Association between staffing levels in Australian residential aged care and the likelihood that an employee would recommend their workplace
In this analysis I consider whether homes that meet the care minutes targets set by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (the Department) have a higher proportion of staff recommending their workplace (a response of nine or 10 to the question ‘How likely are you to recommend this workplace to others?’).
Methods
Staff survey responses to the question ‘How likely are you to recommend this workplace to others?’ (0–10 scale) from the January–March 2026 Staff Feedback Survey facilitated by MOA Benchmarking were extracted in de-identified format. For each home, the number of nine or 10 responses, labelled ‘Promoter’, was determined along with the total sample size.
The data were joined to the Quarterly Star Ratings Extract released by the Department in May 2026, which contains observed and case-mix-adjusted target care minutes corresponding to Q2 FY25–26 of the Quarterly Financial Report.
The join was performed on a combination of facility name and state or territory, after identifying the best matching source for facility names, normalising names so that they consist of lowercase letters and spaces, and excluding non-unique combinations of name within a state or territory. Facility names were looked up in the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission’s (ACQSC) ‘Provider Register’ search for facilities with a listed RACSID; for facilities without a RACSID we used the NQIP facility name when available and the facility names used for reporting otherwise.
The association between a facility’s staffing levels and the number of Promoters in the Staff Feedback Survey was assessed by treating the number of Promoters as the dependent variable and whether the RN and total care minutes targets were met as the predictors. We modelled the relationship as a generalised linear model, treating the outcome as binomially distributed. Odds ratios, P values, and 95% confidence intervals were computed for a home that met the staffing minute targets compared with one that did not. R version 4.5.3 (2026-03-11) was used for both data preparation and modelling.
Results
Overall, we obtained a sample of 275 residential aged care homes that participated in the January–March 2026 Staff Feedback Survey and could be deterministically linked to the October–December 2025 Quarterly Financial Report staffing data. This amounts to 5,002 survey responses, or an average of 18.2 responses per home.
The distribution of responses to the question ‘How likely are you to recommend this workplace to others?’ among staff at the linked homes is shown in Figure 1. About half of all responses are nine or 10.
The odds ratios between a home that met the target in each of the staffing categories, total and registered nurse minutes, and one that did not are presented in Table 1. Staff working for a home that met the registered nurse care minutes target had 39% greater odds of being a Promoter (95% CI: 1.19–1.62; P <0.001) than staff at a home that did not meet the target. Meeting the total care minutes target was not a significant predictor of recommending the workplace, irrespective of whether the RN minutes target was met.
| Term | OR | 95% CI | P value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total minutes target met | 1.06 | [0.93-1.21] | 0.399 |
| RN minutes target met | 1.39 | [1.19-1.62] | <0.001 |
Discussion
There is an association between a home meeting the registered nurse (RN) care minutes target and whether staff would recommend their workplace to others, whereas an equivalent association for the total care minutes target was not found. This might indicate that RN care minutes are a better signal of sufficient staffing than total care minutes, which also include time provided by personal care workers, assistants in nursing, and enrolled nurses.
The association is cross-sectional and observational. Other factors inherent to the facility might correlate with both achieving the RN care minutes target and the likelihood that staff will recommend their workplace.
Conclusion
There is some evidence that meeting the RN care minutes target is associated with a higher proportion of staff being willing to recommend their workplace (a score of nine or 10 on a 0–10 scale).