Category: Things to watch

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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!

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
Things to watch

‘A Life Changing Life’ Campaign on your TV soon to attract new staff

https://mumbrella.com.au/new-aus-gov-campaign-from-mc-saatchi-looks-to-encourage-a-career-in-carer-roles-698620?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=READ%20MORE%20%C2%BB&utm_campaign=Mumbrella%20Daily%20-%2017%2F08%2F21

The Australian Government has launched a new campaign to raise awareness around the employment opportunities in the care sector, especially home care.

The ‘A Life Changing Life’ campaign, tells the stories of real care and support workers, and the people they support.

It’s great!

Categories
Things to watch

“Village leadership in a post pandemic world”

https://youtu.be/qXYLg6oyP-Q

Matt Church CEO, Thought Leaders

One of the most awarded conference speakers in Australia, Matt has been recognised as one of the Top 10 motivational speakers globally.

Matt is the Founder of Thought Leaders and writer of 13 books, including his latest Rise Up: An evolution in leadership.

Invest in your team. Invest in your future.

We invite you to join with your team at this significant Village Management event.

Click here to register as our guest or a delegate.

Categories
Latest industry developments Things to watch

NZ operators take up DCM Institute village management professional development program

The New Zealand Retirement Villages Association has joint ventured with us to take our ongoing professional development program to New Zealand operators.​

DCM CEO Chris Baynes and I presented the joint initiative at the RVA National Conference in Auckland. Judy Martin and Jill Donaldson also flew across for the launch.

In New Zealand, operators have invested significantly in building trust within the community, together with Government and the peak resident’s association.

In January, the RVA and the Retirement Villages Residents Association of New Zealand (RVRANZ) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), committing to closer collaboration and co-operation.

https://www.tearainstitute.co.nz/

The establishment of professional development for retirement village management has been a major objective of residents for some time. The RVA Education Committee identified that the DCM Institute program delivered the content, structure and proven participation, and it was a better solution to bring DCMI to New Zealand than attempt to build from scratch.

They identified that as little as 10% of the content requires “Kiwi-ising’.

You are most probably amongst the 350+ village executives now enrolled here in Australia.

It is with your participation and feedback that has allowed us to build DCMI into what it is today, and we must say it’s very rewarding to be recognised by our New Zealand friends who in many areas lead the world in retirement living operations and support of residents.

Categories
Things to watch

62% of sales from referrals!!!

Last month I caught up with my great colleague Linda Hooper, National marketing manager with Living Choice, who happened to mention in passing that they had achieved 62% of sales from referrals…

An amazing result by any businesses standard!  So I asked her to elaborate a little more and what I uncovered was a well thought out targeted strategy, synonymous to Living Choices marketing, that is delivering REAL results!

https://www.tearainstitute.co.nz/

In the retirement living industry, there is nothing more satisfying that seeing the word “Referral” as the advertising source when receiving an enquiry for a village. It’s a powerful validation of not just your marketing team’s efforts but all those who work for the company.

Across the retirement living sector, the incidence of referral is quite low. In our sister company DCM Research’s National resident survey of over 4,000 village residents last year, they found that strong referrals only occurred in 13% of cases. See below.

When Linda first joined Living Choice, they were spending an awful lot of money on traditional advertising, such as print, TV and radio. While this generated a lot of leads, the cost of converting that lead to a settlement was alarmingly high. She soon identified that the referrals, however, had a much higher conversion rate.

Linda with the wider Living Choice team implemented a Referral Reward Program whereby both referrers and those they refer receive a gift voucher on settlement.

While this is a nice “thank-you” present, Linda doesn’t believe it is the main reason for the referral at all – it is just one piece of the Living Choice promise.

Moving into a retirement village is a major decision and people won’t refer a family member or friend unless they are convinced the village ticks a number of important boxes.

In addition to the gift vouchers, Living Choice holds a Gala Reward Event to thank the referrers, those they have referred plus their many resident helpers. They invest considerable marketing funds into these glamorous events and for both residents and the team, these are a highlight on the marketing calendar.

Over the years, the percentage of settlements attributed to referrals has grown to a current 62% of all sales! It’s a percentage that not just the marketing team but all Living Choice staff members and residents can be proud of.

Linda shares “these results also keep the team united and focused on ensuring we deliver on our promise and the best possible lifestyle and care for residents”. 

Multiple research programs confirm that well over 90% of residents are positively satisfied by their move – as demonstrated from this graph from the same DCM research program last year – it would be great if we can mobilise these satisfied residents!

Categories
Latest industry developments Things to watch What the research tells us

Planning ahead – the number of home care providers is about to collapse

Here is something to put in the back of your mind. Our DCM group colleague Chris Baynes is giving a webinar presentation today for 200 IT executives in the aged care space about the reforms from the Royal Commission and the impact it will have on home care and residential care.

He is proposing that the number of home care providers will collapse over the next three years. Some commentators are saying that over 700 providers could be reduced to as few as 50.

https://www.tearainstitute.co.nz/

The implications for village operators is that the remaining big suppliers will be far more powerful in negotiating to what level they will support village operators in marketing home care as a given support service in a village.

From the chart above, you can see that the 16 largest home care providers have 47% of the Home Care Packages while the 562 small home care providers have just 15% of the Packages.

The Royal Commission reforms require operators to have significantly stronger back office IT and workforce training and oversight. The smaller operators are unlikely to have the cash to make these investments.

At the same time, the home care workforce is likely to be attracted to the higher wages and culture that big operators will be able to offer with the efficiencies and easy technology they will be introducing.

Chris’ advice: keep an eye on your local home care providers and build relationships with the operators that you feel most comfortable with the quality of service but also are most likely to survive.

Categories
Things to watch

WORLD ELDER ABUSE AWARENESS DAY (WEAAD) 15th JUNE

According to the United Nations, elder abuse can be defined as “a single, or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust which causes harm or distress to an older person”.

In many parts of the world, elder abuse occurs with little recognition or response. However, in Australia regulators, consumer advocate groups, organisations and individuals have taken up the fight against elder abuse.

Why not see if your village can join the many other organisations that will be highlighting World Elder Abuse Awareness Day? You could hold an event, host a morning tea, or bring in a guest speaker to raise awareness of elder abuse and highlight the support available for those experiencing it.

Let’s take this opportunity to celebrate the positive contributions of older people in Australia.