Senior Living Consultant Archives - Moore Diversified Services, Inc.

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.

Webinar Recap: Back To Basics in Professional Selling

Posted on July 1, 2015March 24, 2017 by MDSadmin

Senior Living expert Roy Barker, Director of Special Projects at Moore Diversified Services, recently shared in a webinar what he has learned in his years of experience in the Senior Living industry about Professional Selling and how important it is to go “Back to the Basics.” Barker specifically used his mystery shopping experiences to highlight some of the main mistakes Senior Living sales staffs are still making, mostly without even realizing it. If Senior Living sales staffs take Roy’s advice and implement his suggestions, it could have a big impact on the bottom line.

If you missed the webinar, you can view it in its entirety by clicking on the video below at the end of this article. You can also view past webinars on the Moore Diversified Services Senior Living YouTube channel. This article gives a brief recap of some of the main points of the most recent webinar. Roy broke up the Sales Process into three stages: the Beginning, the Middle, and the End. But first, Roy talks about a Shift in Focus needed in Senior Living sales.

Continue reading “Webinar Recap: Back To Basics in Professional Selling” →

Is Your Business Prepared for the $15-An-Hour Entry Level Worker?

Posted on June 17, 2015July 16, 2018 by MDSadmin

Is your company or community ready for the financial impact of rising entry level worker pay? While $15 an hour is the new “rally cry” for the minimum wage, whether it will happen nationwide can be debated. But it still begs the question, “Can your current financial structure handle entry level wages increasing to $14, $12, even $10 per hour?” Reality is there are a lot of communities that struggle even with current entry level wages somewhere between $8 to $10 an hour. A recent Wall Street Journal article indicated U.S. wages were on pace to increase at rates not seen since 2008. So while we don’t know where entry level wages will land ultimately, it is certain that wages will continue to increase, and more than likely increase at a faster pace than over the last few years.

Minimum Wage verses Entry Level Wage

An important point to note is that while minimum wage and entry level wage are used interchangeably, they can be very different. Minimum wage is mandated by a governing body of some type, such as federal, state, county, or even cities in the case of Los Angeles as mentioned in an article referenced below. Entry level wages are what companies decide is a competitive wage for new employees in entry level jobs such as dining services, housekeeping, and direct care. Most Senior Living communities pay over and above prevailing mandated minimum wage levels by an average of $.75 to $1.50 per hour.

Wage Pressures

The increase in entry level wages is due to many factors. First our economy has improved and unemployment is significantly down over the last few years. Secondly, retail giant Wal-Mart and fast food giant McDonald’s have both made commitments to raise their minimum starting salary over the next few years. In fact, the Mayor of Los Angeles, CA just signed a bill setting the minimum wage in that city to $15 an hour by 2020, making it the largest city in the country to mandate a $15-an-hour wage. Thirdly, adding to the already mounting wage pressure are predictions of a looming labor shortage in some geographic areas and industries.

On the other side of the coin we can argue that with the talk of a labor shortages, immigration reform could be on the horizon to add more labor to the pool. There is also the view that if McDonald’s entry level wages rose to $15, automation would step in and replace a large portion of their entry-level workers. Even if you take the actual dollar amount off the table for just a minute, and let’s say that you were still able to attract workers in the $8 to $10 an hour range, are you and your residents willing to settle for the leftovers? Those who couldn’t make it anywhere else? Because while wages generally don’t make it in the top 5 to 10 reasons why employees leave employers, when talking about a differential of $.10-$.50 an hour, if the difference was $2, $4, or $6 an hour, a 20% to 60% increase over current pay, this would be a game changer. Regardless of your point of view on the actual dollar amount, the uncertainty should be enough to take action to off-set wage related financial pressures, even if they are not as extreme as mentioned.

Impact To An Average Community

Jim Moore, founder and president of Moore Diversified Services, published an article in January 2015, which highlighted what a modest increase of a $1.50 per hour might mean to an average 110 unit assisted-living community. This included the payroll increase of over 10%, total expense increase of 4.5%, approximately a 12% decrease in net operating profit margins, and $2 million of decreased community value at a conservative capitalization rate of 8%. You can only imagine the impact to your bottom line if the increase was in the $4 to $6 an hour range instead of the $1.50 per hour used in the example.

Do You Have a Strategy?

The next question is, do you have a financial strategy to combat rising wages without compromising your Income Statement, significantly reducing cash flow, or greatly reducing the future value of your community? If not, now is the time to begin formulating one. In the past wages have generally risen at modest rates and changes in revenue structures could be made to accommodate or off-set the increases without much impact on residents. Unfortunately, with all these dynamics converging to create tremendous pressure on entry level wage, you may not have the luxury of time this go around.

It’s important to start the process and begin to manage change immediately. Three initiatives to help accomplish this would be to 1) reduce overall operating expenses, 2) fine-tune existing revenues, and 3) realize organic growth through increased revenue and expanded services.

How MDS Can Help You

Entry level wages will likely increase in the near future, although how much can be debated. We at MDS believe this can be a Win-Win for communities and their workers. This will make strides in the effort to pay everyone a living wage, and with proper planning it doesn’t have to devastate your income statement. This will have a significant increase on the labor intensive Senior Housing industry; especially assisted living and memory care with heavy entry level labor concentration. There are practical strategies that can be implemented to enhance revenues, reduce overall operating expenses, and create favorable organic growth in individual communities or portfolios for multiple communities.

Now is the time to take a hard look at each and every line item of expense. Good economic times can cover excessive expenses very easily. It’s always a good practice to stay on top of changes that can be made to reduce expenses, while not compromising resident care and service to help off-set any future wage increases. A full-scale operations review and benchmarking would be recommended.

Performing competitive pricing analyses, evaluating ancillary and tier charges will insure that you aren’t leaving any revenue on the table. Make sure that units are priced according to the true value they provide residents.

Finally, don’t let 93% stand in the way of 100% occupancy. Seems that there is a mental block when communities reach 93% occupancy. Then it’s time to reduce the marketing budget or just operate under the 93% cloud. On the contrary, it’s time to push harder. The financial rewards for those next few units is what sets great performing communities apart from the good ones.

Don’t wait till it’s too late and put your communities’ financial health in jeopardy. Let’s get started planning for the future of higher wages for entry level workers today!

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.

Measuring Employee Retention and Turnover

Posted on June 9, 2015July 16, 2018 by MDSadmin

I recently completed a two-webinar series on employee retention/turnover. If you did not have a chance to watch those in person, please visit our YouTube channel at MDSseniorliving to view any of our past webinars. Probably the most asked question after each of these webinars was “How do you measure employee turnover/retention?” I thought this would be a good space to go into employee turnover/retention measurement a little bit further.

Defining Employee Retention and Turnover

It might be helpful to define retention and turnover. There are multiple definitions and different ways to measure each of these so I will discuss the generally accepted standard definitions. Measuring employee retention usually means picking some time frame to measure what percentage of employees have been employed with the company that long. I generally use a year as a base for retention, but the time period can be adjusted to suit your specific needs. Employee turnover is anyone who separates from the company, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and must be replaced. This could be due to retirement, being a stay-at-home parent, other self-induced separations, and forced separations.

Attainable Employee Turnover Rates

Due to the definition of employee turnover, it is highly unlikely that any company would ever have a 0% employee turnover rate. While it may sound somewhat counter-intuitive at this point, actually having 0% employee turnover rate in larger organizations would not be a good thing. It seems there will always be those in which we have to ask to leave our employment and those that move-on on their own. Additionally, bringing in new people to an organization leads to fresh ideas and new perspectives on old methods. Generally a 10% – 20% turnover rate is acceptable and attainable.

While not a lot of people measure it, job vacancy can be a crucial workforce indicator. There is an inherent cost to vacant positions, which are somewhat more difficult to calculate but it can be done. Vacancies can have a toll on workforce morale due to the added load it puts on other employees, as well as affecting customer relationships through poor service. If employee overtime is at an escalated level or has been steadily increasing and/or customer satisfaction ratings are dropping, it may also be a good idea to look at the position vacancy ratio.

To calculate this measure, divide the average number of vacant positions over a specific time frame by the total number of authorized positions in the company or department.

Calculating Employee Turnover

So let’s start off by looking at employee retention of one year or more. You would take the number of employees who have been employed at your company for one year or longer and divide that by the average number of current filled positions. In measuring retention and turnover, if the number of filled positions fluctuates during the time periods you measure, it would be best to take an average of filled positions. This could be done by taking the filled positions at the beginning of the month and those at the end of the month and running a simple average.

When measuring employee turnover, there are a few more steps that we may want to go through. This can be done over any time frame in which you desire. The only thing you’ll need to remember is that you will need to annualize for any time periods that are less than a year. Because the number of separated employees will more than likely continue to grow throughout the year and the number of filled positions will remain fairly constant, the number should be annualized for consistency.

If you’re comparing one month to one month or one quarter you can use the raw number, but to measure employee turnover for one month and to use that rate to speak in general terms of employee turnover would be incorrect. A good general measurement to start with is to take all the people that separated within a specific time and divide that number by the average number of filled positions during the same time period.

There are many variations of detail in which you can measure employee turnover. While the general overall turnover of a company or department is a good place to start, if it’s a small company a large number can be misleading because there are not a lot of total employees. Therefore, each employee who leaves will appear magnified. In just the reverse, if you’re within a very large organization, a generally low number may cover up hot spots within departments or divisions within the company. For these reasons there are a few more steps that I would recommend.

Length of Employment

Probably the most important secondary measure of turnover would be the factor of time. Usually a large amount of employee turnover happens within the first year of employment, with most of that coming within the first 60 days. Selected time periods should be looked at in depth in order to find problem areas within the system. I would recommend looking at 30 day, 60 day, 90 day intervals as well as 180 day, 270 day, and 365 day increments. In order to measure this segment of turnover you would take the number of separations during the specific time period divided by the total number of separations. This should help you isolate any troubled spots.

Some of the other areas that you may want to measure would be voluntary and involuntary separations, high achievers versus low achievers, male versus female, turnover by department, and other variables that may be important to your company. These sub-measures will help you isolate any problem area to allow greater focus of developing targeted solutions.

Employee Turnover – A Runaway Locomotive

This has been a very simplistic view of employee retention/turnover measuring and I hope it has help you in some way. When I speak of other Income Statement and Cash killers such as “Cost Creep,” I call it the silent killer, but Employee Turnover is just the opposite. It is the runaway locomotive barreling down the tracks through the middle of town with everyone running and screaming to get away from it, but very few addressing the large looming issue head on. It’s difficult, there are no doubts about it, but the cost to your organization is extremely high where measurable, and damaging in areas that are unmeasurable.

If you are experiencing high employee turnover, I would encourage you to give me a call. We can work together to solve this issue. It is not one that can be solved overnight, but it is one that can be solved. Think about each employee and the cost associated with them when they walk out the door. The cost is astronomical when you assign a dollar figure to it. And there is also the toll it takes on your residents, those who need change the least.

Next Webinar — “Professional Sales: Back to Basics”

My next webinar is “Sales: Back to Basics—Lessons from Mystery Shopping.” Join us on Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. CST. Register here. We look forward to you joining 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.