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The construction of meaningfulness at work impacts on individual, psychological and work-related outcomes. The meaningfulness of work, however, in the context of women leaders working in higher education institutions (HEIs), has not yet been comprehensively researched and understood in South Africa and internationally. This article explores the perspectives on meaningfulness of work for women leaders working in HEIs in South Africa and internationally. With regard to meaningfulness at work, limited research exists on HEIs in South Africa and internationally. This needs to be explored in-depth from emic female perspectives to contribute both to the benefit of women working in HEIs and to the transformation goals of organisations. The data from a qualitative research study within the phenomenological paradigm are presented. The research methods included the collection and analysis of 29 in-depth interviews with South African and international women leaders working in academic and administrative positions in HEIs. The findings showed that women leaders in HEIs connect meaningfulness to five main categories, namely, career, life values, spirituality, race and gender identity. HEIs need to focus more on the construction of meaningfulness at work for women leaders so as to provide empowering working conditions. This article contributes to the limited literature on meaningfulness at work for women leaders within HEIs. It also provides conclusions and recommendations.

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Older women represent an increasing proportion of Australia's paid labour force. Lacking is an understanding of how the nature of the contractual arrangement between worker and employer is associated with women's retirement intentions. Utilising data from a national survey of older women and employment, regression analysis is reported that tests the association between contractual arrangements and other meso level factors on the number of years until respondents' intended retirement. Taking a range of factors into account, it is found that those in casual employment anticipate retiring later than those with other employment arrangements. It is argued that, firstly, there is definitional ambiguity about flexible working that renders present calls for its promotion for older workers potentially problematical; secondly, policy continues to focus on an androcentric norm which presents risks for women in negotiating retirement; and, thirdly, a pro-work agenda for older people needs to have job quality as a core value.

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This report provides an overview of the physiotherapy workforce in Victoria in 2015-2016. It is based on survey responses from 1,037 individual physiotherapists (approximately 15 per cent of the physiotherapy workforce identified by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) or 15 per cent physiotherapists registered with the Physiotherapy Board of Australia), three focus groups involving 17 participants, and surveys from 73 organisations providing services across 299 different locations or sites. Female and older employees were over-represented in the survey sample compared to 2016 registration and 2015 workforce data.

The picture of workforce supply and demand for physiotherapy was mixed. As with other allied health (AH) professions, there has been a rapid growth in new graduates entering the physiotherapy profession, (AIHW, 2016) and increasing competition for jobs, particularly in the public sector. Despite this, there is anecdotal evidence of substantial unmet demand for physiotherapy services in the community. Some advertised physiotherapy positions receive more than 50 applications. Yet around 50 per cent of organisations said that they experience shortages of physiotherapists across lower and higher grades and vacant senior positions can take more than six months to fill. Indicators of workforce shortages include lack of services, service rationing, long waiting lists, increased delegation to [allied health assistants] AHAs and physiotherapists appointed at grades higher than their levels of skill or qualification.

The self-reported attrition rate from the physiotherapy workforce is 2 per cent in the next 12 months increasing to 27 per cent in five years. Approximately 15 per cent of physiotherapists propose to change their job within 12 months. The majority of participants said that they were moving to take up better job opportunities, better pay or better working conditions. Recruitment and retention of physiotherapists was more challenging in regional, rural and some outer metropolitan areas than in inner-metropolitan regions. Rural and regional employers face challenges including competition for staff with metropolitan employers, perceived lack of career development and continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities, as well as the more generalist nature of the work. Regional university training courses were seen to increase rural physiotherapy capacity and keep clinicians in regional/rural areas. Some organisations fund physiotherapy positions on short term, temporary or part-time contracts which are less attractive from a recruitment perspective.

Leadership from senior roles is necessary both to build advocacy on behalf of patients and the profession and to provide governance structures for more junior staff, regardless of their employment location. There are relatively few senior physiotherapy positions. Yet some organisations expressed challenges recruiting to senior physiotherapy roles, suggesting a lack of succession planning within the profession. Workforce capacity development and career advancement of the physiotherapy workforce requires access to CPD, particularly in rural areas. Other enablers include support from management, time, funding and availability of appropriate CPD. Failure to provide these enablers limits clinicians' ability to access further training which would provide career opportunities and advance the profession in its ability to meet community health need.

Physiotherapists have a high level of career satisfaction. While most are satisfied with the type of work they perform and the clients they work with, they would like to see improvements in their pay, professional development and career advancement opportunities. Physiotherapists are motivated by achieving a positive work/life balance, the type of work they do and clients they work with, and by having access to professional development opportunities. There was a suggestion that the physiotherapy profession should aim to attract students on the basis of their interpersonal skills and a desire to work with people, rather than academic ability. More appropriate marketing to prospective students may influence their ultimate career satisfaction and retention. There were no systemic skills gaps identified within physiotherapy, however several organisations identified specific skills that would be of benefit locally, including a mixture of clinical skills, knowledge of the health system, and supervision skills. Improved access to CPD may be a way to resolve several local skills gaps.

Key areas of consideration for the physiotherapy workforce going forward include: (1) Developing metrics of community need/demand for physiotherapy services; (2) Increasing evidence and knowledge base of the professions models of care to improve referrals and business cases for optimal staffing levels to improve patient outcomes; (3) Undertake modelling around AH, nursing and medical staffing numbers and mix that ensure optimal service capacity and health outcomes; (4) Improving health service workforce and succession planning to best meet community health need; (5) Improving clinical governance and support, particularly for private practitioners and those working for a large number of different employers; (6) Ensuring adequate supply and skills for growing areas of need, including acute and sub-acute areas, aged care, disability, complex patients and interdisciplinary roles; (7) Addressing attrition by providing support, flexibility and a career opportunities; (8) Developing business case's for areas in which physiotherapy can add value to the patient pathway including referral, diagnostic and treatment pathways, which are currently restricted by professional boundaries, funding models or organisational norms; and (9) Exploring workforce capacity opportunities such as skills that current physiotherapists bring from previous careers, current and potential interdisciplinary and advanced scope roles.

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The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the largest international survey asking teachers and school leaders about their working conditions and learning environments, and provides a barometer of the profession every five years. Results from the 2018 cycle explore and examine the various dimensions of teacher and school leader professionalism across education systems. In Australia, a nationally representative sample of 4,000 teachers and principals from 200 lower secondary schools was randomly selected to participate in the study. Findings from TALIS 2018 in Australia are reported in two volumes. The first volume, 'Teachers and school leaders as lifelong learners', published in November 2019, explored teaching practices, the changing contexts for teaching and the knowledge and skills dimensions of professionalism for teachers and school leaders. The second volume, 'Teachers and school leaders as valued professionals', published in August 2020, explores the prestige and standing of the profession, the security, flexibility and reward structures of teaching and school leadership careers, the extent of professional collaboration and collegial relations within schools, and the degree of autonomy and leadership that teachers and school leaders have in their jobs. The primary focus of these reports is the responses from lower-secondary teachers and school leaders. Data for primary teachers, where available and appropriate, is also included.

Edited excerpts from publisher's website with additional information. Show less

In the wake of Australia's accelerated uptake of digital technology during the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic, the country is still riding a wave of innovation. As the nation continues to ramp up its digital transformation, there is still an urgent need to develop a deeper pool of technology professionals and workers with in-demand digital skills to help close the skills gap. In 2022, the Australian government and technology sector set the goal of creating 1.2 million tech-related jobs by 2030. To study the momentum for this transformation in Australia and elsewhere around the globe, Gallup collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to conduct one of the largest international surveys on digital skills to date. Between 2-23 August 2022, Gallup surveyed more than 30,000 workers with access to the internet across 19 countries - including Australia - and surveyed more than 9,000 employers. In Australia, Gallup surveyed 2,164 working adults and 775 employers.

Australia is a technologically advanced democracy with a highly educated population and leading-edge digital infrastructure and services. As such, the results show three-quarters (76 per cent) of workers use a computer or tablet at work. However, the bulk of these 'digital workers' use basic digital skills (36 per cent) or intermediate digital skills (31 per cent). The remaining 9 per cent use advanced digital skills. The results of the survey consistently show that advanced digital skills - and the adoption of cloud technology - provide economic value to businesses and workers in Australia, raising gross domestic product (GDP), revenue growth, innovation, wages, and job satisfaction for businesses that integrate these technologies, and the workers who acquire the needed skill sets. Australian employers in the public and private sectors, like their counterparts around the globe, are struggling to fill vacant jobs that require these skills. This report offers insight into the appetite workers and organisations have for digital skills training that could help fill these roles, and which digital skills interest them most.

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This paper for the Jobs and Skills Summit outlines a policy agenda to achieve, sustain, and make the most of full employment in Australia. This has a different meaning today to the early 1970s. Now it is as much about adequate, regular hours of employment and steady growth in real incomes as keeping unemployment low. At its heart it means that people seeking employment or more paid hours can find them, and the pay and the quality of those jobs improves so that the fruits of economic growth are more fairly shared and no one is left behind. Once we commit to full employment, a range of policy implications follow. Some policies are needed to achieve and sustain full employment, others are needed to realise the benefits of full employment. We put forward to the Summit the following high-level policy proposals. We also propose new advisory structures to carry the full employment policy agenda forward and promote and sustain cooperation across government and with business, unions and civil society.

The key priorities include: A shared commitment to full employment, and fairer ways to deal with inflationary pressures and labour and skills shortages; A shared commitment to prevent and reduce long-term unemployment; Reform employment services; Raise JobSeeker and related income support payments; Strategic workforce planning at national, industry and regional levels led by Jobs and Skills Australia; Immigration policies that prioritise skilled and permanent migration, and that protect temporary visa holders in entry-level jobs; Restore sustainable growth in real wage; Lift minimum wages and establish a legislative link between growth in wages and Jobseeker Payments; Promote pay equity for women; Promote a robust care sector with quality jobs and services; Support the community services sector.

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Australia's more than 30,000 specialists (and 15,000 specialists-in-training) are at the heart of providing diagnostic and treatment services, restoring health and wellbeing across the country. Technology continues to transform the specialist sector, including innovations in diagnostics, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, surgical procedures, and digital technologies. These developments manifest themselves in less invasive and faster procedures, which are also less costly in the longer term, evidenced by the long-term growth in the proportion of day-only admissions and in private day hospitals. Yet there are significant pressures on both public and private healthcare providers, along with private health insurers, to provide more value to consumers, especially in the context of increasing health expenditures. The overall burden of disease is also growing as the population ages, especially chronic disease. This report uses the latest health sector data to analyse the trends and challenges facing medical specialists (excluding General Practitioners (GPs)). The report surveys trends and challenges in connection to the size and funding of the specialist sector and looks at issues around the drive for value, out-of-pocket payments and earnings, work–life balance and job satisfaction.

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Higher education systems have changed all over the world, but not all have changed in the same ways. Although system growth and so-called massification have been worldwide themes, there have been system-specific changes as well. It is these changes that have an important impact on academic work and on the opinions of the staff that work in higher education. The academic profession has a key role to play in producing the next generations of knowledge workers, and this task will be more readily achieved by a contented academic workforce working within well-resourced teaching and research institutions. This volume tells the story of academics’ opinions about the changes in their own countries. The Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey has provided researchers and policy makers with the capacity to compare the academic profession around the world. Built around national analyses of the survey this book examines academics’ opinions on a range of issues to do with their job satisfaction. Following an introduction that considers the job satisfaction literature as it relates to higher education, country-based chapters examine aspects of job satisfaction within each country.

Published abstract.

The chapters are as follows: Introduction: satisfaction around the world? / Peter James Bentley, Hamish Coates, Ian R. Dobson, Leo Goedegebuure, and V. Lynn Meek; Academic work at the periphery: why Argentine scholars are satisfied, despite all / Monica Marquina and Gabriel Rebello; Factors associated with job satisfaction amongst Australian university academics and future workforce implications / Peter James Bentley, Hamish Coates, Ian R. Dobson, Leo Goedegebuure, and V. Lynn Meek; Job satisfaction in a diverse institutional environment: the Brazilian experience / Elizabeth Balbachevsky and Simon Schwartzman; Canadian university academics’ perceptions of job satisfaction: ‘… the future is not what it used to be’ / Julian Weinrib, Glen A. Jones, Amy Scott Metcalfe, Donald Fisher, Yves Gingras, Kjell Rubenson, and Iain Snee; Finland: satisfaction guaranteed!: a tale of two systems / Timo Aarrevaara and Ian R. Dobson; Determinants of academic job satisfaction in Germany / Ester A. Hohle and Ulrich Teichler; Factors determining academics’ job satisfaction in Japan from the perspective of role diversification / Akira Arimoto and Tsukasa Daizen; An academic life in Malaysia: a wonderful life or satisfaction not guaranteed? / Norzaini Azman, Morshidi Bin Sirat, and Mohd Ali Samsudin; Portugal: dimensions of academic job satisfaction / Diana Dias, Maria de Lourdes Machado-Taylor, Rui Santiago, Teresa Carvalho, and Sofia Sousa; The South African academic profession: job satisfaction for a besieged profession? / Charl C. Wolhuter; Satisfaction in stages: the academic profession in the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth / William Locke and Alice Bennion; Academic job satisfaction from an international comparative perspective: factors associated with satisfaction across 12 countries / Peter James Bentley, Hamish Coates, Ian R. Dobson, Leo Goedegebuure, and V. Lynn Meek. Show less

This report examines the ways in which Australian employers retain skilled staff as well as the ways in which employers enhance their ability to use the skills of their people. The study involved a variety of organisations representing a cross-section of industries from small to large employers. It focuses on the role of human resource management practices, including fostering a 'learning culture' and high performance work practices. The study found that while strategies such as increasing wages and family friendly policies may increase an employee's job satisfaction, the key driver in determining if employees remain with an organisation is if they feel they are learning and progressing in their careers. It also highlights that training, especially nationally recognised training, is strongly tied to decisions made by employees on whether they will stay with their employer.

A podcast of an Interview with Andrew Smith about this publication is indexed at TD/TNC 94.160. Show less

The Office of Training and Tertiary Education (OTTE) commissioned the Have Your Say project to encourage an open, collegial and inclusive dialogue with TAFE Institute teachers about issues affecting the quality of teaching and learning in the Victorian TAFE system. The project was expected to make a valuable contribution to the development of strategic policy direction for the TAFE teaching workforce by providing the opportunity for teachers to comment on the development needs of the TAFE teaching workforce as a distinct professional group. The aim of the project was to gather information on the views of Victorian TAFE teachers and other staff on issues such as: teaching and learning in TAFE; the changing role and identity of the TAFE teaching professional; the skills required of teachers in the modern TAFE workforce; and the challenges facing the TAFE system.

Based on the data gathered from TAFE teachers through the qualitative and quantitative aspects of this research, it can be concluded that although TAFE teachers generally derive high satisfaction from the work of teaching in TAFE, especially through interacting with students and colleagues, they have significant concerns about issues at the system and professional level. These concerns include: with an increasing focus on commercialisation in the sector, many teachers are not confident that the standard of education provided to students is being appropriately monitored; many teachers consider that minimum standards of resourcing are not in place to ensure that equipment and materials are available to teach effectively; the role of the TAFE teacher is seen as poorly defined, heightening the tension between new broader responsibilities and traditional role expectations; and job security, wages and conditions are not seen as at an appropriate level to attract and retain skilled and motivated teaching professionals to TAFE.

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