30 WAYS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Leaders from senior living and other industries share tips for efficiency, engagement, and quality improvement in challenging areas. STRATEGY
1.
Estimate your ROI. Periodically look at your largest expenses and calculate their ROI, says Forbes Council member Aaron Spool, partner at FinTech firm Eventus Advisory Group. Put
a measurement on all kinds of returns that come to mind—not only monetary ones, but also increases in quality, industry good- will, increased engagement, or the value of community or vendor relationships. The point isn’t to get a score. It’s an exercise in raising aware-
ness and understanding all the different kinds of returns you’re getting (or not getting) from what you do. Track these over time and look for ways to increase returns or diversify types of returns for expenses that consistently come in with high resource use and low ROI.
2. Make inter-community connections
and commitments. If a crisis hits, having connections within the immediate
geographic area or region or those within different departments in senior living such as culinary or maintenance, can make a big difference in your options and resources. More formal agreements, such as setting up another location residents can go to in a natural disaster, can lower risk and end up saving on spending. Scarcity and prices go up during a crisis, so advance planning can seal in a better arrangement.
3. Every vendor is also an expert consultant.
The people providing services and products you use or are exploring using are some of your greatest resources.
Risk management, software developers, pharmacy, culinary, pool maintenance—they know their stuff and they know your industry. Contracts with communities often include a consulting commit- ment. Take advantage of their webinars, resource libraries, and blogs. If your communities are part of a REIT, for instance, they’re literally invested in your success—tap into their advice and support.
4. Test your traditions.
Make a list of a few tasks or programs the organization has determined can or should never change or be elimi-
nated. Then take a few hours every few months to imagine how they could be changed or eliminated. This technique inspires creative thinking. But it also addresses the
way the value of programs we assume to be essential can become inefficient or ineffective under growth, contraction, or changes in the
environment. If they really are essential, a few tweaks in resources or strategy may be needed to keep them relevant. This tip comes from Forbes Council member Brian Henderson, senior vice president at Whitnell wealth management.
5. Watch out for the “belt-and-suspenders mindset.”
This is what The Coyne Group business consultants cau- tion in an article in the Harvard Business Review. Over-
preparation for low-probability, low-consequence events can soak up needed resources. How much data can you move offline and into storage? What data or materials are you stockpiling? Are you keeping old equipment, extra copies of training materials, or backup for programs and plans that have long since moved on? Examine what would happen if the event you’re concerned
about came to pass. Would your “just in case” resources help, or get in the way?
6. Open with empathy.
That’s advice from Craig Wortmann, executive direc- tor of the Kellogg Sales Institute, in an article in Kellogg
Insight, “How to Coach Your Sales Team through the Pandemic (and Beyond)” (
insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu). Communication is hard when people’s minds are on how they’re going to make it through the day. “Right now, we need to show up for each other,” Wortmann says. “I make
it a practice to first say, ‘Hey, how are you? Before I give you feedback, is ev- erything okay?’” This simple check-in opens the conversation to the possibility of real feedback. Opening with empathy also means acknowledging the uncertainty and stress
that your team may be experiencing. If your team members are worried about job security, it is important to both address their fears and clarify the focus of your feedback. “I let them know that the conversation is happening at a tough time for the
company—and for all of us in general,” Wortmann says. “I want to make sure that we are clear that the feedback I am giving is specific to their performance on that webinar just now, for example.”
MAINTENANCE 7. “Work while your disinfectant works,”
recommends Kaycee Strewler, MS, senior technical ac- count specialist (R&D) at Ecolab. “To achieve proper dis-
infection, surfaces must remain wet for the amount of time indicated on the product label. You can maximize productivity and promote healthy environments by first applying disinfectant and then leveraging dwell time to complete additional tasks.”
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020
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