Supervisors and rehabilitation professionals perceive effective support of RTW requires supervisors to have a range of knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics. Our competency model should undergo workplace testing to evaluate its validity.

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Background and Objectives The stigma of working in aged care can discredit and devalue those working in gerontology. This overlooked workforce issue may underpin complex staffing challenges like chronic worker shortages and inadequate care delivery. Our review synthesizes the existing literature and introduces a conceptual framework based on linguistics to reconcile disparate conceptualizations and negative consequences of this stigma. Research Design and Methods We conducted a systematic review and assessed peer-reviewed articles published from 1973-2019 across five databases. Fifty-nine articles were selected based on criteria grounded in stigma theory. Results Only 10 articles explicitly used the term ‘stigma’ when conceptualizing the stigma of working in aged care. An additional 49 articles conceptualized this stigma in terms of stigma processes (e.g. status loss). Findings from a deeper examination using a linguistic analysis revealed societal groups predominantly conceptualized stigma in three distinct ways based on (1) unfavourable character judgment of aged care workers, (2) lower value placed on aged care work, and (3) negative emotional reactions towards working in aged care. Last, stigma was associated with adverse psychological and job-related consequences. Discussion and Implications Re-conceptualizing this workforce issue and recognising it as a societal challenge will enable policymakers to design evidence-based interventions at industry and societal levels. We propose workforce challenges in the aged care sector such as attraction, retention and wellbeing may lessen with interventions aimed at mitigating the stigma of working in aged care.

Background and Objectives Although society has cultivated a deeper appreciation for essential health services, societal discourses reinforce a stigma of working in aged care. Drawing on dirty work and Stigma Theory, this study aims to investigate stigma in the context of recruiting health professionals. Research Design and Methods We employed a mixed-methods design to examine the nature and implications of the stigma of working in aged care. A path analysis was used to test whether health professionals’ (n=159) negative perceptions of aged-care work would negatively predict their willingness to work in aged care. A linguistic analysis was conducted to understand how health professionals’ (n=168) use of language positions themselves towards or away from engaging in aged-care work. Results Quantitative findings revealed that perceptions of physical taint directly predicted lower willingness to perform aged-care work. Perceptions of social taint, moral taint, and poor occupational conditions negatively predicted willingness to work in institutional aged care, indirectly via social devaluation. Findings from the linguistic analysis demonstrated that health professionals (re)produce stigma through aligning themselves with devaluing discourses about aged-care workers, work, and institutions. Discussion and Implications This study provides insight about the role that stigma plays in the aged-care recruitment crisis, with implications for aged-care institutions. Societal discourse may obstruct the employment of health professionals in aged care because it can (re)produce the stigma of working in aged care. Recommendations for ways to reduce the impact of this stigma include public messaging and training.

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the extent to which employee outcomes (anxiety/depression, bullying and workers’ compensation claims thoughts) are affected by shared perceptions of supervisor conflict management style (CMS). Further, this study aims to assess cross-level moderating effects of supervisor CMS climate on the positive association between relationship conflict and these outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – Multilevel modeling was conducted using a sample of 401 employees nested in 69 workgroups. Findings – High collaborating, low yielding and low forcing climates (positive supervisor climates) were associated with lower anxiety/depression, bullying and claim thoughts. Unexpectedly, the direction of moderation showed that the positive association between relationship conflict and anxiety/depression and bullying was stronger for positive supervisor CMS climates than for negative supervisor CMS climates (low collaborating, high yielding and high forcing). Nevertheless, these interactions revealed that positive supervisor climates were the most effective at reducing anxiety/depression and bullying when relationship conflict was low. For claim thoughts, positive supervisor CMS climates had the predicted stress-buffering effects. Research limitations/implications – Employees benefit from supervisors creating positive CMS climates when dealing with conflict as a third party, and intervening when conflict is low, when their intervention is more likely to minimize anxiety/depression and bullying. Originality/value – By considering the unique perspective of employees’ shared perceptions of supervisor CMS, important implications for the span of influence of supervisor behavior on employee well-being have been indicated.