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Things to watch Village Operator

Women Leadership Roles on the Rise in the RV Sector

For the second successive year land lease community, rental village and tourism park operator Ingenia Communities has ranked second in the 2021 Chief Executive Women (CEW) Senior Executive Census for companies listed on the Stock Exchange.

For the second successive year land lease community, rental village and tourism park operator Ingenia Communities has ranked second in the 2021 Chief Executive Women (CEW) Senior Executive Census for companies listed on the Stock Exchange.

The census, which tracks gender balance and female representation of Australia’s largest publicly listed companies.

“Women compromise more than one-third of our Company Board and two-thirds of our executive leadership team,” said Ingenia CEO Simon Owen. “Our experience is that it is in every company’s best interest to ensure diversity both in representation and in ideas and thinking – it can have a significant impact on your ability to innovate and grow, and ultimately your bottom line.”

https://www.theweeklysource.com.au/ingenia-communities-recognised-for-women-in-executive-leadership-roles-66-of-leadership-team/

The push to acquire and nurture female talent in Ingenia comes from a top-down approach led by retirement village veteran and Ingenia Chairman Jim Hazel, who for many years has mentored prospective female directors through the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).

Ingenia Chief Investment Officer and General Counsel, Natalie Kwok (pictured above), is one executive who was developed through internal channels.

“The company has always taken a merit and capability-based approach. I am really grateful for the fact that I was not pigeonholed in one field – with Ingenia if you are good at your role, you get opportunities to grow and succeed,” she said.

This is also great news for Village Professionals to grow with an industry that recognises executive talent and supports a clearly defined career path.  The DCM Institute is the perfect vehicle in taking those first steps, on an evolving professional development journey.

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Key things to help you everyday What the research tells us

Do your residents struggle with the Digital Age? Here is a ‘village’ solution

It will be no surprise to you that many village residents struggle with the internet, and this makes life hard for them to just do things in the community. 

https://www.yourlink.com.au/

Richard Scenna, co-founder ofYour Link, shared with me recently statistics from the 2020 Australian Digital Inclusion Index. 
 

The statistics highlight that people over 65 remain amongst the least digitally included age group in the country.

The research also reveals a pattern of diminishing digital inclusion, as age increases – particularly in relation to access and digital ability.

https://www.yourlink.com.au/

He went on to share that this same cohort had indicated in their recent survey, that 80% of people said, if they didn’t possess digital skills they felt locked out of essential services:

  • Government agency services
  • Online payment solutions
  • Public safety alerts
  • Online shopping/delivery options
  • Telehealth, and
  • COVID 19 related activities such as QR codes and digital updates. 

You can learn more in the related article from Richard here – Despite good intentions, seniors are left behind with digital progress.

Feeling locked out

Many also feel locked out or in the dark, like digital social engagement, connection, belonging, learning and entertainment. 

There is email, SMS, messenger groups, event registrations, Facebook pages, etc…

Once upon a time a phone was just used to call people!

A little help and knowledge can go a long way and, in my experience, programs delivered by third party providers, also go a long way to helping village professionals move their communities into the digital age. 

YourLink can bring digital education to your village

This is where YourLinkcan assist and a great service I have used for residents in the past.

https://www.yourlink.com.au/

I recommend you contact the team at Your Linkif you are wanting assistance for your residents with the digital age.  Some of the areas they provide are:

  • Bespoke digital coaching (1 to 1)
  • Employee/volunteer/carer digital literacy so they are able to assist others
  • Seniors’ digital literacy in groups (virtual or face to face)
  • Hearing & technology training events
  • Investigation of grant funded digital literacy solutions
  • Co-design digital literacy programs

Results of these programs show clear increase in digital confidence and participation.

https://www.yourlink.com.au/

For more information and to see how they may be able to help your resident communities, click here: YourLink – Digital confidence and support for older Australians

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Key things to help you everyday

Why a Social Media Strategy has to be on your 2022 Marketing Hit List?

With the average Australian spending 88 hours per month online, it should be no surprise to find that one of the biggest cohorts using social media is the baby boomer.

Research shows, the baby boomer is primarily infatuated with Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.

Recent data from IAB Australia indicates that during COVID lockdowns, digital news consumption increased over 38%.  While digital consumption of real estate related content, increased by 44% in the last 12 months.

These facts should leave you with no doubt, that a village social media presence must be part of your village marketing strategies moving forward.

Don’t sell. Educate first

Whilst there is a temptation to sell, sell, sell that no matter the platform used, when it comes to marketing, the professionals warn of this strategy on social media.

Judi Carr, Director, Content Republic, shared with DCM Institute members at this month’s webinar the golden rule of social media marketing is to EDUCATE first & SELL second.

https://www.contentrepublic.com.au/

She explained the role of social media should be primarily to increase brand awareness and develop trust in your brand.  It is only then, you have the opportunity for the audience to engage with your brand and then, you have the opportunity to sell to your audience.

Around the country this month, we heard the biggest road block to successful social media strategies, is the need for the ongoing development of content.

How to create social media content 

Judi had a great recommendation when starting to build content and to follow a create, curate and syndicate approach. This is best explained as:

  • Create – create original posts
     
  • Curate – add some commentary to others posts, relevant to your audience
     
  • Syndicate – simply share others posts that add value to your audiences’ interests

Creating content doesn’t need to be difficult.  Some easy methods in helping contribute to your marketing teams content plan is to adopt the following: 

  • Always be on hand with a camera to capture those great resident moments around your village. Don’t forget to share these with the person managing your social media
     
  • More stories of engagement in your community shows it’s a happy place to be
     
  • Develop a social media resident sub-committee and have the residents share their ideas and capture content
     
  • Add it to your team meeting agendas to share anecdotes and ideas
     
  • Consider having the team repurpose existing content (from websites, brochures, newsletters & videos)

A couple of other golden rules when you are starting out on the social media journey:

  • Be authentic,
     
  • Be consistent; and
     
  • Ensure that all interactions are in line with your communities positioning and values.

You may even want to suggest if resource is a factor, to consider outsourcing to a professional like Content Republic to build your strategy and content

If your keen to know more, this month’s webinar is now available in our Knowledge Centre.

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Key things to help you everyday Village Operator

Helping your Residents & Families understand the transition to aged care

The transition from independent living to aged care can be a difficult and uncertain time in your residents’ life.  You will be faced with many questions from their family and friends as well as the residents themselves:

  • Mum isn’t coping on her own – what can be done to help?
  • Judy hasn’t come to any activities for quite some time – is she ok?
  • Asking the village team to help with the shopping
  • Difficult behaviours
  • Other residents’ concerns
  • Your own observations
  • Guilt, fear and time stress are the prevailing emotions.

As the Village Manager, you will be faced to having those hard conversations and, in some cases, dealing with.

Our sister DCM web site agedcare101.com.au is designed to educate and support all people about the late ageing journey.

One of the things we like most is this video, which explains the feeling of guilt, the time it takes to set up residential care and the essential Nine Steps.  It’s called ‘Precious Time’.

https://youtu.be/wyUAzIi02ck

Check it out and let your people know it is there. Over 60,000 people visit agedcare101.com.au every moth.

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Jobs Things to watch Village Operator

Village operators worried as older managers are retiring and difficult to replace

Workforce supply is increasingly difficult across the country, but as our sister publicationSATURDAY explored in its last issue, the retirement Village Manager is proving to be of the hardest to secure.

It can take up to three years for a Village Professional to feel fully in control of their role and understanding of the village business that they manage.

So when a Village Manager leaves the sector, they are taking with them a head full of knowledge and experience.

51% of VMs leave within three years

This is a significant challenge when you consider that there are just 1,500 Village Managers across the country and research commissioned by DCM with KPMG (2019) found that 51% of Managers leave the sector within three years.

One operator last week said over 50% of their village managers have now been in the job for less than two years.

The SATURDAY editors found that to replace this skill drain, operators are recruiting younger Managers.

Paul Burkett (photographed), the Director and CEO of Baldwin Care Group, said he has had two village managers retire in the past 12 months to be replaced by younger managers in their 30s.

They need to be fast tracked in their knowledge and supported with tools and training.

Paul has two new Village Managers taking part in the DCMI program and says he is seeing the difference that it is making to their confidence. “They realise that they’re not Robinson Crusoe and there’s other people sharing the same problems,” he said.

Pay is a challenge recruiting the new, younger generation of Managers. The average Village Manager salary is still around $80,000 despite the responsibilities being equivalent to that of a hotel manager.

Paul pays above scale and offers yearly bonuses based on KPIs around accreditation, meeting regulations, guest surveys, sales and more.  He says training and networking opportunities are also critical.

Maintenance roles are also proving difficult to fill as the retiring builders and tradespeople in these roles are also departing, while home care workers are hard to source due to lockdowns and resignations.

COVID-19 has made the challenge of retaining and attracting staff even harder, while residents can be demanding that staff are fully vaccinated, which is also a challenge.

Paul says he has lost some staff recently because they did not want to be vaccinated.

How then to appeal to the new generation?

What is the take-out? Demand far exceeds supply of professional Village Managers and Management.

With villages emerging as one of the big answers to the Royal Commission goal of more people on Home Care, living independently, aged care operators are moving to develop new and bigger villages, especially vertical villages. This is increasing demand even further for Professional Management.

More regulations, audits and increasing board responsibility for standards being met (plus concerns about insurance) are driving operators to invest in Professional Development – and remuneration reviews.

The question then is: will the new Baby Boomer customer/resident be prepared to pay more for a higher standard of Village Management – and are village operators ready to invest in their human capital?

You can read the full version of the SATURDAY village Workforce article HERE.

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Key things to help you everyday Village Operator

Emergency planning – it’s not all about bushfire – but it is about a plan

Often when considering emergency planning in villages there is a tendency to focus on fire, and in particular bushfire.

How would your village, and importantly your residents, respond to any of the following events?

  • Gas Leak
  • Gunman on site
  • Live electrical wires
  • Flood
  • Explosion
  • Medical Emergency
  • A sewer flooded your village; or
  • Natural disaster that may leave your community without power, water or phone access

In my time in villages, I have had to deal with ALL of these emergency situations, and often remotely.  So, I have learnt the importance of having robust and regularly reviewed emergency plans in place that go far beyond having an evacuation diagram on the wall in the community centre.

Easy ‘must do’s’

It is not hard to prepare the basics of an Emergency Plan, and you will feel so much better when you have built the bones because you now will not be caught out at a time of stress.

Ideally your Emergency Plan should address:

  • Emergency contact details for key people who have specific roles or responsibilities under the Emergency Plan, for example fire wardens, & staff
     
  • Contact details for local emergency services
     
  • A process for alerting residents, for example a siren, whistles, telephone calls and door knocking
     
  • Evacuation procedures including arrangements for assisting any hearing, vision or mobility residents
     
  • A map of the village illustrating the location of fire protection equipment, emergency exits, assembly points
     
  • Triggers and processes for advising neighbours who may need to respond as well
     
  • A post-incident follow-up process, for example notifying the regulator, organising trauma counselling or medical treatment
     
  • What should be in and where should an emergency steel box be located with high vis vests, torches, battery operated radio, first aid kit, manuals, instructions, updated resident phone list, etc and where should it be located?

After the emergency

In my experience you should also consider adding information that addresses: 

  • What is the process to communicate with residents it is OK to come back to the Village?
     
  • What plans need to be actioned in the event the power, phone or water is to be cut off for days?
     
  • What is the relocation process in the event the home or homes are not habitable or accessible?

WH&S, legislation, ARVAS and insurance

Having an Emergency Plan, engaging with it and reviewing it is not only a Work Health & Safety requirement for your employees, it is also a new requirement of the NSW Retirement Villages Act and a requirement of the ARVAS scheme. 

It may also be a requirement or expectation of some insurance policies and of course would be seen as sound governance and risk management by your Board.

https://www.first5minutes.com.au/v/

If you have not started this process, I would recommend you engage with an industry professional such as ESGA or First 5 Minutes, who both presented at our September Professional Development workshops. 

They are not only familiar with the requirements of emergency plans but also the idiosyncrasies of Retirement Villages.

https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/documents/1702/emergency_plans_fact_sheet.pdf

However, if you would like to get a head start or review your current plan perhaps use this great emergency plan fact sheet tool checklist from Safework Australia as a guide.

Emergency Planning is a topic in our September PD days.  Keep an eye out for the recording of our recent webinar in the DCMI Knowledge Centre, available at the end of the month.

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Jobs Things to watch

Have you got casual employees? You need to know these new changes to the Fair Work Act

In March, changes were made to the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act) relating to casual employment.

If you are a village that uses casual staff, for roles such as cleaners, personal carers, overnight services and others, then it’s important you familiarise yourself with the changes. 

For information on the changes, visit Changes to casual employment – industrial relations reforms.

Pathway from casual to Permanent 

In last week’s South Australian Professional Development workshop day Josh Abbott, a Partner with retirement village specialists O’Loughlin’s Lawyers, outlined the basics of the new requirements for causal employees.

https://www.oloughlins.com.au/

The new requirements are to create a pathway for casual employees to become full-time or part-time (permanent). They call this ‘casual conversation’.

Casual employees can become permanent by their employer offering casual conversion or by making a request to their employer for casual conversion.

However, small business employers (15 employees or less) don’t need to offer casual conversion to their casual employees. Other regulations may apply, which you should check on the FairWork website.

This process is relevant for any staff who have been employed for a period of at least 12 months (or 6 months in some awards), and during those 12 months have worked systematic hours without any significant changes. 

27 September

“Josh reiterated all casual contracts must be updated with the new casual definition and Non-Small Business Employers must determine which casuals they need to offer part-time or full-time employment to under the casual conversion process, as outlined above by 27 September 2021…”

Essentially, this means that if you have casual staff that are working similar shifts on a regularly rostered basis, you should be seeking legal advice. You will need to be compliant by 27 September and be aware of the implications for your organisation, under the new requirements of the Act. 

It could be that these employees must now be offered the opportunity to convert to part-time or full-time employment. 

Your legal advisor will also be able to advise you on the paperwork required.

The other major changes he outlined require:
 

  • Employers are now required to give each casual employee a copy of the Casual Employment Information Statement (CEIS) before, or as soon as practicable after, their employment commences;
     
  • Non- Small Business Employers (employers with more than 15 employees) are to give their existing employees a copy of the Casual Employment Information Statement as soon as possible after 27 September 2021; and
     
  • Non-Small Business Employers are to comply with the casual conversion process in the National Employment Standards in the Act by 27 September 2021. 
     
  • The Act essentially defines a casual employee as a person who has:
     
    • Been made an offer of employment by an employer on the basis that the employer makes no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work, according to an agreed pattern of work;
       
    • Accepted the offer on that basis; and
       
    • Become an employee on the basis of that acceptance

Good luck!

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Uncategorized

“A change of generation”

To read the full SATURDAY issue, click here.

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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!

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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.