John Neill, who manages Levande’s Somerton Park, Brighton and Fullarton villages, was awarded SA/NT Village Manager of the Year at a Property Council Retirement Living Outlook event in Adelaide recently.
“It is an interesting time for the industry,” John said.
“With a younger group of people looking at retirement living, it will be interesting to see how the industry evolves over the next five to 10 years.”
He added Levande has “fairly ambitious targets ahead and obviously there is the wellbeing side of things and integration of care”.
Leanne Zannoni, who manages Keyton’s Forest Hills Retirement Village in Nunawading, a suburb 18km east of Melbourne’s CBD, said her team at Forest Hills “have been through a journey the past 12 months and there is another big 12 months to come.”
“My journey in retirement living over the past three years has been a short one so far, but a lovely one and I couldn’t have done it without the support of so many people that I have met and who have supported me,”she said.
“Thank you to the Keyton team, we have had a big year, and our executive team has been amazing.
“They have led with heart, supported everyone along the way and we couldn’t have done it without them.”
In the running for the National Village Manager of the Year, John and Leoni will join:
Jodie Shelley, ACT/NSW Village Manager of the Year;
Leanne Zannoni, VIC/TAS Village Manager of the Year, and
Stephen Pether, Queensland Village Manager of the Year,
This year’s national winner will be announced at the National Retirement Living Awards on the Gold Coast in June.
The role of a Village Professional can at times feel like walking a tightrope.
In the broadest terms, the basic role of a village manager is to deliver, or facilitate the services promised under the operator’s contract to residents living within their community. Gosh, if only it was that easy!
In reality, every day Village Professionals are balancing residents needs and expectations against legislative and contractual agreements, sometimes in the absence of clear parameters.
And as a result, Village Professionals often find themselves in positions where they have to make decisions – and big ones.
In my experience, the Village Professionals who make the best decisions generally follow eight steps, which you can use as a guide.
Here are eight questions to ask yourself before your next big decision.
Is the answer in the legislation?
Is the answer in the contract/residence agreement?
Is there an organisational policy/position guideline around this matter?
What will be the impact on the operations/budget?
What will be the impact on the resident or other residents?
Does this decision require further consultation with others?
Common sense – does it pass the ‘pub test’?
Does it fit in with the values of the organisation? (Be careful not to bias with your personal values here.)
When these steps aren’t bearing fruit, you may also consider:
Whether you may need to gather some further information; and/or,
Are there alternative positions/solutions?
One of the most important lessons in my career, after working on and in more than 200 villages, has been to make sure that my decisions are thoughtful.
I’m constantly asking whether I’ve followed due process, considered all angles, being transparent and can explain the why of my decision.
As a side note, I have also learnt sometimes my decisions may need to be reviewed or amended. Having the ability to revisit a decision (even if it eventually comes out the same) shows respect, and your residents will certainly appreciate it.
After the year we’ve had, it’s fair to say plenty of us are hanging out for Christmas.
With just seven weeks to go, we thought it was worth researching the postal cut-off dates to make sure everyone’s parcels arrive with plenty of time to spare.
This year we’ve set a few reminders, and it’s worth sharing these dates with your residents who might want to send parcels of their own.
Australia Post guidelines
Sending within Australia:
Send Parcel Post by Saturday 12 December 2020. Send Express Post by Saturday 19 December 2020.
For sending letters within Australia this Christmas, standard delivery timeframes apply.
Sending internationally:
Delivery dates to send your Christmas parcels and letters overseas are listed below. Circumstances can change rapidly, so these dates may be subject to change. Also, note that time in customs is not included in our delivery time estimate and is outside of Australia Post’s control.
Recommended final sending dates for major destinations (Standard Post):
USA, Canada, UK, Europe: Monday 16 November 2020
Most of Asia: Monday 23 November 2020
New Zealand: Friday 27 November 2020.
You can find more information on the Australia Post website here, but as is always the case with this sort of thing it pays to err on the side of caution!
Collectively, I believe as a sector we need to use this unique opportunity that has been presented to us by the pandemic outcomes. People are spending more time thinking about their future, reading the paper, consuming digital media and researching life options.
It is the ideal time to promote what our sector offers and our individual communities.
Our sister group, DCM Research, has just got back the first exploratory stage of their survey of the general public aged 60+, and there are some real surprises.
They did this research in 2018 across 1,109 people and found just 2% felt lonely and isolated.
In the first few weeks of June this year, 2020, they found 27% felt lonely and isolated. That is a huge difference with COVID-19 the obvious trigger.
Across a range of two-hour interviews, the researchers learnt that people now recognise that if even their children live in another part of the same city, let alone in another city, they won’t always be able to come to their aid.
They also discovered the meaning of isolation – what happens with grocery shopping when they have to stay in their home and they’re not comfortable on the Internet.
Now think of your residents locked down and isolated, with you and your staff simply being there and available, giving reassurance. On top of that is the wide range of activities and support services village management give across the country.
Now isn’t a time when we should be shying away and slowing down our marketing activities. With the expectation that the market is slowing and enquiry is reducing, reduced spending in marketing is seen as the easiest way to save some budget.
With this new market of customers who are thinking about their long-term living situation, quite the opposite is needed.
Similarly, I do not think we should be resting on our laurels using the same old same old marketing messages: “great lifestyle, location and stone bench tops”. These are ‘givens’ today.
We need the language that the DCM Research is discovering. (You can learn more about the research projects HERE).
One really interesting point that they have discovered is the emotion of control and independence.
We all talk about living independently in a retirement village, generally meaning the resident can look after themselves, prepare their own meals and so on without support.
What the researchers are saying is slightly different; they are saying residents see joining a retirement village as taking control of their life and achieving independence. This is what they said:
A sense of control and staying independent into old age are key motivators
The decision to move from the family home is a highly emotional one, with many emotions present simultaneously – both positive and negative. However, underlying all potential reasons to make the move is the desire for control – control over one’s life, control over the decision-making process, and most importantly control over how long one can remain independent before needing external support or moving to a nursing home.
This is something we can celebrate in our sales discussions with potential residents and our marketing.
As a sector we provide unique and positive benefits and services to our residents. Let’s tell the world!
Our research indicates that nearly all village managers regularly struggle with not having enough time! (I would imagine this is no truer than now as we navigate the varying stages of the pandemic).
This isn’t necessarily because we are inefficient or lack time management skills.
In my experience it’s more likely the complexity of the role, the often-reactionary environment, the limited access to operational tools and the unpredictable incidents and events that occur almost daily that are responsible.
The strategies needed to assist with time management are related more to operational efficiency and support. In my experience, one of the most important time management actions is to have TOOLS to save time.
When I’m talking about TOOLS, I’m talking about practical things such as:
Standard email responses
Process maps
Village CRM – Village Master / Salesforce
Collaboration tools such as DropBox, Trello, Notion
Forms and templates
Data capture software
Community information go-to manuals
Site maps with utility outlets,
Daily, weekly, monthly checklists for all roles
Annual calendars
Live Action Lists
I know these take time to set up but if you start with the thought of “Am I EVER likely to have to do this or respond in this manner again?” then save it as a template, document the process, schedule it in your calendar or create a checklist as you do it – I guarantee it will save you hours of time later!
And if you ask your team to do this as well it will be beneficial to all.
Start thinking now about joining 400 of your Village Management colleagues for an inspiring two days in Sydney.
The theme of this years VILLAGE SUMMIT is People Passion Professionalism, an intensive 2 day program designed to equip, inspire and connect Village Professionals.
Join some of the country’s most successful village operators and managers who will share their challenges, successes and learnings plus insights from other industries as we prepare to accommodate the new wave of consumers.
With a focus on legislation, industry frameworks, leadership, soft skills, technology, care, sales, marketing and insight into the expectation of future and current residents, this program promises to support the decision makers of the sector both ‘in-field’ and head office professionals.
Hear from Matt Church(pictured), nominated in the Top 10 Leadership speakers in the world Matt will share the power of motivational leadership to inspire and influence village communities. Mark Bindon, Co Founder of the successful Oak Tree Group will share the Resident Engagement journey and how to build a brand based on trusted relationships.
Plus 18 other fabulous speakers.
Register now at thevillagesummit.com.au so as not to miss out on joining the 2020 premier national conference for Village Management.
We recently discussed the importance of emergency plans, and that more regulations are being developed across the country.
Again last week in Sydney at the DCM Professional Development Day, we had Kathleen Ng and David McElhone (pictured below) from the leading law firm MinterEllison run through new NSW regulations coming our way.
They had these points on the slide above that we thought was a good reminder of the minimum steps that need to be taken while you are doing a full review of emergency strategies and procedures.
Note the ‘once a year’ for safety inspections and evacuation exercise. Have you done yours?
