Retirement village staff increasingly exposed to work stress - creating new stresses for owners

Historically village owners have not had to be too concerned about work-related stress with their limited staff. This is rapidly changing as the profile of village residents narrows to the seriously elderly, thanks to increase government emphasis on ‘staying in the family home’ to receive care.

Marcela Slepica from AccessEAP, has written in the Australian Ageing Agenda that the top five workplace issues in the aged care industry are:
workplace stress
conflict with colleagues
conflict with managers
alleged bullying
loss of confidence

She particularly refers to conflict with family members, focusing on complaints of not ‘caring properly’ for residents. These become ‘allegations’ that then require investigation, creating stress for staff. The ‘allegations’ often amount to bullying by the family of the staff members which create their own HR challenge for owners.
This, incidentally, is the flip side of the scandalous ABC’s 7.30 Report last Thursday night which alleged bullying by staff on family members.