Recently at a Property Council education day in South Australia, Ben Myers, the Executive Director of the Retirement Living Council, shared that over 800 villages had already registered their interest in being engaged with the Code of Conduct industry framework.
Ben shared “This industry framework plays an important role in the future protection and promotion of resident interests.
It helps implement regulation in a way that creates high and consistent standards across marketing, sales and operations.
It promotes trust and confidence in the sector.
The framework supports open, transparent and efficient resolution of complaints and importantly provides industry leadership”.
Our tip: It is a really important initiative to take the professionalism of the retirement living sector to the next level. If you need a copy of the Code of Conduct, download it HERE.
At the same event Jason Sack, General Manager at Living Choice Australia shared tips on how the Living Choice team are championing this framework and as industry leaders offered these practical steps to help get you started:
1. Develop an implementation plan
- understand obligations and make sure you can always meet them
- ensure you have the processes to manage complaints and disputes
2. Embrace the Code and opportunities it brings
- promote the Code to customers and community (MPs and media)
- include your commitment in marketing material
- make sure potential residents know you value the commitment
3. Engage with residents, resident committees and resident associations
- host resident morning teas to talk about the Code and its benefits
- discuss the Code at resident committee meetings
4. Appoint a Code Compliance officer
- Who will be the first point of contact with residents on all Code matters?
- Who will assist in monitoring village compliance?
Our tip: The team at DCM Institute have developed an example implementation plan to help you with the first step HERE.
Plus over the summer break, the DCMI team will be adding more resources to the Resource Vault for members on the DCM Institute website, to ensure that signing up to the Code is as easy as practical for all participants.