The difficult staffing and rental housing situation facing aged care operators looking for staff can be summed up in this case.
The largest private owner of retirement villages, land lease communities and aged care in Australia had to replace its Service Manager at Palm Lake Care Bargara, just 13km from Bundaberg in Queensland’s Wide Bay-Burnett region.
“He was an experienced manager from Brisbane who was happy to relocate,” said Dan Aitchison, CEO of Palm Lake Care.
The only problem was the challenging rental market in the local area.
Knowing the candidate was the right person for the role, Dan said they had some existing properties in the area and decided to offer one of these as part of the salary package.
“We have kept the base salary the same as the other service managers across the group, so the house is a definite bonus incentive to move to a more regional area. It is his for as long as he is Service Manager at Bargara.”
DCM Group’s SATURDAY digital magazine on 27 May reported that aged care operators across Australia are paying millions to house staff. Most are also offering at least three months rent-free, and then charging a discount to the market rent for the accommodation.
“We are looking to build more houses with excess land attached to our resorts [Palm Lake Care’s sister business is land lease operator Palm Lake Resort] that we will use in future for short term staff accommodation,” said Dan.
“We are also looking at building a small hotel in our next development where we build a residential aged care service.”
