What causes talented senior living employees to stay, and what may be driving them away? Watch Argentum’s recent webinar for a data-backed, decade-informed look at the workforce factors senior living organizations cannot afford to overlook.
Senior living employees are strongly connected to the purpose of their work. They value the relationships they build, the difference they make in residents’ lives, and the opportunity to contribute to something meaningful.
But purpose alone cannot sustain a workforce. That was one of the clearest messages to emerge from Argentum’s recent webinar, New Data on What Keeps and Loses Senior Living Talent, presented by Activated Insights. The conversation examined findings from the new 2026 Perceptions of Careers in Senior Living report, developed by Argentum and Activated Insights.
If you missed the live conversation, or want to share the findings with members of your leadership team, the complete webinar is now available to watch on demand.
Watch New Data on What Keeps and Loses Senior Living Talent
The report revisits Argentum’s landmark 2016 workforce research, providing a decade-informed view of what has changed, what has remained consistent, and what senior living organizations must address to attract and retain talented employees.
The findings point to an interconnected retention equation: purpose matters, but so do pay, culture, supervisors, flexibility, career growth, and staffing levels. Organizations cannot expect one strength to compensate indefinitely for weaknesses elsewhere.
Purpose Creates a Powerful Connection
Nearly 95% of respondents said they are likely to remain in a job where they feel their work has purpose.
That finding reinforces one of senior living’s greatest workforce strengths. Employees are drawn to the field by human connection and the opportunity to make a meaningful difference. Those experiences give the work an importance that extends beyond a job description.
For employers, however, the lesson is not simply to talk more about purpose. Organizations must help employees experience that purpose in their day-to-day work.
When staffing pressures, poor communication, inflexible schedules, or difficult relationships with supervisors become overwhelming, employees can lose the time and emotional capacity to connect with the very mission that attracted them to senior living.
Purpose is both a recruitment advantage and a workplace responsibility. Leaders must create conditions in which employees can continue to feel connected to residents, families, colleagues, and the organization’s broader mission.
Culture May Be the Strongest Retention Tool
Positive team culture ranked as the top factor influencing employees to stay with an organization long term. Approximately 83% of respondents identified it as a retention factor, ranking it ahead of competitive pay.
That does not diminish the importance of compensation. It demonstrates that employees evaluate their workplace experience as a whole.
They consider whether colleagues support one another, whether communication is respectful, whether leaders listen, whether expectations are clear, and whether employees feel they belong to a team working toward a shared purpose.
Culture is not created through a single employee-appreciation initiative or organizational statement. It is shaped by everyday interactions, decisions, and behaviors across every level of an organization.
For senior living leaders, this makes culture an operational priority. It affects whether employees feel supported, whether they can perform their jobs effectively, and whether they can envision a future with the organization.
Compensation Still Drives Employees Away
While culture was the leading reason employees said they would stay, compensation remains one of the strongest reasons they may leave.
The report found that 62.3% of respondents identified noncompetitive pay as a reason they would leave the industry. In addition, 85.4% said fair pay is extremely important to job satisfaction.
Employees may deeply value their coworkers, residents, and mission while still deciding that they cannot remain in a position that does not meet their financial needs.
Senior living organizations cannot treat purpose and compensation as substitutes for one another. A strong mission does not eliminate the need for fair, competitive pay—and compensation alone cannot repair a workplace where employees feel unsupported or undervalued. Effective retention strategies must address both.
The Supervisor Experience Shapes the Employee Experience
Supportive supervisors were among the leading factors associated with long-term retention, identified by more than 74% of respondents. Conversely, poor relationships with supervisors and organizational culture concerns were frequently cited as reasons employees might leave.
This places frontline and community-level managers at the center of workforce strategy. Managers influence how employees experience communication, recognition, scheduling, accountability, growth, and organizational change. They often determine whether an employee feels heard and respected, or overlooked and disconnected.
Organizations may have strong workforce policies at the corporate level, but employees experience those policies through their immediate supervisors. Investing in manager selection, training, coaching, communication, and accountability can therefore have an impact far beyond the individual leader.
If organizations want to understand why employees stay or leave, they must examine not only their formal programs, but also the quality and consistency of the everyday manager-employee relationship.
Flexibility and Staffing Cannot Be Separated From Retention
The webinar also explored the pressure created by staffing shortages, scheduling demands, burnout, and work-life balance concerns. Flexible scheduling ranked among the strongest retention factors, while understaffing and burnout appeared frequently in employees’ responses about workplace challenges.
These findings reinforce how closely operational decisions and workforce outcomes are connected. Persistent vacancies place more pressure on current employees. That pressure can contribute to exhaustion and turnover, creating additional vacancies and continuing the cycle.
Breaking that cycle requires more than filling open positions. Organizations must also examine scheduling practices, workloads, staffing models, communication, and employees’ ability to balance work with responsibilities outside the workplace.
Flexibility will not look the same for every role or organization. But asking employees where scheduling creates unnecessary strain, and identifying where greater predictability, choice, or support may be possible, can be an important starting point.
Turn the Findings Into a Leadership Conversation
Retention cannot belong exclusively to human resources. It is a shared leadership and operational responsibility.
Senior living organizations can use the webinar and report to begin a broader internal conversation:
- Are our wages competitive in each market and for each critical role?
- Do employees feel respected, supported, and connected to their teams?
- Are managers equipped to communicate, coach, recognize, and develop employees effectively?
- Where are staffing and scheduling practices contributing to avoidable stress?
- Can employees see opportunities to learn, grow, and build a career within our organization?
- Are we regularly listening to employees—and demonstrating that their feedback leads to action?
Organizations do not need to solve every workforce challenge at once. But they do need to identify where the employee experience is breaking down and determine which changes can have the greatest immediate impact.
The webinar offers a valuable opportunity to bring leaders together around the data, compare the findings with their organization’s own workforce experience, and identify where action is needed.
Senior living already offers work filled with purpose and human connection. The industry’s opportunity is to build workplaces that support that purpose with competitive compensation, strong managers, positive team cultures, greater flexibility, and meaningful opportunities to grow.
Watch the webinar recording and share the conversation with your leadership team. Then, explore the complete findings and consider how they compare with the experiences of your own workforce.
Download the 2026 Perceptions of Careers in Senior Living report.