The non-profit community services workforce: towards capacity and sustainability
Sharni Chan, Natasha Cortis, Fiona Hilferty and Kathy Tannous
Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW
Contact Email:   f.hilfertyunsw.edu.au

A high quality, capable, well-managed and sustainable workforce is integral to community service quality and effectiveness, and the capacity of government agencies and their non-government partners to meet key social policy objectives. In Australia, documented workforce challenges are multiple, complex and interlinked. Issues relate to labour dynamics (recruitment and retention difficulties, especially for qualified and specialist staff, and staff in rural areas); worker characteristics (including workforce ageing and over-representation of women); and working conditions (including high caseloads, low pay, underemployment, casualisation, limited career paths; poor supports for staff development and unclear boundaries between professional and non-professional roles).
This paper presents the findings of a study that explored these issues as they affect the non-government community services sector in NSW. Survey responses from around 2000 non-government sector workers in NSW (collected in early 2009), as well as focus groups and stakeholder interviews, highlight the strength and value of non-profit community services work and the NGO workforce, and provides some vital clues about how workforce quality and capacity can be improved and sustained.

Paper Download Information (if available):

Copyright © 2009 Social Policy Research Centre.