MDSadmin, Author at Moore Diversified Services, Inc.

BE PREPARED FOR STRATEGIC CHANGE

Posted on April 25, 2016July 6, 2018 by MDSadmin

Our Industry Is Entering Into The “Second Generation”

When we think of “generations” we typically consider population in general and our peers, children and grandchildren. We know unique generations commonly think differently in terms of lifestyle, finances, how they spend their money and their perception of value . . . in other words their “psychographics” are different. The term psychographics is broadly defined as the use of demographics to determine the attitudes, perceptions and behavior of a particular segment of our population.

Let’s sharpen the definition of population psychographics and apply it specifically to our senior living industry in terms of two important consumer generations; 1) The Silent Generation, ages 70 to 90 – age, income and asset qualified seniors as potential residents for our communities and 2) The Baby Boom and Baby Busters ages 55 to 64 – the decision influencers for senior living. Let’s also consider the professionals that design and operate our communities. These designs and operating strategies are changing.

There are dramatic differences we need to address as we make the critical transition into the second generation of our industry. They involve two primary consumer generations:

1. The Silent Generation – 1925 to 1945. This generation has two major components:

The Depression Era (1929 to 1939). When I talk to seniors and conduct senior focus groups, I always ask, “Does having lived through the Depression in any way affect your financial decision-making today?” The answer is always a resounding “”
World War II (1940-1945). GIs came home from the war, married, bought homes and had children in record numbers (the Boomers). These veterans were motivated to make up for lost time. After getting educated under the GI Bill, they built businesses, careers and built personal savings. They are generally fiscally conservative.

2. The Baby Boomers – 1946 to 1964. The Boomers and the Baby Busters (1965 to 1980) have a current age spectrum of 35 to 69. Their psychographics are:

The “Gray Flannel Suit” Era (1946 – 1980). During this period, many men and women entered the corporate world prepared to spend their careers with one employer. They were generally “team players” – conforming, spending their time responding to the requirements of their employers as they worked through their careers.
Vietnam Era & the Rebellions of 1960s & 1970s. This troublesome period (1960 – 1974) created large groups of disillusioned veterans and many “maverick consumers”. A large portion of the population did not accept these nonconformists, which only triggered further rebellion against “the establishment”.

The younger element of the Silent Generation and the Boomers are the foundation of the emerging second generation of our industry. Their attitudes and opinions have also been shaped by the boom/bust cycles of the past 20 years and the very low savings rates experienced by fixed income seniors.

The typical life cycle of the Silent and the Boomer generations has been defined as approximately 18 to 20 years old respectively. The modern day senior living industry “first generation” life cycle is defined as approximately 30 years (1985 to 2015). Just like consumer psychographics and trends, some dramatic strategic changes are taking place in our industry

Tomorrow’s senior living marketing prospects are no longer “the usual prospects.” They are raising the bar of expectations and will be much more articulate in expressing their wants, needs and perceptions of value. It’s time to redouble your efforts at understanding today’s age 75-plus consumers while becoming more savvy about how you market to them. Actually, quite a lot is known about the current mindset of the senior consumer; the challenge is translating this knowledge into practical communication and marketing strategies. Take, for example, pricing. Most of us know we should sell tangible value before price. But, in our zeal to tell our story, we forget that the process involves three very important steps:

1) Truly understand the senior consumer mindset

2) Identify and correct common senior misconceptions

3) Deploy consumer-focused, market-driven positioning

Finally, realize that we are evolving to another generation of prospects and we are dealing with senior consumers who have experienced a number of life-changing events. The financial implications are enormous.

A word of caution: Don’t get misled by the opinions expressed by your existing residents. These opinions may no longer necessarily reflect the changing mindset of your future residents.

Jim Moore is president of Moore Diversified Services, Inc., a national Senior housing and health care consulting firm based in Fort Worth, Texas. He has written several books about assisted living and Senior housing, including Independent Living and CCRCs. Jim is also a regular contributor to industry publications such as McKnights Long Term Care News and various industry association publications. Contact MDS at 817-731-4266 to discuss your consulting needs.

Employee Recognition Can Help Motivation and Retention

Posted on March 25, 2016July 6, 2018 by MDSadmin

by Kim Jimenez

I keep seeing this quote on social media: “Employees who feel valued will do more than expected.”

Employee Engagement is a current concept garnering lots of attention. Employee Engagement refers to and measures how connected and committed an employee is to an organization, its product and its customers. High employee engagement can result in greater productivity, increased morale and higher retention. Therefore, companies are looking for ways to increase employee engagement. One such way is employee incentives and recognition.

According to a 2014 paper by Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) “employees not only want good pay and benefits, they also want…to be valued and appreciated for their efforts” (Society for Human Resource Management, 2014). While some organizations may shy away from formal recognition programs because they think they may be too expensive to implement, it is not necessarily monetary recognition employees are looking for. Recognition can be internal recognition, public recognition or staff appreciation events. Even small items like t-shirts, gift cards, thank you notes, and coffee mugs can be effective if genuinely presented for noted achievements.

Also, there are any number of areas for which a company can structure a recognition program depending on the organization and its employees. Some such areas according to SHRM can be as simple as attendance and years of service or more involved like systems improvements, talent acquisition, innovation, and/or “champions of change.” Recognition can be structured however the organization can effective track and designate employee contribution. Then recognition should be consistent and immediate. An inconsistent program will not motivate employees. But overall, good recognition programs can be very effective.

Taking recognition to the national level can not only motivate employees but provide credibility to both the employee and the organization. National recognition can be an organizational designation or recognition coordinated with industry associations or regulatory agencies. There are a number of national designations, awards and achievements available for employees and organizations to draw from within every industry. National recognition can bring a level of respect from subordinates, coworkers and customer’s alike. It may even motivate other employees to strive to obtain the same designation and recognition.

Give as much thought into how to win over your employees as you do your customers; your employees are your customers. Treat them right and they will treat your customers right.

References

Society for Human Resource Management. (2013, March 21). Developing and Sustaining Employee Engagement. Retrieved from Society for Human Resource Management: https://www.shrm.org/templatestools/toolkits/pages/sustainingemployeeengagement.aspx

Society for Human Resource Management. (2014, September 12). Managing Employee Recognition Programs. Retrieved from Society for Human Resource Management: https://www.shrm.org/templatestools/toolkits/pages/employeerecognitionprograms.aspx

Kim Jimenez has been a regular contributor to the MDS website and MDS blog for the past 15 years. Kim holds a supervisory position in a Fortune 100 company and has extensive experience with a multitude of employee, training and leadership issues. She is currently obtaining her degree in Human Resource Management at Southern New Hampshire University

Management Mondays: Communication is Key

Posted on March 14, 2016July 6, 2018 by MDSadmin

Are your employees meeting your organization’s standards and goals or just barely reaching minimum expectations? Are you seeing a decline in resident satisfaction? Are operations just not up to par and not sure why? One issue you must investigate is communication. Are goals and decisions getting communicated effectively and completely to those down the line? Can your front-line employees restate policies, procedures, and goals as well as how and why these things apply to them?

The decisions you make at the top are important but they will not matter much if the actions of those employees on the “front lines” do not line up with those decisions. Employees need to be, MUST be, invested and informed: Do they know your organization’s mission? Do they realize how they speak to or interact with people affect that mission? Are employees getting proper feedback on their performance in regards to company standards? Upper management needs to communicate goals, missions, and reasons behind decisions that affect employees. If decisions seem random to employees, they are less likely to embrace them and support them. If employees can see how decisions improve service, improve resident satisfaction, improve business and therefore benefit them in some way, they are more likely to support you in these decisions.

On the reverse side, can employees reasonably incorporate expectations into their daily routines? Are the policies and procedures handed down to your front-line employees realistic? Are you asking already overworked employees to do more, take on even more than they already have time for? Again, communication is key. Get with your employees and get feedback on new initiatives you are handing down to them. How do they see these affecting their work? Do they feel it will make the difference you say it is going to make? Are these initiatives resident centered or business centered? Those employees involved directly with the residents may give a different perspective or creative ways to implement actions those in corporate may not have thought of. Keep in mind, while something looks good on paper in the boardroom, implementation may be more complicated in the day to day operations of a resident-centered facility.

Another thing to consider: Do employees report to more than one supervisor or manager? This can be complicated when each supervisor has different priorities. Make sure priorities and tasks are consistent for each employee and there is not a conflict of “whose requests should I make a priority.” Again, communication on ALL levels as well as communication going both up and down the organizational ladder will make for a more cohesive workgroup and increase the likelihood of meeting and even exceeding goals.

MDS can help evaluate where your organization stands with a comprehensive operational analysis. A follow-up strategic planning session or retreat can help make sure your current business goals are on track and develop new and innovative ideas.

Kim Jimenez has been a regular contributor to the MDS website and MDS blog for the past 15 years. Kim holds a supervisory position in a Fortune 100 company and has extensive experience with a multitude of employee, training and leadership issues. She is currently obtaining her degree in Human Resource Management at Southern New Hampshire University

Explanations Go a Long Way on Resumes

Posted on November 24, 2015July 23, 2018 by MDSadmin

Leaving off pertinent information is why so many resumes go in the trash.

It’s difficult to balance out the amount of information presented in a resume. With the shorter attention spans today, it’s important to get to the point. You don’t want to bog the reader down with reams of useless information — but you also need to make sure you include vital information that demonstrates why you are worthy of further consideration. You can’t just cut your resume down for the sake of word count.

Make Sure Your Resume Includes Pertinent Information

While there are many areas this tip could apply to, let’s focus on past employment. As a hiring manager, this is the first area of a candidate’s resume that I look at. I want to see if the candidate has any related work experience, and I want to see how stable their employment history is.

Most hiring managers are looking for long-term employees, and stability is important. Despite that, I receive more resumes today than ever before with tenures of five months here, four months there, and seven months here, with no explanation. Short job tenures are not bad in and of themselves, but without an explanation of some kind, the worst is assumed. I will usually not waste my time doing a simple phone screen — and definitely not an in-person interview — with a candidate that has a history of unexplained short-tenured positions.

Case in Point: A good friend of mine found herself unemployed at the end of 2013 due to staff cuts resulting from her company being bought out. Her unemployment dragged on for about six months, with very little activity.

After looking at her resume, I figured out why. She had a stable work history with three companies up until 2009, averaging eight years of tenure at each business. Then, after 2009, she had six jobs in a couple different industries. It was no wonder she was not getting any calls: It looked as if something had happened to make her very unstable in this period.

My friend had been employed in the building material industry for her entire career. Beginning in mid-2006, the housing slow down led to tough times in that industry. My friend had been laid off or downsized in company buyouts or mergers four times during this period. She was also a single mother and had to take a few part-time jobs to pay her mortgage and put food on the table.

Resume, pertinent information, Senior Living consulting, senior living consultant Just looking at her resume, you could not tell any of this. It looked as if something had gone haywire and hiring managers were reluctant to even call her. Don’t expect that a hiring manager is going to take the time to try and connect the dots on your resume. That’s not their job. It’s up to the candidate to try and fill in any holes in their own resume.

The Proof Is in the Details

My friend went back and filled in all the gaps on her resume by including the reasons why she separated from each company. Within in the first few days of using this updated resume, she began getting interviews and job offers worthy of her experience and talent. Within a month, she was hired by a leading specialty building material supplier.

My friend didn’t change anything about her fragmented work history. All she did was add a little explanation. This had the tremendous benefit of helping hiring managers — especially those that lived through the difficult economic times — understand why her resume looked the way it did.

Are You Explanations Satisfactory?

There are many satisfactory explanations for short job tenures — they just need to be noted for busy hiring managers to quickly and easily see them. The shaky economy of the last few years has increased the number of downsizings, closings, and mergers, all of which have resulted in many layoffs.

Similarly, some positions are, by nature, contract- and project-oriented. These roles will result in job changes every six months or so, but not because you are an unsteady or troubled employee.

Furthermore, there are also those younger adults who have been working internships to try and gain experience in various careers. In today’s new economy, there are also those part-time and stopgap positions that employees need to bridge the gap between permanent, full-time positions.

Resumes, Senior Living consulting, senior living consultant Just remember that having multiple short-tenured positions is not the kiss of death — if you take the time to provide a short explanation for your limited tenure, that is. It need be no more than a few words under the job title, such as “contract position,” “internship,” “temporary work,” “layoff,” or whatever the situation was.

Do You Take Advantage of PR or Public Relations Opportunities?

Posted on October 29, 2015July 23, 2018 by MDSadmin

PR or Public relations should be in everyone’s marketing communications tool kit.

As a Senior Living Consultant working with many Senior Living clients over the years, this is one form of community promotion that tends to be over looked the most. So what exactly is PR? PR or public relations, the noun, as defined by Meriam-Webster.com is as follows:

the activity or job of providing information about a particular person or organization to the public so that people will regard that person or organization in a favorable way

OR

the relationship between an organization and the public

What is PR?
PR is different from advertising in the fact that in advertising you pay for the privilege of controlling the timing, placement, and message associated with it. While with PR, since it is generally free, the control lies in the hands of the writer and media outlet providing you the coverage. I once heard that “Advertising is what you pay for, PR is what you pray for.”

There are many forms of PR. Most of the time the words PR conjure up images of events at opposite ends of the spectrum. Either a publicity stunt where someone is doing something that is outrageous and crazy to call attention to themselves, their company or their mission, or a company spokesperson trying to put a positive spin on a potentially bad situation that has arisen for the company.

Examples
An example of an outrageous PR stunt would be similar to the flash mob dancing troupe a few years ago that held an impromptu performance at Grand Central Station, it ended up netting them 28 million YouTube hits and a lot of media exposure. An example of positive spin on a bad situation would be the aftermath of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. There have been subsequent news conferences and advertising campaigns trying to convince the public, that the gulf coast is now better than ever.

The kind of PR I am talking about is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. The press release, media tours, special events, sponsorships, public service/public interest stories are all form of PR that your company/community can use to build brand awareness. These types of PR also show that your brand is part of the greater community and can generate loyalty in a larger audience.

Put PR To Work For You
One of the great things about PR is that it is happening all around us and while we get the intended message, we don’t realize the company or brand is promoting itself to us. Instead of thumping our chest telling everyone how great our company and/or products are through advertising, PR is a subtle way of getting a company name out by providing useful information and activities to others.

PR is also a way to have others validate you as an expert. The general thinking of readers or viewers is that they surely wouldn’t be quoting you or doing a piece on you or your company/community unless you were an authority, the best and most knowledgeable in your field.

November Public Relations Webinar
As part of MDS’ “Plug-In and Prosper” Webinar Series, the November 18, 2015 webinar will be “Generating Public Relations for Your Community”. The webinar will focus on the meaning and use of public relations and why it’s important. I will discuss PR as part of a well-rounded marketing communication plan, the benefits of PR, and how it can enhance your relationship between your company and the public.

So mark your calendar and join me on Wednesday, November 18 at 1:00 pm (CDT) for this important webinar.

I look forward to having you join me for this complimentary monthly webinar! You can also check out our past webinars on the Moore Diversified Services YouTube channel!

Registration Link

Roy Barker is Director of Special Projects at Moore Diversified Services, a Fort-Worth, Texas-based organization specializing in Senior Living operations analysis, marketing development, and investment advisory services. Roy is an authority in the field of employee turnover analysis and retention strategies.

Do You Market For Human Talent? Part 2 of 2

Posted on October 17, 2015July 23, 2018 by MDSadmin

How Often Are You Recruiting For New Top Human Talent?

It is easy to form a perception that talent should only be recruited when there is a position vacant in your company, but unfortunately, that kind of thinking is not very helpful to your company. You should always be recruiting and finding top talent so that they are ready when positions open up for any reason.

Don’t Rely on the Internet Alone

The advent of the internet and job boards was thought to be the end- all- be- all for recruiting. But, it has proven to be a double edge sword when it is the only method used. The great thing about internet job postins is that you can cast a wide net by broadcasting your current job openings to many individuals that may be looking for employment in your town, or even across the country. The downside is that you can be flooded by many applicants that are not anywhere close to being qualified for an opening in a specific position.

Now, relate this to your community’s marketing department for new residents. Can your community just post an advertisement saying “We have rooms available”, and the right person shows up and there you go, you have a new resident? Not quite, or there would be no need to have a sales and marketing team. It should be considered the same with community staffing. It takes a lot of work and effort to find the right fit for the community, both for residents and staff.

Always Be Recruiting

It’s important to augment the posting of job openings through portals such as Indeed, Career Builder, or others in this category. Talent Mangers must actively recruit to find the best employees available for the many different job functions within the community/company. This includes giving talks throughout the community at different functions and gatherings of people like civic clubs, high schools, junior colleges, colleges, and other professional organizations throughout your operating region. It is very important to educate as many people as possible about the existence of your community/company, that it is a great place to work with many opportunities besides those of just direct caregivers. Target programs and organizations can include, but are not limited to, those affiliated with business, nursing, culinary, and hospitality.

LinkedIn is also a great place to gather potential contacts for professional level jobs. LinkedIn should be used to identify individuals with skills that will be beneficial to your team now and in the future. Don’t limit yourself to just those that may currently hold positions in the Senior Living industry, but look in other industries for transferable skills as well. Establish casual relationships in the beginning and watch how they interact with others in their peer groups. Do they post timely and relevant material? Do they have original thoughts? How many connections do they have (a peek at how good they might be at networking and recruiting prospective residents)? Do they seek out and participate in continued education opportunities? LinkedIn will also let you glance into the individual’s employment past. With this feature, it is easy for an individual to write anything they want with little to no cross-checking by others, so proceed with caution. Trust, but verify. Once individuals are identified as potential employees who could be an asset to your team, then it is prudent to reach out and make a connection with them.

Start an HR newsletter to keep current employees and those interested in working for your company informed of current happenings within your company/community. Not necessarily resident-focused, but more about job openings, training, and highlighting employee accomplishments. The added communication will go a long way in both employee retention and recruiting efforts. While this form of communication usually will not lead to instant gratification in the recruiting of other professional individuals, it will build a pattern of contact that over time will lead to candidates keeping up with your company. If they like what you have to say, it will leave them with the sense of wanting more information about company activities and available openings.

So get out from behind the desk and computer screen, and endeavor into the community, market yourself, your industry, and your company for great talent. A great side effect is that while you are getting the word out of your community/company, simultaneously you just might accidentally uncover a prospective resident or family member looking for a loved one.

Make your company an employer of choice, not an employer of last resort!

Roy Barker is Director of Special Projects at Moore Diversified Services, a Fort-Worth, Texas-based organization specializing in Senior Living operations analysis, marketing development, and investment advisory services. Roy is an authority in the field of employee turnover analysis and retention strategies.

Do You Market for Human Talent? Part 1 of 2

Posted on October 15, 2015July 23, 2018 by MDSadmin

Recruiting talent should be more than a post on an internet job board.

Are you proactively or reactively recruiting and hiring employees? Is your company one where prospective employees are calling you, or are you just picking through whatever the internet sends you? Employee recruiting must be more than a post on Craigslist, or some internet job board. It should be about developing relationships- selling your industry and your company to future employee prospects. Your efforts to market for human talent shouldn’t be any less proactive than the way your community markets for prospective residents.

Credentials are Not Enough

Credentials, training, skills, and education can only go so far. There has to be the right attitude and the right fit. The right attitude towards caring for residents, a “servant’s heart”, and fitting in or blending in well with your existing staff. You can teach someone the important components of the job, but it is hard to teach or recreate an attitude that has gone bad. Not that it cannot be done, but is it worth the damage it can do to both residents and existing staff? I once heard that attitudes are catchy…so you have to ask yourself when you’re sitting across from someone, would I want my staff catching this attitude?

We must remember in this business how important the “servant’s heart” feature is in being a successful employee. We aren’t manufacturing widgets on a factory floor or dealing with inanimate objects that are indifferent to how they are talked to or treated. In senior living, it’s the total opposite. We provide love and care to other humans, like ourselves, and it should always be done with dignity.

Take Your Time

When hiring reactively, there is usually some amount of pressure to fill a job, like having a deadline to meet yesterday! This is when there is not enough time to spend with, interact, and observe a prospect to see the real person. There are things you can do before the hire, but these take time, and they are still limited in uncovering potential problem areas. Sometimes we have to slow down to speed up.

When proactively recruiting future/potential employees, you have more time to invest because you are not on the clock. There is no rush to fill a suddenly vacant position. This gives you more time to see how these prospects act over a longer period of time and in different environments or situations. There is also more time to talk to the recruits’ current or former colleagues, bosses, etc. Since you are not asking hiring questions, but you are just having a general conversation, there is a much greater chance those you are speaking with will give you more information. More information instead of the usual simple details such as the standard date of hire, date of separation, and if they are available for rehire or not. You are feeling the pressure to make hasty decisions that you may regret in the very near future.

This isn’t to say that the internet and job boards should never be used, that is nowhere close to what should be done. It should be an integral part of any recruiting process, but it should be a smaller part of a much larger integrated and dynamic human talent marketing plan. There will always be pressure to fill jobs, and those emergencies where you do not have someone waiting in the wings. It would just be prudent not to rely so heavily on the internet and job boards. But there has to be a good balance between different methods of recruitment.

Build Relationships

In order to attract the best employees, you have to build relationships just the same as attracting residents. There is no difference. Great companies with great human talent management do not have to do a lot of advertising for job openings. They have candidates lining up at their door.

Why don’t we consider trying to find the right employee candidates as important as finding residents? Although it is true that the residents pay the bills, we have to consider the fact that if we have a terrible staff, or one that turns over every year, we will not continue attracting and keeping the residents we desire. It does not take long for word to get out that your residential property is not the place to live in to age well.

Marketing for Talent

How do you accomplish this? By putting in a lot of hard work! Through developing an awesome company culture, referrals, marketing the company to specialized industry programs, educational institutions, and most importantly, building relationships in and out of the industry. Developing these relationships will also allow you to be selective and choose talent only from the best these programs have to offer. There are many different methods in which communities can raise their visibility in the education community. These might range from employees speaking and/or lecturing, to using communities as practicum locations, to providing internship opportunities at the community level.

If recruiting the right people was as easy as posting a job listing on Monster, I could be an elite talent manager, but the reality is…it is not that way at all.

Great talent managers work as hard as any other marketing managers. They are out days and evenings in meetings with any group that will have them.

For example, here’s an idea: Start a CNA training program in your community. This would give you access to the top talent in the class and they would already be familiar with your community. If that’s a little too ambitious, there are CNA training programs in most areas. It is imperative to develop relationships with these and other nursing-related programs in the areas in which you operate. These will not only allow you to develop relationships with the programs and the students, it will also give your community/company exposure to these students and instructors. This will help in the development of a pipeline of viable candidates.

If you can start to market for talent, you will be able to see a change in the quality of prospects that you come across, and in no time, top candidates will start seeking out your company.

Watch for Part 2 of “Do You Market For Human Talent?”

Roy Barker is Director of Special Projects at Moore Diversified Services, a Fort-Worth, Texas-based organization specializing in Senior Living operations analysis, marketing development, and investment advisory services. Roy is an authority in the field of employee turnover analysis and retention strategies.

More Wage Pressure Could Be On The Horizon!

Posted on August 28, 2015July 16, 2018 by MDSadmin

In a proposed plan by the White House, more exempt employees will be eligible for overtime compensation.

Not long ago I wrote a piece on the impact of increasing wages through both higher minimum wages and entry level wages in Is Your Business Prepared for the $15-An-Hour Entry Level Worker? Now, you should not only consider the impact of rising wages for hourly workers, but also potential wage impacts related to exempt employees. The proposed plan by the White House would raise the threshold of wages in which exempt works are eligible for overtime compensation.

The Proposal

A recent White House Proposal will increase the number of exempt employees eligible for and entitled to compensation for overtime work beginning in 2016. The new regulation increases the minimum pay for overtime-eligible exempt employees from $455 a week to $970 a week, or $23,660 to $50,440 on a yearly basis.

Currently, hourly and salaried employees making under $455 a week or $23,660 a year are generally eligible for overtime compensation for hours worked in excess of 40 per week. If this proposal goes into effect, it will increase the eligibility for salaried employees making up to $50,440 a year to be eligible for overtime compensation. This will more than likely have an effect on most department managers and some administrative personnel currently employed at senior living communities who have previously been ineligible for overtime due to their exempt status.

Changes To Be Considered

If the proposal is approved, this will create a need to start doing a few things differently for the exempt employees making under $50,440 per year. The first thing would be to start tracking these newly eligible employees’ time closely, even if they work off-site or from home. If the employee consistently works overtime, the changes that can be considered will include: whether to institute a no more overtime policy, increase the employees pay to $50,500, or convert them to an hourly rate and adjust for overtime normally worked.

Policies for communicating with these employees during off hours by phone, text, or email will also need to be evaluated. It would also be prudent to consider the impact of employees who might cover for others due to no-calls, no-shows, or other absences. If the coverage situation happens at the end of the scheduled work week, then this employee would more than likely have already worked enough hours to be eligible to an overtime situation.

Definitive Action is Needed

It may be tempting for management and employees alike to take a laid-back view on this emerging situation. If you don’t get anything else from this article, the one piece of information you should remember is this: I can assure you that you will be better off planning ahead for the proposed rule change. Don’t be tempted to procrastinate, and don’t simply make a handshake agreement with an employee and think that nothing needs to be changed because everything will work out in the long run. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out, and the cost can add up. The cost of the overtime work, penalties, time other employees will spend on this, and possible litigation will cost you more than it would have to initially just do be prepared from the start. Not to mention the hassle of having the Labor Department in your business for goodness knows how long.

Be Proactive

Let MDS help you evaluate the possible impact of wage increases in your community. I can work with you and your team to calculate your financial expose based on potential changes in over-time regulations for exempt employees. A proactive approach will allow us to develop alternative pay plans and work schedules to minimize the financial and service impact on your organization.

While we don’t know where minimum and entry level wages will eventually land, I will also help your team run “what-if” scenarios based on several factors to estimate the impact of multiple levels of increase. Putting this all together will help guide management’s approach to evaluating and setting monthly service fees, and service packages designed with minimal impact to the organization, its residents, and staff members.

Don’t procrastinate on these important wage-related issues. There is still plenty of time to design a well-rounded solution that has minimal impact to your organization.

As an update to the entry level worker pay story, the New York Wage Commission has endorsed the planned hike in fast food workers to $15 per hour.

Roy Barker is Director of Special Projects at Moore Diversified Services, a Fort-Worth, Texas-based organization specializing in operations analysis, marketing development, and investment advisory services. Roy is an authority in the field of employee turnover analysis and retention strategies.

Is “Cost Creep” affecting your income statement?

Posted on July 28, 2015July 16, 2018 by MDSadmin

What is “Cost Creep”? How is it measured? How does it affect your community, division, or company? What can you do to stay out in front of it? These are some questions I hope to answer for you.

Cost creep, in its basic form, is providing more care to residents than you are being compensated for. This can come about for many reasons, such as:

an incorrect loaded hourly rate on which to base monthly service fees (MSF) and care tiers upon;
not having residents assigned to correct care tiers;
not catching resident’s decline soon enough; and
caregivers not understanding the dynamic of what they provide the resident and the company through their service.

Use Correct Wage Rates

One of the first steps to stay ahead of cost creep is to make sure that your employee’s loaded wage rates are correct and appropriate. When loading an employee’s wage, you want to include their regular base wage, benefits, overhead, indirect time allotments, and an appropriate profit margin. Once you have accounted for all of these factors you will arrive at the appropriate loaded wage rate on which to base your monthly service fees and tier levels upon.

The base wage is just like it sounds: the face amount at which you pay the employee. If the employee receives any benefits, what is that cost per hour they work? We generally see this in the 25% to 35% of the employee’s base wage. Overhead can be a little more complicated, but think of it in terms of how much do you need from each employee to fund the director of nursing, human resources tasks associated with the employee, funding of Executive Director, meal programs, and so on. MDS generally see this range in the 15% to 25% of the employee’s base wage.

Indirect time is the time a caregiver spends on the clock but not performing hands-on resident care. This could relate to paper work, charts, meetings, breaks, training, and other unrelated tasks. Most time and motion studies have shown that the average caregiver will be productive, i.e. providing hands-on care to a resident, approximately 80% of the time, so this is what MDS generally uses unless an individual case can be made showing more or less. Profit margins will vary depending upon your company’s goals and the level of care provided at your community.

Once you have developed your loaded wage rate for caregivers, about half of the battle is over. Next double check all MSFs and tier ranges at your community to make sure they are in line with the amount of care provided at each level.

Monitor the Care

Now that you have your loaded wage rates and pricing up-to-date, it’s time to monitor the care being provided. Each resident should have a care plan and fall into a category of care, from a base rate (generally the MSF) to a Level 3, 4, 5 depending upon the care levels your community provides. Make sure that ALL residents have an up-to-date care plan and are billed an appropriate amount for their specific care level. Double check time for tasks performed to make sure they are within a reasonable range.

Next we can look at the number of minutes resident care providers are on the floor. First take a quick snap shot of total weekly minutes your staff is providing—don’t initially worry about shifts, just the total number. This is a simple calculation of taking all full-time equivalent (FTE) resident care employees (remember this is FTEs not bodies), multiple that times .80 or 80% efficiency. You can substitute your community’s exact level of efficiency if it is different. Then multiply this number by the hours of a typical shift at your community. This could be 7, 7.5, 8, 12, or something else if your community has a unique schedule. Then multiply by the number of days the typical resident care employee works to reach a normal work week.

To compensate for employees who work different shifts, you either need to calculate separately and add up, or do a weighted average for your community. For example, the equation for a 7.5 hour employee who works 5 days a week at 80% efficiency would look like this: (hours x days) x efficiency factor = hours of direct care provided. Here is our example: (7.5 x 5) x .80 = 30. The (7.5 x 5) = 37.5 represents the hours per day and days per week the employee is on the clock and available to provide care. Then we multiple the 37.5 x .80 or the number of total hours available times the efficiency factor, in this example 80%, to arrive at a net 30 hours of direct care provided by this one particular employee. This should be repeated for each FTE, not warm body, on your schedule each week.

Reconcile the number of minutes of care your residents require verse the number of care minutes you put on the floor each week. It’s important to remember that these two numbers may not be equal due to shift scheduling, shift irregularities, and overlaps, but this is a great place to start making sure that they are in relevant proximity to each other.

Silent Killer

Cost Creep is the silent killer in Senior Living, especially Assisted Living, Memory Care, and Nursing Care. This is a great exercise to run frequently in order to make sure that things don’t quickly get out of hand. This is a problem that will not only affect your Net Operating Income (NOI) and Cash Flow, but also your Terminal Value. If you are shorting yourself $100,000 of NOI per year, that can equate to a $1 million reduction in terminal value for your community.

Here at MDS we have been dealing with the “Cost Creep” phenomenon for many years. Having worked with many Senior Living communities of all shapes and sizes over the years has allowed us to develop an unsurpassed knowledge base and many tools to look at the Cost Creep situation from all sides and develop solutions best suited for our clients. Our experience with this and other industry issues are unsurpassed.

Call me directly at your earliest convenience and let’s discuss how MDS can help your community work through Cost Creep and other operational matters that might be holding up your income statement.

Next Webinar: “How To Recruit Top Talent Into Your Community”

Roy Barker’s next Webinar, “How To Recruit Top Talent Into Your Community,” will be Thursday, August 20 at 1 p.m. Roy will use his 16 years of experience in the Senior Living industry to share unique tips for finding the best talent to manage and care for your residents. Recruiting the best talent means more than simply posting job listings online. Find out how you can be proactive in searching for the top candidates, rather than passively waiting for whoever comes to you. Register for the webinar by clicking this link.

Roy Barker is Director of Special Projects at Moore Diversified Services, a Fort-Worth, Texas-based organization specializing in Senior Living operations analysis, marketing development, and investment advisory services. Roy is an authority in the field of employee turnover analysis and retention strategies.

Has Your Senior Living Community Adapted to the New Information Paradigm?

Posted on July 15, 2015July 16, 2018 by MDSadmin

Welcome To The New Information Paradigm!

There has been a new day dawning concerning the flow of information in the Senior Living industry the last few years. Some in marketing/sales have gotten this and some haven’t quite embraced the movement yet. The larger movement has been from transaction-based selling to relationship building. Transaction-based selling is where the sales person shows the prospect the living unit and dining area and then does a 30-minute information dump about their community.

Relationship building involves a lot more listening than talking, asking the right questions, really being interested in the prospect’s current situation, their history, wants and needs, and opinions, and really CARING about them, not just lip service. In this piece I’m not going into the entire relationship building concept, but more how the information is exchanged today. The New Information Paradigm!

How Things Have Changed

Back in the day, and even up to a few short years ago, the sales/marketing person at a community controlled all the information. The Senior Living Industry was a newer concept and not that many people outside the industry really understood the concept. This is still true today to some extent, but getting better. Prospects and their families usually related all Senior Living options to the Nursing Home days of the 1960s, which today couldn’t be farther from reality for 95% of the Senior Living spectrum from Independent Living to Skilled Nursing.

So when a prospect walked in, their mind was a blank canvas that the sales person could color in this new concept of Senior Living. Or worse, the prospect and family had a very negative image based on memories from their childhood. However, our industry has grown and matured. With the proliferation of professional marketing and the adoption of the internet, we now have smarter, demanding, more resourceful consumers than ever before. This puts the real power in the hands of the consumer.

A typical sales person at the community level doesn’t get involved until much later in the process, or their families’ information gathering process, now. The days of touring and just providing an information dump are no longer effective. Approximately 80% of the prospects that call or walk through your door in 2015 have already thoroughly researched you and your community. This is also the first generation of prospects that likely had a family member in some form of senior living beyond the outdated nursing home concept of the 1960s. This is really great for the prospect/consumer, but now they know a lot more about Senior Living in general and probably know more about your competition than you know. Now the sales professional has to find out where the prospect is in this process and meet them there, not starting at the beginning. This will generally belittle a prospect and turn them off immediately.

Now more than ever it’s important for the sales person to take a deep breath and learn how to ask those probing questions. The open-ended ones! Opened-ended questions are designed to get the prospect talking, not as in closed-ended questions that require a Yes or No answer. A great example is to ask, “What brought you in today?” versus “Are you looking for a place to live?” Sales people should take the time to get to know the prospect and not be afraid to say, “We might not be a good fit for you”, instead of trying to shoehorn every prospect into their community.

Relationship Building

I increasingly dislike the term “Sales”. I understand it’s the discipline of closing, but over time it has received a very negative connotation. It conjures up the image of talking someone into something that they don’t want, need, or worse yet, can’t afford. While I won’t get on my soapbox here, it would be better to refer to them as Relationship Counselors or something similar, because that’s exactly what needs to happen—build a strong relationship with the prospect and/or their family.

Designing the correct approach to relationship building leaves no need for selling. If the right questions are asked, the need is found and then you have to decide if your community is a good fit or maybe not? If you don’t believe it is a good fit, you can offer to help point them in the right direction and/or make a few phone calls to communities that might be a good fit. The goodwill you build will be unimaginable.

When relationships are built, the Sales or Relationship Counselor is working to collaborate with the prospect. This doesn’t mean that objections cannot be overcome, like, “I can’t afford this” or, “I don’t want to just sit in my room all day”. Building a relationship and collaborating involves providing new perspectives and pointing out misconceptions, i.e. overcome objections, but just not trying to have a one size fits all model. You will just be recruiting unhappy residents at that point.

Get Away from Sales Myopia

I saw the use of a great term not long ago, “Sales Myopia”, focusing on our product and not the consumer needs. Unfortunately this is how a lot of Sales People still operate in the Senior Living Space. I was auditing a sales call the other day and the community’s sales person missed 5 opportunities to schedule a tour with the person on the phone because she was determine to give her rehearsed “information dump.” I know executives say this couldn’t be happening today, in 2015, and it sure couldn’t be happening in my community, but it is!

A few takeaways from this would be that the consumer is a much more educated and determined bunch than years ago. Throw away your information script because 95% of prospects will know you provide room, meals, and activities already. Individualize by asking questions and get to know the prospect. We tend to buy from those we like or relate to. Be consciously aware that most prospects have already researched your community and your competition. Take the sales hat off and get to building relationships. Ask those probing, open-ended questions. Find where the prospects are in the process and meet them there. Ask, “What brought you in today?” And most of all listen, really listen and care. Don’t be scared you might have to say, “Sorry, our community is not a good fit.” As a collaborator, our job is to find the best fit for the prospect and their family.

Register for Our Next Webinar on July 21st: 10 Must-Do’s for Community Call Takers

As part of MDS’ latest “Plug-In and Prosper” Webinar Series, Roy Barker, Director – Special Projects here at Moore Diversified Services, will use his years of experience in the Senior Living industry to share his wisdom of “10 Must-Do’s For Community Call Takers.”

Many times Community Call Takers make the first impression of your Senior Living community. How can they make the best first impression? How can Community Call Takers move the sales process forward and help create relationships? Community Call Takers are critical to your Senior Living community’s success. They can be the difference in a potential resident further exploring your community, or moving forward with your competitors. Join Roy on Tuesday, July 21st at 1:00 pm (CST) for this important webinar.

We look forward to having you join us!

Roy Barker is Director of Special Projects at Moore Diversified Services, a Fort-Worth, Texas-based organization specializing in Senior Living operations analysis, marketing development, and investment advisory services. Roy is an authority in the field of employee turnover analysis and retention strategies.