REGIONAL AND RURAL WORKFORCE ATTRACTION AND RETENTION
RESEARCH SUPPORTED BY DEAKIN UNIVERSITY
Bettina Davis , Ford Davis , Glen Elkin , Dariya Otgonbayar
INTRODUCTION The majority of organisations throughout Australia have experienced significant difficulty in maintaining a sustainable workforce due to a range of issues , including the flow-on impact from the COVID-19 epidemic , however , there has been no greater flow-on impact on communities than in regional Victoria .
The delivery of critical services , negative impact on community health , closing of local businesses and many other events have originated from regional Victoria due to an inability to maintain a sustainable workforce . This comes as no surprise to most regional Victorian communities at an anecdotal level , however , the inability of quantifying the scale of the problem could be attributed to the lack of support from metropolitan Melbourne . Regional
Victoria , despite being an integral part of the state ’ s economy and community , often faces challenges in being overlooked when decisions are made in metropolitan Melbourne .
76 % of Victoria ’ s population reside in metropolitan Melbourne , greater than any other state in eastern Australia , contributing to a disconnect between metropolitan and regional areas . Governments can often overlook regional Victoria in their allocation of resources and support and therefore regional organisations need to be innovative to bridge this gap .
In recent years , it has become clear that regional organisations across all sectors are focused on developing their levels of organisational maturity and moving to evidence- based decision-making to effectively address their unique challenges . While extensive workforce research has been previously conducted , most research has been focused on metropolitan areas of Australia , which overlooks the regional context and unique challenges to both employers and employees .
During the journey of supporting regional clients and partners , the discussion of workforce was always a constant topic with CEO ’ s and Boards . The purpose of the research is therefore to provide practical insight for consideration when regional organisations develop a workforce strategy , by measuring root cause issues and identifying potential solutions .
In this research , the respondents ’ region distribution and participation varied
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