Day: September 2, 2021

Categories
Latest industry developments Things to watch

Are Community Apartment Projects (CAPS) the Villages of the future?

As reported in last week’s SOURCE we have created a new name to describe apartment developments that target Baby Boomers with a community support offering – CAPs, or Community Apartment Projects.

We are seeing increasingly more developers like Bolton Clarke, Platino and Frasers Property who have realised that providing ‘community’ plus concierge support is a winning value proposition to seniors who are 65-75 ‘young’. 

They look and act like retirement villages but for a younger market and outside the Retirement Village legislation.

As Village Professionals this is an important step for your future career growth to upskill in managing these multi million-dollar developments. 

In Brisbane we have Traders In Purple engaging the well-known community group Burnie Brae to deliver ‘community’ to their apartment development. The Full article is here

In Sydney a large proposed CAPs campus is being developed by Platino. They will providean onsite concierge, access to a full suite of home-care services, and the ability to change and/or increase the levels of care if necessary – all while staying in your own home which allows the resident to live independently. The full article is here

Baby Boomers are a different customer and new styles of villages are emerging. Your skills will be increasingly in demand – which is healthy!

Categories
Facility Manager Jobs

Keeping good people and your workplace

In a time when the new talent pool is shallow, attracting great staff and retaining them is vital.

We recently reported in our SATURDAY digital magazine that there were over 170 Village Manager roles available on seek in the week prior. 

With approximately 1500 Village Managers in Australia, this is over 10% of all roles are currently vacant. In my experience this is around the highest number of vacancies I have seen in my career.   

As you would know, gone are the days of the ‘set and forget’ employee.  In a recent seek.com.au survey of over 4,800 potential candidates the results showed that employees are looking for:  

  • Engagement – employees want to be engaged in their work to thrive
     
  • Relationships – 1 in 2 felt collegiate peer relationships have become more important 
     
  • Meaning and purpose – Organisations should show how their work benefits society, or how the organisation supports causes in the wider community
     
  • Support with goals – Importance of understanding employees’ personal goals and ability to create a clear career direction, so new recruits can understand that they can have the opportunity of a career for life with your organisation
     
  • Sense of achievement - Employees want to know that what they’re doing is making an impact
     
  • True flexibility - Having choice over start and finish times is important to a lot of candidates  
     
  • Trust - Explain that you want to create a culture of trust and show how you’ve built that in the past
     
  • Mental health support - 2 in 5 candidates say they would have liked more mental health support during COVID-19 
     
  • Ongoing learning - Humans are hardwired to learn and grow and stretch ourselves 

Do these resonate with you?

Retaining key team members is fast becoming a key business pillar across Retirement Villages, Aged Care, Home Care, Health and Human Services here in Australia.  

Categories
Covid-19 Key things to help you everyday

The ongoing impact of COVID is real….for residents and you

In nearly every reach out in our customer care calls to DCMI program Members over the last month there has been deep concern for your resident and team mental health. 

With Sydney well into its tenth week of lockdown, Melbourne on lockdown 6.0 and other states never knowing when the short snap lockdowns may occur, we are hearing more and more stories of exhaustion, worry, despair, anxiousness, and so many more feelings coming to a head.   

Real COVID impacts

These stories, rightly so, often start with concern for resident mental health as village professionals listen to resident’s sharing:

  • The impact of lockdown on their own physical health
  • The inability to connect with others
  • Unsure of when they may see family and friends   
  • Missing important milestones
  • Challenges of speaking & listening through a mask 
  • Not being able to give or receive family support
  • Missing that personal touch; and  
  • In some cases the ability to attend or continue with medical treatments/reviews   

You have shared with us the obvious and visible signs these impacts are having on resident mental health.  

How COVID can impact you

On top of these concerns, you are juggling the added worries about COVID coming into your village, keeping up with the ever-changing restrictions, implementing new legislative requirements whilst managing COVID and trying to have a plan to address the increasing non-essential maintenance that has had to be delayed. 

We have seen increased feelings of isolation, managing constantly changing and differing resident expectations, and of course your concern for residents declining during this time. 

Your oxygen mask

Hearing these stories reminded us of all of the great support tools that are out there to help support your residents, your teams and so very importantly yourselves. 

You will know the old saying “you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can help others” in my experience it is so true.  

There are some great resources out there to help in these times and here are a couple that come to mind:

Perhaps check out the great advice and tools available at Beyond Blue specifically the webinar below developed for Retirement Village residents and teams, which we had some input.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLTu8Kz-Zo4&t=2s

There are also a number of great tips from The Black Dog Institute in dealing with the impact of COVID on mental health in this article –
10 tips for managing anxiety during COVID-19 – Black Dog Institute  

Or perhaps schedule sometime to grab a cuppa and reach out to a colleague (even if you have to do it on zoom). Chances are you are both feeling the same way and sometimes a problem shared is also a problem halved…  

We are thinking of you.