Resident satisfaction is the fuel that drives occupancy rates and profitability. While there is a myriad of factors that impact resident satisfaction, no matter how successful your senior living community is today – without thoughtful long-term facility management and leadership succession plans in place, you could be heading toward a cliff your portfolio may not recover from.
Many senior living properties are suddenly finding themselves lacking adequate practices and systems when it’s too late – after senior leadership has aged out of their roles, which is happening faster than ever in our industry. It is vital to have an intentional succession plan for both leadership roles, and develop a healthy pipeline of talent, to ensure operations take the long view and mitigate potential gaps in expertise. Succession planning, like so many other elements of an organization’s culture, must be led from the top.1
Too often owners and operators are enjoying high resident satisfaction, meeting their business goals and maintaining occupancy rates, but eventually will be hit with a hefty price if they don’t also adopt a sustainable set of practices and systems. It’s critical to embrace a more strategic asset management approach and position your portfolio to maximize the life-cycle of your building systems and components.
Lacking experienced effective management that knows how to keep the community operating properly can be incredibly costly. Operators who neglect facility and leadership planning are at risk in ways that can be detrimental to their profitability and the ability to recover from an unexpected, yet inevitable, cost. Not having a 10-year plan in place with specific action plans for replacing and repairing equipment through capital and budgeting processes can cause operators significant pain.
On the management side, it’s imperative to have experienced leadership in place, especially as current leadership is approaching retirement. Things can fall apart quickly if a well prepared and experienced department leader is not in place. Additionally, ineffective or inexperienced leadership can have a negative ripple effect on staffing, motivation, communication and training, which all impact the quality and perception of your senior living portfolio. Recruiting for careers in aging services has always been a unique challenge.2
Proactively elevating your reputation and becoming an employer of choice through well rounded benefit packages, developing opportunities for personal and professional growth and encouraging team building can help increase retention. Talent turnover is not only costly in terms of the arduous hiring and training process, but it can also reduce a resident’s sense of home, belonging and connection to the community.
Additionally, organized, preventative maintenance is much less expensive than unanticipated repairs and equipment replacements. A proactive approach to maintenance of the entire facility ecosystem prevents the crippling effect of operational breakdowns. Thoughtful management models increase the life-cycle predictability of valuable assets and aids in long-term capital planning to help rebound from such events.
Today, support services for senior living portfolios are largely managed in-house. And too often by inexperienced managers and support teams who don’t have the resources and critical knowledge to effectively, and for the health and wellbeing of the community, safely perform their duties. This could include lacking the expertise to know which cleaning chemicals to use, where to use them and how to use them properly. Ineffective cleaning can dramatically increase rates of infection and spread of viruses among your residents and visitors alike.
Operations and support services inside and outside your community require the ongoing presence of management expertise. With a full suite of support services including housekeeping, laundry, maintenance, grounds keeping and transportation,3 a partnership with Coreworks can support your portfolio holistically, which ultimately increases safety, reduces costs and enhances resident satisfaction.
At Coreworks, our people are the foundation of our successful partnerships. Through our robust training, both managers and frontline team members receive extensive professional and personal development opportunities. We fund educational resources, training curriculum, and professional certifications to further their careers and provide high quality support.
Our teams represent the face of our organization; therefore we hire the best, develop their skills and maximize their talents to fulfill their individual aspirations and to benefit your organization.4 Trust, respect, and integrity foster an environment in which diversity is valued and quality of life is enhanced. In all that we do, we recognize and seize opportunities to deliver on our commitment to provide an industry leading hospitality experience.
With Coreworks, you can have peace of mind, knowing that your community’s environment is in good hands, allowing you to focus on what truly matters – your residents.
