The Real Cost of Not Training Your Support Workers

“What happens if I train my team and they leave?” It’s a question we hear constantly from disability service providers. But here’s a better question: “What happens if you don’t and they stay?”

Hot off the heels of our webinar on Empowering Your Workforce: The Role of Training in NDIS Compliance alongside National Disability Services (NDS) and Engels Floyd, those questions were one of the key insights we explored.

It’s disconcerting to imagine what would really happen if your support workers stay on but are not appropriately trained, and an incident occurs or something goes wrong. The one thing that would be swimming in your head is the what-ifs and the why-nots, because if you’re ever in that situation, you’re likely wondering how you could defend your decision not to train support workers appropriately before commencing work.

Let’s consider another question: why do we need compliance? What purpose does it serve? The answer is simple: safety. It’s crucial for both your support workers and the people they support to be safe.  And that’s where NDIS training comes in; it ensures you and your team remain compliant and deliver quality care.

Patty Wassenaar, Technical Manager at Engels Floyd, shared a sobering reality check during the webinar. “And we've seen a few recent legal actions and compliance actions that have been enforced where people haven't been kept safe; incidents have occurred. There have been deaths in the sector. And when we look at the causes of those issues and incidents, often the lack of training is part of the cause.”

Beyond compliance, ensuring learning and development are offered has a huge impact on workforce retention. 94% of employees would stay at a company for longer if it provided opportunities to learn and grow. When we look at the disability sector alone, the NDIS Workforce Survey further supports this statement: 8% of respondents reported leaving their jobs due to a lack of training. 

Training is often the gateway to effective processes, ensuring your team has the skills and knowledge to put what they’ve learnt into practice. 

Vlasta Tezak-Brown, Head of Learning and Development at NDS, shared this profound insight during the webinar. “At NDS, we see our training as the glue that holds good practice together. And I have a saying,  quality builds quantity. So where the training ends, process begins. So we know that training builds awareness capability. What do I need to know? We also know that processes and procedures support the consistent application of what it is that we need to know. Both of them bring what you do to life. “

While training is vital to compliance, it’s important to remember that it is only one piece of the puzzle, as Yianni Stergou, Head of Marketing and Partnerships at etrainu, highlighted, “The training will help cover the knowledge component that comes to compliance. So while we can't say it's the be-all and end-all, it does play a pivotal role.”

These are a few questions that you can ask yourself to help avoid surprises down the road:

• Do I have or can I quickly obtain training records for each team member?
• Am I training each team member based on the skills they need to have? For example, high-intensity training is provided to those delivering that support.
• How regularly is my team refreshing their knowledge?
• Is my learning provider (or am I) regularly reviewing NDIS policies and guidelines to ensure any changes are reflected in my training? E.g. mealtime management and dysphagia

Training starts from the moment a support worker begins working for you/your organisation. The NDIS provides online training modules to help workers understand their role and obligations. The induction modules in particular are “mandatory,” says Wassenaar. “As is orientation and induction. This is an induction to your organisation, your systems and processes, including any safety requirements for staff and everybody else, but also those requirements to keep your participants safe and provide quality support.” 

Documentation is also crucial, with the NDIS Verification Module - Required Documentation being updated in May 2025. It outlines the professional registration requirements and qualification requirements for service providers, and auditors will look for that when they do your audits. Inaccurate training records or records not kept could lead to non-compliance.

The bottom line is that the risk of having untrained staff delivering supports is far greater than investing in training. Today, the NDIS demands more rigorous training from service providers and support workers, so the question is not whether you can afford to train your staff—it’s whether you can afford not to.