New research from Argentum and Activated Insights highlights senior living’s powerful sense of purpose and the opportunities employers have to build even stronger workplaces.
Few careers offer the opportunity to make a visible difference in another person’s life every day. Across senior living, employees build meaningful relationships with residents, support families, create welcoming communities, and help older adults live with greater connection, dignity, independence, and joy. That human impact remains one of the industry’s greatest strengths, and one of its most important advantages in attracting and retaining talented professionals.
The new 2026 Perceptions of Careers in Senior Living report from Argentum and Activated Insights confirms that senior living employees are deeply connected to the purpose of their work. It also gives employers valuable insight into the workplace practices that can further strengthen engagement, satisfaction, and long-term retention.
Drawing on feedback from nearly 200 senior living professionals across a range of roles, the report revisits themes examined in Argentum’s landmark 2016 workforce study while exploring how employee priorities have evolved during a decade of significant change.
“Senior living workers are among the most mission-driven professionals in any field,” said James Balda, CEO, Argentum. “But purpose alone is not enough to sustain a workforce. This report underscores the urgent need for meaningful, structural changes to attract and retain the talent this growing population depends on.”
Purpose Remains Senior Living’s Greatest Strength
One of the report’s clearest and most encouraging findings is that employees believe their work matters. When respondents were asked about the greatest benefit of working in senior living, they consistently pointed to meaningful relationships, human connection, and the opportunity to improve residents’ lives. Nearly 95% said they would be likely to remain in a job where they felt their work made a difference.
That finding gives senior living employers a distinctive advantage. While many industries work hard to connect employees to a broader mission, senior living professionals experience the impact of their work in personal and immediate ways. A conversation with a resident, support offered to a family, a milestone celebrated, or a moment of companionship can provide employees with a sense of accomplishment that is difficult to replicate elsewhere.
For employers, the opportunity is to make that purpose even more visible. Recognition programs, resident and family stories, team celebrations, and regular reminders of employee impact can help reinforce the meaning that already exists within the work.
“Activated Insights is proud to bring the rigor of our workforce research to this critical study review process alongside Argentum,” said Bud Meadows, CEO, Activated Insights. “The insights from our 2026 data tell a clear story: senior living depends on an extraordinary workforce that chooses purpose, compassion, and human connection every day. The challenge—and opportunity—for our industry is to create workplaces that support, develop, and retain the people who make exceptional care possible.”
Culture Creates a Powerful Reason to Stay
Among the report’s most notable findings, positive team culture emerged as the strongest factor influencing long-term retention. More than eight in 10 respondents identified positive team culture as something that could encourage them to remain in a job for more than three years. It ranked ahead of competitive pay, supportive supervision, flexible scheduling, and other important considerations.
The finding reinforces what many senior living leaders already understand: community culture is not created through a single initiative. It is shaped every day through relationships, teamwork, communication, appreciation, and a shared commitment to residents. Senior living communities are inherently people-centered environments. When employees feel that they belong to a strong team and are surrounded by colleagues who share their values, that sense of connection can become a significant source of loyalty.
This gives employers a meaningful opportunity to build on one of the industry’s natural strengths. Thoughtful onboarding, peer recognition, team traditions, leadership visibility, and opportunities for employees to connect across roles can all help create the kind of workplace people want to remain part of.
Strong Managers Make Stronger Teams
The report also highlights the important role supervisors play in shaping the employee experience. Feeling valued by a supervisor was rated as extremely important by more than seven in 10 respondents. Supportive supervision also ranked among the leading factors that could encourage an employee to remain in a position for three years or longer.
These findings point to a practical opportunity for senior living organizations. By equipping supervisors with strong communication, coaching, recognition, and team-building skills, employers can positively influence nearly every aspect of the workplace experience. In senior living, supervisors often balance complex operational responsibilities with the deeply human work of leading teams. Investing in their development can help managers communicate more effectively, recognize contributions, resolve concerns early, and create environments where employees feel seen and supported. The report provides additional insight into the management practices employees value most and how organizations can strengthen this critical connection.
Fair Pay Supports a Mission-Driven Workforce
Employees’ commitment to the senior living mission does not diminish the importance of competitive compensation. More than 85% of respondents rated fair pay as extremely important to job satisfaction, while noncompetitive pay was the most frequently selected factor that could lead an employee to consider leaving the field.
Rather than conflicting with the industry’s purpose-driven culture, fair compensation helps sustain it. Employees who feel appropriately rewarded for their contributions are better positioned to focus their energy, compassion, and attention on residents.
The findings encourage employers to continue reviewing compensation strategies in the context of local labor markets, changing employee expectations, and competition from other industries. Compensation is only one part of the employee value proposition, but it is an essential foundation. When combined with meaningful work, supportive leadership, a positive culture, flexibility, and professional growth, it can help create a compelling reason to build a long-term career in senior living.
Flexibility Helps Employees Build Sustainable Careers
Work-life balance also emerged as a central workforce priority. More than 82% of respondents rated flexibility to balance work and personal responsibilities as extremely important to their job satisfaction. Flexible scheduling was also among the most frequently cited factors that could encourage long-term retention.
Providing flexibility in a 24-hour operating environment is not always simple. Yet the findings suggest that flexibility can take many forms, including greater schedule predictability, earlier communication, employee input, shift-swapping options, and creative approaches to staffing. For many employees, even modest improvements in predictability and control can make a meaningful difference.
The report explores how scheduling priorities vary among different workforce groups, giving employers an opportunity to consider solutions that reflect the needs of full-time employees, part-time employees, direct care professionals, operations teams, and administrative staff.
Career Growth Can Help Attract the Next Generation
The research also reveals important differences among employees at various stages of their careers. Younger workers placed greater emphasis on career advancement and earnings growth, while more experienced employees often prioritized team culture, meaningful relationships, and the overall quality of their daily work environment.
These differences offer senior living organizations an opportunity to create more personalized employee experiences. For early-career professionals, clear career pathways, mentorship, credentialing, and visible opportunities for advancement may be especially important. Midcareer employees may value compensation, flexibility, and leadership development. Experienced employees may be highly engaged by recognition, autonomy, meaningful resident interaction, and opportunities to mentor others.
Senior living offers a remarkably broad range of career paths—from clinical care and operations to sales, dining, technology, finance, marketing, resident engagement, and executive leadership. Making those pathways more visible can help the industry attract new talent while encouraging current employees to envision a long-term future in the field.
Building on a Strong Foundation
The report’s larger message is one of opportunity. Senior living already possesses what many industries struggle to create: meaningful work, strong human connection, a clear mission, and employees who care deeply about the people they serve.
The next step is to ensure that workplace practices consistently reinforce those strengths. Competitive compensation, supportive supervisors, positive team culture, greater flexibility, and visible career pathways are not separate workforce initiatives. Together, they create an environment where talented employees can thrive and where purpose can translate into a sustainable, rewarding career.
“As demand for senior living grows, the success of our industry depends on building workplaces that value and support the people who deliver care every day,” said Balda. “This report provides a roadmap for doing exactly that.”
The full 2026 Perceptions of Careers in Senior Living report provides a deeper look at employee priorities, retention factors, workforce differences, sources of job stress, and recommendations employers can use to strengthen their organizations.
For leaders across senior living, the findings offer both affirmation and direction: the industry’s people and purpose are already powerful. By continuing to invest in the employee experience, senior living can build an even stronger workforce for the future.
Download the full 2026 Perceptions of Careers in Senior Living report at Argentum.org.