The Welcome Experience

Essential service staffing in regional NSW has been lower than in metropolitan settings since the 1990s, with attraction and retention of workers such as nurses, teachers and police proving a challenge for government. This has contributed to poorer health, education and public safety outcomes for regions compared to metropolitan areas. Incentive-based financial benefits have not improved the attraction and retention of essential workers, with social inclusion proving a more important factor in retaining essential workers and the services they deliver. Research with regional communities found that essential workers will come for pay and incentives, but only stay for community.

The Welcome Experience was designed in collaboration with regional communities using Human Centred Design (HCD) principles. The Department of Regional NSW (DRNSW) and The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) spoke with over 160 essential workers and local community members in Walgett, Wagga Wagga and Bega to hear real stories about their challenges in retaining their essential workforce. DRNSW developed a prototype program to address these challenges, and then returned to the same communities to get their feedback on the design before implementing it. This step ensured that the program would be relevant and embraced by unique regional communities.

The program has now been piloted in eight regional locations in partnership with local organisations to learn what works, before further roll out across NSW in 2024. DRNSW’s data suggests that essential workers stay longer where this service is offered. The Welcome Experience has connected over 1000 essential workers with new friends, cultural experiences, education providers, medical services, sporting and social groups, and has helped them to join the communities they live and work in. Essential workers’ feedback shows that 72 per cent of essential workers agree or strongly agree that The Welcome Experience met their needs when moving regionally.

To achieve this outcome, The Welcome Experience works on a case-by-case basis with each essential worker and their family to identify their needs and interests, then connects them with the local people and services that can help meet them. Additionally, The Welcome Experience helps the communities it operates in to leverage their best ‘Welcome’ for newcomers, by integrating its activities with the existing social and cultural activities of each unique place. To ensure that it remains pro-active in learning, DRNSW has implemented a simple continuous improvement framework that sought ideas and feedback from the people working to deliver the service and the essential workers that received it at regular intervals throughout the pilot period. DRNSW then provided that feedback on a quarterly basis to the community of Welcome Experience practitioners to consider how to best implement it.