The carer retention playbook: what actually works
Retention surveys say carers want better pay. Exit interviews tell a more complicated story. Here is the evidence on what makes carers stay — and what you can actually do about it.
What we know about why carers leave
When you ask carers why they leave in an anonymous survey, the top answer is almost always pay. When you conduct a proper exit interview — or speak to carers candidly, in a context where they trust the conversation — a more nuanced picture emerges.
Pay matters. People cannot stay in a job that does not cover their bills, regardless of how meaningful the work is. But pay alone does not explain why carers leave one disability organisation to work for another at similar rates, or why some organisations with modest pay scales retain their teams while higher-paying competitors cycle through workers constantly.
The difference is almost always operational. The day-to-day experience of working somewhere is shaped by how organised it is, how respected the workers feel, and how much of their time is consumed by administrative friction versus actual care work.
What actually drives retention
1. Predictable, reliable scheduling
The strongest predictor of carer satisfaction with an employer is scheduling reliability. Carers who know their schedule in advance, who receive accurate shift information, and who can plan their lives around a stable roster are significantly more likely to stay.
The inverse is also true. Organisations that routinely send schedules late, change shifts without adequate notice, or send carers to incorrect addresses are training their teams to treat the work as unreliable — and unreliable work attracts unreliable commitment.
What good looks like: Recurring shifts confirmed at least two weeks in advance. Any changes communicated via the same channel, at least 48 hours before the shift wherever possible. Confirmation and reminder notifications so carers do not have to wonder.
2. Feeling informed — not just managed
Carers who feel informed about their clients, their organisation, and changes that affect them are more engaged than carers who feel they only hear from their coordinator when something needs fixing.
This is partly about communication frequency, but mostly about communication quality. A WhatsApp message at 10pm about tomorrow's shift is not good communication, regardless of how comprehensive the information is. A confirmed shift notification sent through a proper channel, at a reasonable hour, with full shift details attached, is.
What good looks like: Shift notifications sent immediately on assignment. Client information available to carers before every shift. Changes communicated proactively, not reactively. A channel for carers to raise questions or flag concerns that actually reaches someone.
3. Being treated as a professional
One of the most consistent themes in carer retention research is respect for professional identity. Support workers are skilled professionals doing complex, emotionally demanding work. Organisations that treat them accordingly — that invest in their development, that provide meaningful supervision, that acknowledge their expertise — retain them. Organisations that treat them as interchangeable shift-fillers do not.
What good looks like: Matching carers to clients thoughtfully, considering relationship fit, not just availability. Recognising carers who go above expectations. Investing in training and development, not just minimum mandatory modules. Providing regular supervision that is genuinely supportive rather than performative.
4. Administrative friction reduction
The unpaid and underpaid administrative overhead that accumulates in poorly-organised care organisations is a direct quality-of-work issue. Carers who spend unpaid time chasing their pay, completing paperwork they do not understand, or navigating confusing systems to find client information are carers who are measuring the hidden cost of their employment.
What good looks like: Digital tools that work on a phone. Incident reporting that takes minutes, not an hour and a filing cabinet. Timesheets and mileage claims that are simple and reliable. Client information accessible before every shift.
5. The supervisor relationship
This is the human factor that technology cannot address directly, but that every other improvement creates more capacity for. Carers who feel genuinely supported by their coordinator or supervisor — who can raise a concern and know it will be heard, who feel safe flagging difficulties with a client, who receive recognition when it is warranted — stay.
When coordinators are spending 15 hours a week on data entry, they have proportionally less time for the relationships that make carers feel supported. Reducing administrative overhead is, among other things, an investment in supervisor bandwidth.
The retention ROI calculation
If your organisation employs 40 carers and loses 12 per year (30% turnover), replacing each at a conservative $7,000 (recruitment, screening, induction, productivity lag) costs $84,000 per year.
If operational improvements — better scheduling, better communication, reduced administrative friction — convert 4 of those 12 departures into retained employees, you save $28,000. That is before accounting for the quality benefit of retaining experienced workers versus replacing them with people who are still building relationships with clients.
The interventions that make the most difference on this list are not expensive. Most of them are structural — about how the organisation operates rather than what it spends. The tools that enable better operations represent a fraction of the retention cost they help reduce.
What does not work
Pay increases alone. Unless pay is genuinely below market and that is the reason people are leaving, pay increases do not reliably improve retention. They reduce the pay-based component of dissatisfaction, but if the operational problems remain, the underlying reasons for leaving remain too.
Perks and recognition programs. Pizza Fridays and employee of the month plaques do not compensate for chronic scheduling problems. Carers see through surface-level recognition in a poorly-run organisation.
Exit interviews alone. Understanding why people left is useful for diagnosis. But the retention work happens before the exit interview. If you are relying on exit interview insights to drive retention improvements, you are always operating in arrears.
A practical starting point
The most direct route to improved retention is a three-step diagnostic:
Step 1: Talk to your current carers, genuinely. Ask what makes it harder than it should be. Ask what they wish the coordinator knew. Listen without defensiveness.
Step 2: Measure the operational indicators. How often are schedules sent late? What proportion of shifts have a change within 24 hours? How long does it take a new carer to get shift information before their first shift?
Step 3: Fix the easiest things first. Often the highest-leverage improvements are the simplest: automated shift confirmations, reminders the night before, a reliable channel for carers to flag concerns. Start there.
*Teiro helps care organisations improve the operational experience for carers — consistent scheduling, instant notifications, and a mobile app that makes the job easier. [See how it works](/features/carer-app).*