebrandt. “We need to demystify aging and aging services and convince prospective workers that these really are the jobs of the future.”

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