Category: Things to watch

Around 40 village managers attended our DCM Institute regional meet last week at Brighton Dunes village in Adelaide.

These are quarterly events, free to all village managers, that we are building right across the country.

The idea is for Village managers to get together in an informal environment to network and share knowledge.

Last week we had two speakers. The first was Vanessa Clarke, the South Australian government’s Senior Team Leader, Office of Ageing Well. Vanessa is responsible for retirement villages and the government.

She presented the survey results of legislation introduced 18 months ago.

Vanessa also shared recommendations for dealing with tricky situations that occur in a village, the trigger events for refund payment timings, bullying, and many more topics of concern raised.

We were also educated on nutrition for ageing residents by a local food group called Thistle Be Good, who provide prepared meals for village residents.

You can organise your own regional meet on our websitetearainstitute.co.nz. It is easy with all the registration tools available online and we will assist you in developing a program.

Don’t hesitate to contact us via the website or on 02 9555 9576.

Jodie

Picture this: you are the Village Manager with 80 homes and 120 residents. Each of them has a vague or real idea of their individual contract terms, and they think that you do too.

But chances are that, at best, you only have a vague idea – not a great place to be when conversations start.

In fact, for most villages that are older than 10 years, it would be very normal to have multiple versions of resident contracts in place.

Versions change because of changes in regulations but also because owners and salespeople change the ‘sales offer’ in difficult times to entice a new resident into the village, plus many other reasons.

And over the past 15 years (since before the GFC) many villages have had multiple operators with each HO introducing various changes to resident contracts.

Build some vision of your village with a contract ready reckoner

In my experience, it is great to be able to look out the office window and think “I have a good idea of all the contracts out there in the village I have to work with”.

To assist with your decision-making and compliance, it is a great idea to develop what I call a Contract Ready Reckoner. 

It is a simple document that identifies the various differing contract clauses that may be in place in the village. This document would likely include

• A description of how you identify the contract type (could be year range, operator name, pre-stage 2, etc.)
• Maintenance fee inclusions
• Exit fee
• Refurbishment charges
• Remarketing fees
• Administration fee
• Valuation requirement
• Refund payment/buy back timeframe

It can be a simple Word document or an Excel spreadsheet with each of these items as a column and a tick box.

It will become a handy tool for planning, budgeting, response to complaints, terminations and much more.

Invest the time – one hour a week

It does take a bit of time to assemble; you might want to allocate one hour a week, say on Friday, to just review five contracts. I suggest you start with the oldest. This process will take about six months, but you will be surprised and fascinated with what you find.

And it will give you a great sense of confidence when talking to your residents.

Please remember, regardless of these facts and descriptions in the contract, the Retirement Village Act will override any clause if it is for the betterment of the resident.

Jodie

You can join our Village Management Professional Development program at any time.

Download a brochure HERE and check out the 12 month program, which includes three Professional Development Days in your state.

For operators – Code of Conduct and Accreditation

The VM PD program will equip your village management to be ready for the Code of Conduct by implementation date, 1 January 2020, plus build your preparedness for Accreditation.

For Village Managers – earn PD points and build your career

Every stage of the VM PD will earn you PD points as recognition of your investment in your village management skill set.

You can also gain prior learning recognition in the LASA leadership diploma, which is recognised across the sector and in other industries.

The investment is $1,850 for a 12 month single registration, with attractive discounts for group registrations.

Learn more HERE. Hope you enjoy us.

Last issue we talked about ‘customer experience’.

Being the leader of the village community, you cannot deliver or achieve consistent, quality customer experiences alone, without the commitment and engagement of your team.

This is often not a great challenge, as most people choose to work in communities because they like people and enjoy assisting residents.

However, are you getting the best out of your team in relation to harnessing customer experience opportunities?

Village ‘values’ and respect

When you induct a new team member (or permanent contractor that is taking the place of a team member) do you spend time with them going through the Village Values?

It is vitally important to have a short, printed document to give each new team member the values you have and expect.

Have your team sign off that they understand not only that you have values, but what they actually mean in terms of how you all deliver your roles in the village.

Respect is one of the most important values; the document explains exactly what RESPECT means to your residents. For example:

RESPECT means WE:

• treat one another with dignity and fairness
• show tolerance and have patience
• are polite
• show appreciation
• act with empathy
• treat others how we would like to be treated
• don’t talk down to people
• treat all people as individuals
• relate and interact positively with people
• acknowledge we each have a role to play

Team meetings

Having regular team meetings is very important. Use them to:

• share knowledge
• reinforce your values
• regularly share your knowledge
• celebrate achievements
• share likely upcoming changes or concerns
• provide opportunity for your team to share their own suggestions and challenges with you

Your team members will feel included and become ambassadors for you.

Imagine the difference in how a resident will feel if the handyman is asked about an increase the village budget, and he is able to show knowledge of the situation and provide the appropriate response.

It might be, “I am aware of the changes to the budget and I understand it is going to provide an improved service to the residents, however the detail is quite complex so I would recommend you make an appointment with Village Manager if it is of concern to you” versus “Oh, I have no idea but I hear “THEY” are always putting up the fees”. 

This second response reinforces the resident’s concern when it could have been made a positive.

A strong team ethic is so very important to ensuring the culture of the village is maintained and that consistent Customer Experiences are achieved.