Attracting, developing and retaining staff in regional local government: addressing skills shortages in South Australia

Attracting and retaining a skilled workforce is a challenge for the regionally based Local Government (LG) sector. These challenges are multifaceted and include skill shortages, uncompetitive wages, limited career progression, and accessing suitable professional development opportunities and training programmes. To overcome these challenges, the regional LG sector will need to develop a regional and sector-specific set of human resource management (HRM) strategies. This study draws upon models of regional workforce recruitment and retention, and on key factors that influence an employee’s decision to join, remain, or leave an organisation (internal push factors and external pull factors). Based on the findings of an exploratory multimethod qualitative study an integrated sector-specific framework for attracting, developing, and retaining regional local government workforces is presented. This research engages with the call for developing context-specific solutions to key HRM challenges. Key elements of the research findings include shared HR strategies, workforce diversity initiatives, workforce planning, and active stakeholder engagement. The findings have implications for regional local governments across Australia and for countries facing similar regional local government workforce challenges.