Frontline Focus

Eavesdropping on Prospects

2011-08-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite roles in working with family caregivers is just listening as they offer each other advice. I’ve spent so much of my professional life in the advice-giving role that’s its fascinating for me to sit back and listen as one family caregiver offers advice to others.

It’s particularly interesting to me when a family caregiver starts talking about when to get help from an agency or when to seek facility placement. After over 20 years working hard to get the attention of family caregivers from the provider perspective, it feels a little like “insider information” when families voluntarily share what drives them to seek care.

Lately, I’ve had the chance to eavesdrop like this a lot, as I not only facilitate a very large, vocal family support group for my community hospital, but I am also on the development team of a brand new national support project for family caregivers called Caregiver Village. It’s exciting and rewarding to be involved in working with families in this way.

At the same time, in my role as President and CEO of aQuire Training Solutions, I though perhaps it might be helpful if I passed along some of my recent observations so that you better understand what your prospective customers are looking for.

It’s about the health of the caregiver. “Caregiving will kill you if you don’t get help.” It’s tough for you to say these words directly, but caregivers say it to each other all the time. Share the statistics that caregivers face the risk of dying sooner than the person in their care. Caregivers also face a higher risk of stroke, depression and other chronic conditions – unless they get help.

Guilt doesn’t need to be a barrier. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all feel guilty. Trust me, you’ll get over it.” The key message you can give is that guilt is normal and natural – but that once you see how much your own life improves, not to mention the life of your loved one, you’ll find that the guilt isn’t nearly as tough as you anticipate it to be.
It’s better on the team. “I want to learn about caregiving, too.” It’s not enough for family caregivers to call in the expert (you) and leave you to do your work. Most family caregivers want relief from the tasks, but they want to feel like they’re a vital part of the team. They want to learn about caregiving (and respond much more positively than I anticipated to our online family caregiving courses)

You’re not alone. “I thought I was an awful person, but I knew I needed to do something. Now, I’m really, really happy I made this choice.” Families using your service will likely say these words or something similar. Introduce prospects to existing families, or pay special attention so you can share their stories. While you can’t likely give a first person testimonial, you can certainly say, “I was talking with one of our clients’ daughters just last week. She told me how hard the decision was, but how happy she is now that she’s made it.”

We’ll listen to your concerns. The biggest complaint I hear about facility or agency care from families is that the managers don’t listen. Managers, typically on the very local level, brush off their concerns, don’t have the time to talk with them or treat them as “outsiders” who no longer have any input into their loved ones’ care. Second biggest complaint? It’s not the food – it’s the turnover. Anything you do to stabilize your caregiving team will win you big points among family members. Many see the direct caregivers as extensions of their own family, especially now that they’re caring for a very special loved one. Losing those caregivers to a continual churn will cost you BIG points among your family members…and they talk. Boy, do they talk.

Who should I trust? It’s impossible for family members to determine who to trust based on a tour or a conversation with a marketing/sales rep. They’re going to ask around – count on it. Your current clients’ family members are either very important contributors to your marketing efforts, or they’re dragging you down. They’re very likely NOT neutral.

Keeping your ears to the ground and really understand your prospect will help you score big wins, especially in a tight, competitive market. Hope this helps!

Take care,

Sharon

Focusing on Families

2011-04-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I was an avid follower of Dr. James Dobson’s radio show titled “Focus on the Family.” I was raising my three daughters and Dr. Dobson’s broadcasts about building self-esteem while teaching responsibility and morality was welcome information.

As happens in life, time changes our perspectives and our priorities. Dr. Dobson’s show became more focused on political issues, and now is run by someone else entirely; my daughters grew up and no longer needed the same kind of mothering.

But today, when I look at what is happening in elder care in our country, I think back to those days and realize that we need a little more “focus on the family” in elder care.

Families are becoming increasingly educated about their options for care. Many of them need your services, but don’t want to be “pushed out” of their role as caregivers in the process. They want – and NEED – to feel like they’re still very much a part of the caregiving team.

At the same time, whether you manage a residential care setting or an in-home care delivery service, your marketing efforts MUST speak to the family. They have to feel confident that you’ll provide the care you say you will, and you’ll do it in a way that respects them. Regardless of what you ultimately deliver to the client, in all likelihood, the FAMILY must be sold on your services before you ever get to the client.

I have the privilege of facilitating an Alzheimer’s family support group for our local community hospital. Frequently, members come to the group to share decisions they’ve made to find facility placement for their loved one, or to find care services to come to the home. As a life-long provider and former facility owner/operator, I listen with great interest as group members try to convince others in the group to seek care, or when someone shares their feelings about the care their family member is receiving.

I hear stories about outstanding care – and an immediate interest in the group of learning where this is happening.

I hear stories about no longer being considered a caregiver, or at least being now “second string” in the caregiving department.

Overall, what I hear is that families are desperately in need of validation. They need to hear the words, “you’re important to this team.” They need to be listened to and valued by the care provider. When this happens, they become strong, vocal and repeat advocates, telling many others about the care they’ve received.

Clearly, what’s needed is a pervasive value that comes through all levels of an organization, and that recognizes the family as a key component to the whole unit of care.

A few good tools don’t hurt, either. We can help with one new tool – take a look at it here: aQuire Family Learning Center (username: demo - password: spring2011). It’s a tool that can help you put action behind your words, by offering families free online training, courtesy of your organization. If you’re a facility care provider, add the “Transitions to Care” course so that families can better understand the transition process, and how to stay an active part of the team of care.

In elder care today, focusing on the family is not just good for risk management and marketing, it’s absolutely essential for long term growth and survival.

Outreach opportunity for you!

2011-01-13T13:38:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for a way to connect with family caregivers in your community? Join Caregiver Village, a website that will be an entirely new sort of gathering place for family caregivers. Our team at aQuire has been busy working with the developers out of NYC, preparing an exciting support place for caregivers. Visit the site, register with your facebook login, and join as an Ambassador, qualifying you for a free year of membership. As the site grows, you’ll have a front row seat to connect with families who are looking for tips, suggestions and services to help them in their caregiving role.

If you’d like even more involvement, consider these options:

1) Host a virtual book club discussion group. Caregiver Village has opening for Hosts for groups organized around topics of interest like Parkinson’s Care, Autism Care and more. If you’re passionate about a topic and would like to facilitate a virtual discussion, contact Sharon.

2) Consider a special offer for Caregiver Village members. Can you offer free in-home assessments? Two hours of respite care at home? A day of respite in a facility? Remember, this is an outreach opportunity to a potential million plus family caregivers, so get creative! Send your ideas to Sharon.

On the Frontlines

2010-12-15T10:06:00.000-08:00

When I first started writing this blog called “Frontline Focus” I got some negative feedback on the title.

“We don’t want to talk about caregivers as if they’re in a war,” one person wrote me. “Calling it the ‘Frontline’ makes it sound like a war zone.”

Someone else commented on how caregivers and care-related professionals should never be thought of as the “Frontline” – for a whole number of reasons.

Today, though, when I think of the typical caregiver, working hard in a care community or in the homes of their clients, and then going to their own homes (or a second job) and putting in even more hours of work, I think of them as very much being on the “Frontline.”

They’re on the frontline battling the effects of age, infirmity and, in many cases, loneliness and isolation.

They’re on the frontline of a life’s traveler whose end is imminent – and who may or may not feel ready.

In many cases, they’re on the frontline of a battle in their own lives: a battle to keep warm, well fed and fueled during a time when the economy continues to wear on so very many families.

As leaders, we need to take a minute during the holiday and recognize the hard work that our employees do for us – and for our clients. We need to honor those on the frontlines in our business and in life, every single day.

We can honor them with a little special gift or just a warm, heartfelt word of appreciation. Either way, supporting those serving on the frontlines in the battle for quality care for our elders is a valuable, meaningful thing – in this season and every other day of the year.

May you, your employees and your family truly experience Christmas joy this holiday season,

Supporting Family Caregivers

2010-11-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

You probably have heard by now that this month (November) is National Family Caregiver Month. You also are very likely keenly aware of the work that family members do in providing care to the individuals who are now – or will one day become – your clients.

It’s a good month to think about what you do, as an organization, to reach out to family caregivers.

Some of you are going to great lengths to communicate your commitment to helping family caregivers. Synergy Homecare, one of our corporate clients, has launched a program called Arms Around Family Caregivers. It’s a great, heartfelt program designed to support family caregivers. At the end of the month, Synergy plans to announce a “Pillar of Strength” Award to a family caregiver, along with 40 hours of respite care at no cost to the winner.

Is your organization doing something unique and innovative this month? Share it, if you are. We’ll put it on our Facebook page and pass the word along about your important work.

If you not, give it some thought. It doesn’t need to be much. Just a little bit of extra effort can mean a lot to family members. Here are a couple of ideas to get your own creative processes going:

Hold a “Family Appreciation” dinner, reception or lunch. Minimal planning and expense can give you an opportunity to build relationships with your client and prospective client families.
Write a story about the families you serve. Send it to your local paper; post it on your website or blog. Send it to me- I’ll post it and add it to our facebook page.
Offer a support and training group. Use our family caregiver courses and give families an opportunity to discuss what they’ve learned and what they need to better understand about their loved ones needs, or their own needs as caregivers.
Consider contributing a service or some goods to support a family caregiver. Would you be willing to give away an hour or two of your services to family caregivers? Do you have a product that you could offer free of charge? Let me know – we’ll post it on our up-coming national family caregiver website, giving you exposure and recognition for your willingness to support family caregivers.

Family caregivers, whether doing hands’ on care or supporting others in caring, are often exhausted, over-stressed and battling a wide range of emotions. If each of us takes just one small action to support their vital work, we can make a whole world of difference.

Gossip and Marketing Opportunities

2010-10-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

If you’re one of the thousands who actually ready my e-newsletters, you may be one of the handful who have wondered where they’d gone in the past several weeks.

Well, let me tell you – we’ve been busy! Here’s just a little of our internal gossip – followed by an exciting and one-of-a-kind marketing opportunity for you.

We moved! We had outgrown our old office some time ago, but continued to work two to an office. Not very comfortably, mind you, but sometimes you just do what you have to do. When we found an opportunity to move to a big, new space for just a little more rent (to the other end of the block, across the street), we jumped on it! Since we moved last month, we’ve added three more team members, increasing courses and our client services programs significantly. It’s a testament to the importance of what we’re doing together in training new caregivers that we’re growing, even during an economy that’s got so many businesses in basic survival mode. If you’re ever in the historic downtown Oregon City (the oldest city in the state of Oregon), please stop in!

We got federal training grants! aQuire was selected to partner with community colleges in Oregon for a 3 year federal demonstration grant, developing a e-learning plus clinical training model for direct-care worker training that will set a “gold standard” for the nation. We’re very excited to be a part of this program, and look forward to sharing our results along the way.

We’ve just launched a major new outreach campaign. In the process, we’re adding new online courses and programs, including several Leadership and Family courses that we believe will significantly help our clients achieve their goals. We also created a User Advisory Group and heard awesome feedback, including, “Subscribing to aQuire is a no-brainer - the outcomes are so great!” My favorite bit of feedback came from a large corporate home care client whose offices have the option to train with aQuire or train in house. She told me, “100% of our most successful offices are using aQuire to help them build strong teams and strong referral networks.” Now that’s success!

We’ve just signed on to help create and launch an exciting national family caregiver support website. I have been consulting on this project, based out of NYC, for the past year, watching it grow and become something that will be truly original, innovative and exciting. We’re now in the final stages of development and plan to have an early 2011 launch – watch for it!

This presents a unique marketing opportunity for you – a chance to reach 10 million family caregivers. Perhaps you’d like to become an “expert” on the site, answering caregiver’s questions or offering ideas or suggestions to make their life easier.

Perhaps your company could offer a discount or special price to introduce your services to caregivers.

The more creative you are, the better your message will get heard.

If you want to have some fun, let me know – I’ll help you get set up! Shoot me an email (Sharon@aquiretraining.com) and get involved!

The high cost of employee discontent

2010-09-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

You think everything is going just great. Your site manager reports a happy group of employees, and you haven’t heard any rumblings from families or residents. The last survey was great, and compliance doesn’t seem to be an issue. Sure, you’ve got a few vacancies, but who doesn’t?

And then you see your worker’s comp bill start to rise.

Heads’ up: you’ve got a problem.

Experienced senior living operators know that a rising worker’s comp bill is often the first sign you’ll see that your team isn’t happy. Perhaps there’s a leadership issue. Perhaps it’s just become an environment of dull, boring routine. Whatever the problem, this is a call for action.

We spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of an engaged team. We know from good, solid research that engagement on the part of your team not only saves you money, it can dramatically increase your bottom line. As employees become more and more engaged, clients respond in kind. They experience greater satisfaction and happiness; they tell others about your service. No – that’s not quite right: your customers start to enthuse about your service, using words like “saved my life” and other superlatives.

The end result for your company? Bottom line success.

We know that’s the goal, but what if you’re just at the starting gate? Perhaps you’ve recently acquired new properties, or added services. How do you build that team, especially if you start with indications of problems brewing?

It may be time to freshen up the systems you use overall. Perhaps you’re already an online learning user – mix it up, by blending with events, goals and in-house opportunities to show what your team has learned. (Need ideas? We’ve packed several into this month’s aQuire Client Newsletter.)

In our assisted living company, we created an annual event that helped us focus on our team – every year, like clockwork. We set aside an entire month – October – for employee recognition. During that month, our site managers competed to see who could come up with the most innovative and creative ways to recognize staff. One year, a manager even went out to the parking lot and spent an afternoon washing every car in the lot. We ended the month with big employee recognition events, honoring the employees’ achievements over the past year, passing out “years of service” pins and providing a feast of food (prepared by someone else for a change).

Sometimes family members joined in the fun; sometimes the group elected a team “king and queen” to celebrate. In every instance, it helped us as a company kick off each fall with a focused month-long celebration of the people who make it all work.

Mennonite Village in Albany, Oregon, celebrates their caregivers by holding a formal ball – in the middle of the afternoon. Every one of their 70+ caregivers receives a door prize or gift, and a dynamic speaker is invited to motivate and energize the group – while helping them build even greater skills. Year after year, administrative staff work to out-do the year before. Community businesses get into the act, donating gift cards and door prizes while recognizing the value caregivers bring to the community.

These and other organizations clearly realize the need to shake things up; to keep energy and focus on learning and growth high.

Betcha their worker’s comp bills show it, too.

Training: Time is Money

2010-06-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

How much time are your high-value employees spending in staff training today? How much of that training is focused on the mandatory, required training? How much of that time is being spent in training your team to excel in customer service?

If you’re like most managers, your answer to the first question is “a lot.” A lot of time – and consequently money – is being spent on having high-value employees train entry staff on required topics.

If your answer to the last questions is “not much,” you’re not alone. Very few of us have the time or the resources to spend training our team members on the finer points of customer service. And that hurts.

Do some quick math. How many hours of training are you currently providing to staff? Multiply that by the wage of the person responsible for presenting that training. Add in a factor of 50% for minimum preparation time, and another 25% for record-keeping after the training. Add in any payroll hours you pay for overtime for individuals to come into training on their days off.

That’s a close approximation of your current basic training investment.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for investing in training. But I’m for investing wisely in that training, and getting the most value for the least amount of dollars – that’s obvious to me!

I’m all for using our high-value trainers to focus on high-value activities: fall prevention, communication and team-building, customer service. Those training topics will add to the bottom line, allowing you to provide even more services, and continue to invest in your team.

I’m also in favor of trainers who can work one-on-one with team members, mentoring them, modeling best practices for them, observing them in performance of skills and providing immediate feedback and praise.

Can you do it better?

Of course you can! Surviving in today’s market, not to mention positioning your organization to thrive and grow tomorrow means a continual re-examination of your fundamental system.

It means asking yourself on a regular basis, “Is there a better/cheaper/faster/more effective way to accomplish this?” It means looking for ways to implement solutions that save you time – and money.

Contact me if you’d like to learn how to save money in your organization’s staff training program with a custom-designed solution guaranteed to save you money. No obligation; just information that can help you make a good decision as you build for the future.

Little Things Make a Big Difference

2010-05-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading (for the second time) Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.”

It’s a great examination of the factors that make new ideas into runaway successes – or cause small outbreaks of the flu to become an epidemic.

There’s a point at which time something gains enough mass that it simply tips – it spreads like wildfire.

Gladwell identifies key types of people who are needed to move things from seed to epidemic: the Connectors (those people who just know a lot of other people – and introduce or connect people as a matter of their day); Mavens (those people who love to research new products and share what they learn with you – and you respect their opinion so much that you follow their advice whenever possible); and Salesmen (the ones who can simply sell an Eskimo a freezer – they have the knack for explaining, building a relationship and convincing you of a real need they can help fill).

I enjoyed this second reading of the book because I see the tipping point effects in my own company.

When we first started offering online courses, many states wouldn’t let Administrators get their continuing education courses online. It was classroom or nothing. Many Administrators didn’t have access to a
computer, let alone caregivers.

We’d get calls with questions about using the mouse. “OK, I’ve picked it up; I’m pointing it at the screen, but nothing is happening.” Honest.

We could just about guarantee that for every 10 online courses we sold, we’d get at least 5 phone calls for assistance.

Today, we’ve tipped in a major way.

Most Administrators not only have access to computers, they have a distinct preference for online courses to meet their CEU requirements. Sure, they love conferences when they can go, but for those last few CEU classes, just point me to the nearest online website.

Most care communities and companies have computers for staff use today, too. The “pioneers” in online staff training would set up a computer learning station in their entry way and let staff come up front to take their courses. Visitors were impressed; staff felt important and empowered. Now, learning centers filled with computers are available in communities throughout the country. Companies have discovered that offering their staff more opportunities to learn means that more people will, in fact, learn more. Skill level overall increases; engagement and motivation rises; quality of care improves; word-of-mouth spreads like an epidemic of good news.

Meanwhile, this tipping effect has led, in turn, to efficiencies on our end. Since we no longer have to explain the basics of using a mouse, our team can focus on building even more courses, with even more interactivity and opportunities for “aha” moments. We have automated many of the processes that took hands’ on time, and we’ve been able to build our client base substantially without adding significantly to our overhead.

That means we can now, for the first time, offer pricing structures that work for even the smallest operator – the one who wants to offer all the benefits the larger companies do, but still keep a keen eye on their bottom line.

I remember my old friend Ralph Bellande saying, “The pioneers all got shot; the settlers were the ones that got the land.” His point was that it was rarely the first to market that succeed. It’s usually the second ones, who watch what us pioneers do, and then come in and avoid all of our mistakes, who really succeed.

There have been times in this process I could feel the arrows aimed at my back. I’m happy to say that now, I’m seeing a healthy harvest from all the seeds we’ve sown over the past 4 years.

It feels like we’re finally reached that tipping point of our own. Little things, indeed, do make a big difference!

Names reflect values and mission

2010-05-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

When I travel around the country talking with caregivers and care providers, I am frequently reminded that names are important.

In some states, calling yourself a PCA means something entirely different from the Personal Care Aide acronym we use in our caregiver training certifications. While most states know exactly what a CNA is, in Washington State they call it an NAC (nurse aide – certified).

And then there is our name. We get introduced as the people from “A – choir” (“do you guys sing?”) or get missed altogether when someone googles us with the “c” as “Acquire.” (Just FYI: Emails addressed to me with the “c” in the name “acquire” won’t make it into my inbox.)

So why do we spell our name funny? Why the small “a” followed by the capital “Q”?

When we first started our company we hired a branding consultant to help us select a name. We wanted something unique and memorable, as well as something that reflects our values and mission.

At the time, we were using a course development engine called the “Q” system, so we needed to incorporate the prominent “Q” into our name. We also wanted to focus on the outcome of using our online training program: growing stronger skills and a more successful organization.

We loved the idea of helping people “acquire” skills. We loved the emphasis on the “Q” in the word, too.

Today, although we no longer use this course development engine, we still feel strongly about our big “Q.”

Now, however, our “Q” stands for just one thing: Quality.

When a senior care organization selects aQuire for their online staff training system, they are investing specifically and intentionally in building their team. Yes, they often save money, as our monthly per employee rate can run less than ½ of what a one hour inservice costs, not to mention trainer prep time, record-keeping and over-time for make-up attendees.

Yes, our clients get 10 times the benefit of offering their typical menu of one inservice each month, as we provide over 80 courses (nearly 100 hours) – unlimited access to employees – on a very wide range of topics.

In the end, though, adding an online training program does require an investment in the one thing we are passionate about: Quality – the “Q” factor to your organization’s success.

It’s important enough to us that it’s not only in our name – it’s the only thing BIG about our name!

Solving challenges together

2010-04-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

It’s been a tough environment the past year. My friend Mark sent me a link to a map generated by the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care Industry (NIC MAP) that shows how challenging it has been for senior care operators in some markets. The census trend from the peak to present has shown a loss of 390 basis points in the 31 largest metro areas – from 92.8% occupied in the first quarter of 07 to 88.9% in the fourth quarter of 09.

For companies operating small groups of properties that experienced this census decline, the pain was real and tangible.

For my friend Mark, it caused him and his partners to change from, as Mark puts is, “a great operator with a marketing department” to being “a lead-generating machine that is also a good operator.”

In the end, Mark and his company will be stronger, more focused and will thrive, but the last year or two have been genuinely tough.

Like Mark, many senior care companies have had to examine their operational costs and systems. They have had to streamline operations while not cutting corners on quality care and maintaining compliant record-keeping and training. Perhaps, like we did during the 1980s in my own communities, they have looked at reallocating dollars into marketing – building that “lead-generating machine”, and away from some of the softer functions of administration.

It’s been interesting to me that while many companies have been challenged, our company, aQuire Training Solutions, has experienced record growth. Mind you, since we’re a company less than four years old, records are easily shattered. But experiencing growth at all in these past couple of years is something to be treasured.

One thing is clear to me: the folks who are signing up for online training programs now are the folks who understand that building a “lead generating machine” means delivering even better services than ever. It means taking advantage of this positive hiring environment and as well as focusing on creating an engaged, vital workforce – and giving them the tools to succeed. It means giving caregivers – typically the lowest paid members of the team, yet the ones who truly deliver what you promise – a sense of affirmation and empowerment by offering them way more than a mandatory training inservice program.

Today we received a call from a large multi-location organization who wants to implement e-learning across their locations, but can’t afford the basic cost to do this. They asked us to think creatively with them to find a way to at least get them started – corporate-wide.

That’s the kind of challenge we like! It’s the kind of partnership that we thrive on, and I guarantee we’ll sharpen our pencil and make a plan that will work in your budget. If you’re committed to providing online learning to your team to build, strengthen and enrich them, we can help.

Because at the end of the day, no matter how worn out and trite the phrase it still is true: we’re all in this together!

e-learning: invest wisely

2010-03-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

I don’t know about your organization, but January can justifiably be called the dead month in ours – usually.

This year was different. We had the busiest January on record – a huge surprise to me, considering the state of the economy and, more importantly, the state of most business owners’ outlook on the economy.

What’s going on? It’s simple: e-learning is hot.

When I read that exact same opening line in my favorite e-learning blog, I thought, “It isn’t just at our company – e-learning is hot all over. Who knew?!”

This blog’s author is my favorite for a good reason: he writes clearly and concisely, with lots of illustrations and examples. That’s why today, I’m sharing his content verbatim, with a link to his full blog at the bottom.

“E-learning is hot. And for good reason. If done right, it can produce great results by decreasing costs and improving performance. Also, unlike a one time classroom session, the elearning course is available for others. This includes the static elearning course as well as any ongoing conversations in networked communities.

E-learning Supports the Organization’s Goals

Improved training costs. Producing learning content is time consuming whether it’s online or not. With elearning, each time the course is accessed your return on investment improves because you are dividing the fixed production costs by number of uses. You also have savings through decreased travel, reduced material, and hopefully improved (and more efficient) performance.
Decreased material costs. Let’s say you have to train how to arrange equipment in a sterile environment like an operating room. If you had to use the real environment, it would be costly. Even setting up a fake environment has material costs and labor. By creating the environment online and letting the learner practice, you never have to worry about the costs associated with set up, use, and clean up.
Increased productivity. Because elearning is not bound by geography or time, you can control training’s impact on production by training people during down times. In addition, with the current economy, you’re asking people to do more with less. So elearning is a great way to give them the tools and skills needed to enhance their performance.
Standardization. You may have a great facilitator, but that’s no guarantee that the courses are presented the same across sessions. Elearning allows you to create a standardized process and consistency in the delivery of content. It also compresses delivery time. I’ve combined elearning courses with facilitated sessions. Elearning delivered consistent content. Live sessions were interactive case studies that applied the information.”

Want to learn more about the benefits of e-learning? Read the full article at the articulate blog.

Webinars- when and why

2010-02-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

Allow me to take a minute to talk about webinars.

One big webinar company has been sending out emails on a weekly basis lately promoting “E-learning – fast and free.”

Read the fine print, and what they’re really promoting is using the webinar technology – gathering a group of participants around their own computers, while a presenter in another location talks – as a way to train.

I think it’s a great way to train – we use it ourselves for new client implementation training. It’s fast, it’s convenient, and – yes – it’s cheap.

But is it e-learning? Is it an improvement on the traditional classroom approach to training, let alone asynchronous, professionally developed e-learning courses?

Yes, it saves time and money gathering a far-flung team together.

Yes, I can sit at my computer and watch a PowerPoint as well as I can fly to Milwaukee for the same PowerPoint presentation.

But here’s what I do when I’ve registered for a webinar and am participating from the comfort of my desk: I check my email; I write notes to myself about tasks I need to get done; I scan through the stack of stuff on my desk.

What I can’t do is make eye contact with the speaker. I can’t nod, encourage, laugh; interact.

I can’t easily raise my hand; ask questions or clarify points.

In short, I can’t get very engaged in the whole process.

Sometimes, that’s OK, especially if I’m following instructions for navigating a website or creating a new product of some kind. I’m engaged enough just watching and trying to keep up.

At other times, though, it’s a missed opportunity – to engage, connect and grow.

I’ve venture to say that webinar training works best with the most intrinsically engaged employees – and worst with those least intrinsically engaged – usually, our hourly frontline folks.

So it you’re looking for a quick, cheap, easy way to say, “Oh yeah, we provide e-learning for our staff,” think hard before you head the webinar way. You may very well be systematizing a training approach that disconnects rather than connects; that disengages rather than engages.

Year in review

2010-01-06T12:43:00.000-08:00

We’re off to a great start to 2010 at the aQuire offices! If you would, indulge me in a quick look back at 2009:

We finished the December 31 deadline for additional content for our online CNA course on – you guessed it – December 31st! Funny how artificial deadlines come and go but the real deal somehow gets met. We also ended the year with a great influx of new training partners who provide the lab and clinical components of this online CNA training course: hospitals, private career schools, community colleges and nursing facilities. We achieved some great community partnerships, too, enabling unemployed individuals living in remote, rural areas to get their CNA training, the first step to a career in nursing.
Our in-home care component has become one of our busiest business units yet. The growth of this phase of care is simply phenomenal. Fortunately, most providers know how vital it is to send only well-trained caregivers into the homes of their clients.
We officially launched our own licensed online private career school, the Institute for Professional Care Education (IPCed). While we currently only offer a Certification in Marketing and Sales in Health and Senior Care and our Personal Care Aide Certification, many more programs are in development. We’re very excited about the coming year, especially about creating Personal Care Aide Certification programs that mirror our online CNA program, with community partnerships for skills and work experience components.
EasyCEU.com, our professional continuing education website, continued to grow even as the economy didn’t. We heard from many, many administrators that having an affordable, accessible option simply saved their license this year – and that’s nice to hear!
aQuire’s staff training program grew significantly as more and more assisted living providers joined in the technology revolution. I received an email just today from an assisted living caregiver who had just finished her first ever online course. She was so impressed, and enjoyed the course so much she took the time to write a thank you email. I know what kind of an effort this was for this individual; my profound thanks went back to her for that simple, but highly meaningful act.

In 2010 we will see many new partnerships that will open doors of learning and career growth to many, many people across the globe. We’ll see our school in Fiji continue to grow; and expand our reach throughout the US.

Personally, I’m looking forward to an excellent new adventure, helping create a new family caregiving resource site along with a high-powered team based out of New York City. I’ve grown to love visiting Manhattan (especially the food), and am truly honored to be a part of this very exciting project.

I’ll keep you posted with my journey in the coming year if you’ll do the same. Drop me an email and let me know what’s new – and exciting – with your company. We might as well keep each other company while we head into a new year – whatever it may bring!

Hope at the holidays

2009-12-22T13:30:00.000-08:00

At lunch yesterday a colleague of mine commented, “I think 2009 will go down in history as one of the hardest years ever; possibly even harder than the great depression.”

I thought, at first, that this was a massive overstatement, but as she went on to talk about the sheer number of individuals affected, the loss of jobs and homes, I began to agree. It’s been, undeniably, an incredibly hard year for many, many people.

We’re lucky, most of us in the senior care business. We may have faced a declining census or more families reluctant to make the change, but overall, we’ve had a relatively easy time of it. We’ve continued hiring, adding staff and programs while other industries have been shutting doors after decades of service.

As part of a project one of my employees is doing during our own holiday lull, I spent a few minutes this morning reviewing comments our EasyCEU and aQuire clients have made to us over this past year. The comments included many like these:

These are the best on-line course I have completed!

Course content is REALLY useful.

I love the ease of great online courses for completing my CEUs.

I think these online courses are much more valuable than sitting in a classroom for 8 hours!

I have used many vendors for CEUs but I found this one to be the most useful!

I loved doing my EasyCEU course and will take more of these courses in the future.

I love that I can take back what I’ve learned to train my staff in better care.

Our aQuire clients shared comments from their team, including, “I’ve never taken an online course before. I didn’t know I could do it. I learned so much about caring for people.”

Needless to say, these messages affirm our team’s efforts this year and give us the intangible reward of knowing that our work makes a difference.

Often, just a kind word or two has the power to encourage, support; energize. We promise to pay forward what you’ve given us this year in the coming year.

Together, maybe we can make the star of hope shine just a little brighter.

Hope for a better year next year for those who have faced the loss of a home or job.

Hope for a chance to continue to make a difference in the lives of the people we serve and the people who serve with us.

Hope for genuine warmth in our homes and families today and always.

Wishing you and yours all the joys – and the hope – of the season,

Sharon K. Brothers, MSW
President and CEO
EasyCEU and aQuire Training Solutions

Engaged or battened down?

2009-12-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

It’s cold – darn cold. And I don’t just mean outside; it’s cold inside, too, in a lot of places.

We’ve been interviewing for an executive level position in our office the past few weeks. We’re talking to great applicants; highly qualified for our work and probably much more. Some of them have been looking for a position for months. When we mentioned to one that we didn’t know if he would be able to work for what we could offer he said, “The answer to that question (without having any idea what you pay) is yes.”

These applicants keep hearing the same story: “We’re hiring at a much lower pay rate this year. We can only afford to pay you about half what you made at your last job.”

Baby, it’s cold out there.

I get it. We just hired a couple of people at a pay level lower than we hired for the same position two years ago. We got highly qualified people, too. They’re happy for work; we’re happy to have them for a price that fits into our super-snug budget.

But I’m going to be watching our budget and making adjustments – fast – the minute it looks like its changing. I don’t want to lose good people. I don’t want to lose the forward progress we’re making in growing our company.

What I really don’t want to see is the senior care business sector get another black eye if the economy improves and we lag behind in taking good care of our employees. We know the words – and the concepts behind them – of employee empowerment, engagement, actualization.

BusinessWeek’s online Debate Room posed the debate earlier this year: “The recession is no time to worry about employee engagement. Pros and cons?”

On the pro side, (Concentrate on the business, not the workers), the commentator remarks, “You’re in this fix because of lack of engagement, right? …The real disease is poor management – and that’s you, bucky…Employee engagement is about having a well-run enterprise based on consistently applied value. Do that, and engagement follows.”

On the CON side, (Con: workers need a morale boost), the commentator notes, “Employee engagement will hit historic lows in the coming years and cost employers billions in lost productivity – and cost consumers in the form of a more frustrating I-don’t-really-care-about-you customer experience…Should you worry about employee engagement? Do the math. What if all employees in your company were engaged and willing to give the company 15 minutes of discretionary effort each week? The ROI would astound you and the improved customer experience just might make the difference between surviving the Great Recession and thriving in it.”

What’s your opinion?

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m just guessing that your actions are demonstrating your opinions clearly to your employees right now.

Holidays and new beginnings

2009-11-24T12:39:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of year – the holidays are charging right at us, ready or not.

For me fall, racing headlong into the holidays, seems to blend seamlessly into the wrap up of yet another year. In about one week, it seems, we go from setting our clocks back to raking leaves to decorating (and then all too quickly un-decorating) the house for the holidays.

About the only thing that keeps me grounded this time of year is the knowledge that we’re about to turn a page to a new year. It’s that “clean slate” feeling of starting a new year off fresh, with new opportunities, new challenges, new adventures.

In our office we’ve started the New Year just a little early with the launch of our newest division, a private career school, duly licensed by the Oregon Department of Education with the specific purpose of providing training to individuals looking to enter the field of caring for others. The Institute for Professional Care Education (www.IPCed.com) is the official site for this training, and we’re excited about how quickly this is already taking off.

We’re training people who need to become certified Personal Care Aides to care for a loved one and get insurance reimbursement for the care.

We’re collaborating with a number of partners to offer an enhanced Personal Care Aide (PCA) certification complete with skills training and clinical work experience.

We’re hearing from employers who want to hire these folks, too, as quickly as they are trained.

We’re also working on a new project based out of New York for family caregivers, a huge and growing population of Americans that have unique needs all their own.

New Year; new adventures. It’s my trick to get through the holidays. This week, I’ve got 20 coming to my house for Thanksgiving dinner; I’ll need all the tricks I can get!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends this week! – Sharon Brothers

Change means business end or opportunity

2009-11-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

News flash: some nurses are finding it hard to get a job.

What the heck? I thought we had a major nursing shortage, and wouldn’t be able to turn out nurses fast enough to fill the openings.

I wonder if it isn’t a little like 10 years ago, when everyone was talking about the coming baby boomer elder bubble. We built assisted living communities as fast as we could. Many companies didn’t survive, as the baby boomer bubble was still several years in the future and fill rates were long and arduous.

Here’s my prediction for the future: in-home care is going to skyrocket. It will become more affordable and more accessible, but not necessarily of top quality. It will, in fact, represent a real option for families who might have otherwise sought a move to assisted living for a loved one.

Perhaps the next phase of living, following the cocooning in our homes and the “stay-cations” of the recession will be the move up to a larger house on our retirement instead of downsizing – because now we’ve got the folks moving in.

Multi-generational households are the norm rather than the exception in China. “In China it is a great shame to put a parent into a nursing home,” says the author of a recent TIME magazine article (November 23, 2009, “Five things the US can learn from China ”). The author predicts that home care will grow significantly in the near future simply out of necessity, supported by governmental programs that encourage home and family caregiving options.

After a career that spans more than 30 years in long term care, I believe that some things will change…and some things will stay the same.

We’ll have more options, because we’ll demand them, we baby boomers who are rapidly reaching our golden years.

We’ll have more autonomy, more choice and more freedom to create a living environment that works best for us.

We’ll still have providers who do things like they’ve always been done, too. You know the ones: the buildings that haven’t been touched by paint or a construction crew in 40 years, but who happily take all those tough-to-place Medicaid patients.

Will assisted living communities become the nursing home of tomorrow: the place no one wants to go unless they have no other choice; the place where “person-centered care” is a phrase that means “we’re really trying folks, but we can’t operate any differently with the massive layer of regulation we live under?”

No matter what part of the care community you represent, these are interesting times, with many more to come. I don’t think it’ll be as easy as we always thought it would be when the baby boomer bubble finally arrives. I do think that, to succeed and survive, we’ll need to focus on one simple thing: quality.

We’ll need to deliver what the customer wants (Happy hour every night? A gym and sauna on every floor? Book clubs and poker parties?). We’ll need to be bold and interesting, and deliver what we say we will.

We’ll need to be networked socially and virally, and know that every thing we promise (or every mistake we make) can reach millions over the web in seconds.

Nursing shortage? Maybe – or maybe not. What other “truths” will we see change dramatically in the coming years? Stick around – let’s find out.

Training Personal Care Aides to deliver quality care

2009-11-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

We’re excited around the aQuire Training offices. We just received our private school license from the Oregon Department of Education to offer the Personal Care Aide Certification course (and some other pre-hire courses) though our newest website identity, the Institute for Professional Care Education (www.IPCed.com).

Why is that so cool? Because with our school license we can now train workers who are job seekers and help prepare a pool of more qualified, trained workers. These individuals may be able to get workforce development funds to pay for their training, too – a clear win/win all the way around.

This matters to you if you hire caregivers. Hiring someone who has invested the time, initiative and money in a comprehensive 40 hour course means you’re hiring someone more likely to succeed and to love their job as a caregiver.

This matters to you if your loved one needs a caregiver. Ensuring that the caregivers providing care to your loved one are comprehensively trained and certified is an important step to feeling confident in the quality of care your loved one is receiving.

This matters to you if you’re focused on building a strong reputation for quality care. Demonstrating training above and beyond the minimum requirements is one way to set your organization ahead of the pack. And being ahead means business success, any way you slice it.

This matters to you if you’re involved in training, too. We are actively working to develop strong training partnerships with others in their training field to help reach as many people as possible.

This is one way we can reach out and improve the standard of care that is delivered, every single day, to people who live and work in our state, our town and our homes.

For details about the comprehensive 40 hour online Personal Care Certification Course see www.IPCed.com. Contact Wendy@aQuiretraining.com for information on pricing advantages for bulk purchases of this Certification Course or to set up a personal web tour of the course.

Employee satisfaction and resident quality of life connected

2009-10-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

The hardest job in the world is hiring good managers. Good managers not only set the tone for the entire operation, they help ensure the two keys: compliance and quality.

My InnerView’s recent report published as a supplement to Provider’s October 2009 issue, emphasized this point over and over in the results of their latest surveys on quality care in assisted living. Good managers – managers who care, listen and set clear guidelines – results in greater employee satisfaction and improved resident quality of life.

Not surprisingly, the two outcomes are closely connected, as well. When employee satisfaction is high, resident quality of life increases at the same rate.

Supporting an employee’s career earns high marks as a measure of management strength; at the same time, only 22% of the 12,000 individuals surveyed rated the training provided to them as “excellent” – the weakest of the 4 areas the survey covered.

Nursing and personal care staff had the lowest overall job satisfaction rating, with just over 70% of the individuals in these job descriptions expressing happiness with their job, compared to over 80% of housekeepers and more than 90% of administration who were satisfied with their jobs.

Considering that these are the crucial workers who provide the care delivery to the clients, this is certainly an area for focus and improvement. These are the people who deliver the care, and in turn determine the happiness of clients and families.

Since top consumer issues are the care and competency of staff, this is clearly a management issue.

Caring, listening and building the strongest employee team possible – these are no small challenges that today’s assisted living manager faces. Seems like it’s more important than ever to focus on leadership.

Let’s collaborate

2009-10-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

There are two kinds of people in the world: those looking for something to do, and those working harder than ever just trying to keep up with the work on their plate.

Overly simplistic, I know, but lately that’s how it feels to me. Those who aren’t working are desperate for a job and something meaningful to do to fill their day.

Those of us who are working, are somehow busier than ever. We’re not complaining, of course; we’re counting our blessings to be busy and bringing home a paycheck.

At the same time, we’re running a little leaner staff than usual, meaning more work lands on the desks of fewer people (did I mention how busy I am lately?). We’re trying to start new business units, expand our sources of revenue and, of course, figure out how to facebook, twitter, and network the heck out of everything we’re busy doing.

Some of it we’re doing really well. I see companies and organizations that are more innovative, creative and engaged than ever before. They’re launching new programs and adding services. They’re involved in writing grants and getting grants, and in helping others progress forward in this profession.

Every once in a while, though, I see areas where, instead of collaborating, we try to hoard our piece of the market. We duplicate and overlap efforts, resulting in more work; less payoff.

Last week I was in Phoenix and had the opportunity to visit a Catholic Charities center. Just a few years ago they built the Caregiver House, a small home designed to be fully accessible – and designed for teaching people how best to provide care in someone else’s home.

The bathrooms have innovative assistive devices; the bedrooms are equipped with the typical wheelchair, walker and other devices you might find in a home where care is being given someone elderly or disabled. The living room has lots of extra tables and chairs for teaching and presentations.

It’s a beautiful home and a wonderful environment for teaching people to provide care at home. And the best part of all is that the organization opens the House to groups throughout the community to use for their own teaching. They willingly and graciously share their wonderful resource, even though they provide training as a big part of their own program.

We’re all trying to do just a little more with just a little less these days. I suggest that maybe it’s time for us all to look for ways to collaborate rather than compete just a little more often.

Last week I came home excited and energized by the prospect of working in collaboration with others, instead of exhausted and burdened by the load on my own desk.

It’s a great feeling. Can we collaborate, and lighten your load a bit today?

Making sense of the business of senior care

2009-10-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the owner of a large, multi-location care company said to me, “One thing you don’t realize is that when we train people, they think they should get paid more. It actually hurts us to train our employees.”

He went on to share their corporate-wide turnover rate, which is high enough that I’d personally refuse to share – or lie – if someone asked me for that information.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this comment, and the spirit behind it. It is deeply troubling to me to think that this attitude exists in senior care today. I understand that some corporate level individuals are first and foremost business people, but this is a business issue, too.

The cost of employee turnover is well documented – and it’s substantial.

The value of an engaged workforce is also well documented – and it’s even more substantial. According to Gallup, a company with a highly engaged workforce (people who “work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company.”) results in highly engaged clients (the ones who couldn’t image life without your product or service). Overall, the net gain to the company is a bottom line, real dollar benefit of well over 300% more revenue than the company without engaged employees.

Which part of this isn’t making sense, even to the corporate person solely focused on money?

What concerns me more is what is happening to the many thousands of employees who work for companies like this. They probably start out passionate about their jobs. My guess is that they quickly realize that the company doesn’t value them enough to provide them with adequate training – and they leave.

Who is hurt the most? The vulnerable client who is dependant on that individual for their care.

Imagine your mother being cared for by a different person every few days, and you’ll be imagining what people are living across this country.

No one is there long enough to get to know the history – the story – of your mother.

No one is there long enough to know her well enough to detect when something’s just not right, and act quickly to avoid a major problem.

Having both my mother and my mother-in-law receiving care lately, I know first hand how helpless and dependent even the family feels on the individuals providing care. Some days, you simply pray and hope for the best, knowing that there’s nothing more you can do.

And then you’re thankful every single day when you finally get a caregiver – or two or three – who genuinely care about your loved one. Who take the time to listen, to learn their story, and who grieve with you when they pass.

We have an awesome level of trust and responsibility as senior care providers. I have to think that someday, in some way, we’ll each be called to account for how well we met that trust and responsibility; how well we improved the lives of the most vulnerable people we served; how well, in the end, we understood the very mission of our company.

In the end, maybe it isn’t just about the money.

Raise public awareness of quality care

2009-09-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

I was at a meeting this morning of a community group involved in programs and services for seniors. The first speaker on the agenda was the head of a state agency. The topic was mental health services to seniors. One of the group members asked about services for people living in nursing facilities who might be suffering from depression. The speaker’s response began, “Well, who wouldn’t be depressed living in a place like that.”

That comment – just a reflexive, throw-away line – struck me hard.

Many of us have dedicated our careers to providing quality care for seniors living in “places like that” – nursing facilities and assisted living facilities providing care to elders.

We’ve spent hours training our caregivers to be gentle, loving and compassionate.

We’ve listened to families share their angst at having to move mom or dad from the family home, but having no other choices.

We’ve sat at bedsides – during our time off – reading to a dying resident and sharing tears with families who are grieving the loss of a loved one.

When my own beloved mother-in-law died recently she had lived in the care community less than 2 months. Yet the young man who cared for her most days cried as hard as any member of the family when she died.

Not one of us felt that it was inevitable that she be depressed.

Not one of us ever referred to the care setting as “a place like that.”

And yet so many in the public still have that perception: that a nursing home – and often any care setting – is to be avoided like the plague. It’s the last choice for any person, and be prepared to be very depressed if that’s where you end up living out your days.

We’ve come a long way personalizing care; but we’ve got a long ways to go. We need to continue to show the people in our community – including those running agencies for the benefit of people like our residents and clients – what we do, up close.

We need to continue to shout about the incredible way seniors are cared for, and the options available to them that not only support daily living but also enhance the quality of life for residents.

I feel sad for the speaker this morning if her mother or father should ever need nursing care. But most of all, I see this as a call to action to those of us providing care to let the world around us know that it’s not a depressing place to be. That life, right to the end, can be rich and meaningful, and that it’s our mission to help make it so for the people in our care.

If you’re interested in learning how online training can help you build an extraordinary team, contact us at info@aquiretraining.com. Ask about our “6 months’ free” offer, designed to get you going now, even if the money’s tight.

Census and the economy

2009-09-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

From the word on the street, if your census is strong consider yourself lucky.

It’s not enough that the economy and poor housing market is driving people to care for their own family members rather than seek care elsewhere. We’re also caring for a market sector that has other inherent issues, namely longevity. Not to be indelicate, but our residents are vulnerable. And, it seems, we lose them in groups.

My mother in law had excellent end of life care recently in a brand new assisted living community. She was the first person in the apartment, and the caregivers were incredibly kind and attentive. They only had a few residents – how few I don’t really know. What I do know is that on the day my mother-in-law died, two other residents also passed. I’m guessing that may have constituted as much as 25% of their occupancy, in one fell swoop.

In this situation, it’s the small details that count. For our family, the attention to detail was incredible. The staff not only were attentive and caring, they openly grieved with us at the loss of our mother. One of the employees even gave the eulogy at the memorial service – and it was absolutely pitch perfect.

Were we satisfied customer? Absolutely. We’ll tell everyone we can about the fabulous care provided to our family. We’ll tell you what a great company Leisure Care is, and how happy we are with the care provided by their team.

We’ve had other experiences with our family elders. We’ll tell you about those, too – and warn you away from some communities that didn’t meet our basic expectations, let alone exceed them.

Benjamin Pearce, author of the excellent book “Managing Senior Living Communities” and a member of our instructor team just developed a course on Customer Service for managers for CEU credit. Ben says, “Quality is simply the difference between what you expect and what you get. When you get more than you expect, you perceive that you’ve gotten something of value.”

If you feel you or your managers could use a little tuning up in this area, check out this course on our EasyCEU website.

With everything else working against us having a strong census today, customer service is one area we can control and improve.

Developing a training vision for success

2009-09-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

Recently the aQuire team was hired as an advisor to a new family caregiver project being developed out of New York City. One of the developers of the project is a man who serves on the board for an East Coast University’s school of business. He tells the story of a recent meeting where the board’s agenda was to “vision the school in 10 years.” My new friend, Barry, begins by raising his hand and saying, “In 10 years we know that most students will take at least a portion of their classes online.”

Barry was met by total silence. After an awkward couple of minutes, one of the school’s administrators said, “Well, that’s an interesting perspective but not really how we prefer to teach.”

Barry responded, appropriately, “It’s not going to matter as much how ‘we prefer to teach’ as it matters how our students prefer to learn. And evidence today shows that most will prefer at least a portion of their training online.”

He is right, you know. It doesn’t really matter how we prefer to teach – it does matter how the people we’re trying to teach prefer to learn.

When it comes to employees and training, one thing is clear: traditional approaches to training are one of the least enjoyable ways our staff prefers to learn.

Imagine if you were required to attend a training session on your day off – or in the middle of the night. For many of our employees that’s exactly what we’re asking them to do to simply attend regularly scheduled inservices. It’s not only a poor choice for many, it’s an ineffective way to ensure that every person, every shift, enterprise-wide is equally trained to deliver quality service – the bedrock of an organization’s survival.

Today, we need to deliver training dynamically, with new information delivered to every single employee in the most efficient, effective way possible. We need to consider, as well, how our employees want to learn, and adapt our training to technology that is rapidly becoming the standard rather than the exception.

We need to grasp the vision for the future as we develop our programs today, or be left behind in a rapidly changing, complex economy.

[Interested in starting an online training program for your company? Contact an aQuire representative today to learn how you can get up to 6 months free when you start your program now.]

NEW customer service training courses now available

2009-08-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

One thing all business development specialists agree upon during this current economy: this is not the time to scrimp on customer service. While businesses need to focus carefully on cutting expenses where they can, for a company to survive, customer service needs to be bolstered, not cut.

With this in mind, aQuire Training Solutions’ course development team has been busy creating a series of new courses on basic – and advanced – customer service skills. These courses are designed for caregivers and other staff working in the senior care environment: home care agencies, assisted living communities, nursing facilities and more. These courses, written by the newest member of the aQuire course development team, Melissa Dylan, take a light-hearted approach to a very serious subject: making the client the absolute focus of our work, every single day. Topics covered in the series include:

Courtesy. More than just being polite or nice to people, courtesy involves a set of unwritten rules or interacting with clients and guests on the job. It is the basis for good customer service.

Being there. Being available for clients is the first step in good customer service. This means promptly answering the phone, greeting guests the moment they walk in the door and setting aside less important tasks to help people. It means remembering – always – “people come first.”

Listening. Listening sounds easy enough, but it takes special skills to learn to be an active listener: to focus on the client, avoid distractions, use appropriate body language and provide feedback so the client knows you been listening.

Being reliable. Being courteous, polite and responsive isn’t the whole task. A key to great customer service is being reliable – to do what you say you’re going to do. To give customers what they ask for the first time, without needing reminders.

Being positive. Being positive means finding reasons why things will work, instead of reasons why it won’t. It means consistently positive behavior, positive responses to client requests (even when you can’t fulfill a request personally) and going the extra step for customers.

Melissa’s approach to training includes a humorous approach, lots of stories, and frequent opportunities for individuals to test their knowledge. The online delivery used by all aQuire courses means that caregivers can learn at their own pace, and at a time and place convenient for them.

If you’d like a free sneak preview of one of these courses, click here.

Then imagine your team, fired up and energized to provide the best customer service possible. And imagine your company – enjoying top-of-the-market success!

National Healthcare lesson: keep it simple

2009-08-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

Full disclosure right up front: I’m in favor of a national healthcare solution. I don’t know exactly what that should look like, but I do believe that our current approach to healthcare is something less than a cohesive system, or a long-term sustainable approach. I think it’s appalling that, while we spend a higher percentage of our gross domestic product on healthcare than any other country, we still lag behind 36 other countries in the world, according to the World Health Organization. While many of us know first hand the cost of providing health care benefits to employees, those of us working in senior care also know how challenging and frequently dysfunctional our “system” for long term care is.

But here’s my frustration: despite knowing that our current healthcare system needs a major change, I have no idea if the President’s plan will be the fix we need. The pundits are firmly divided along ideological lines; the press worries about costs involved, and paints a less-than-rosy picture of the current proposed plan.

Howard Gleckman, past senior correspondent at Business Week and currently a senior researcher at the Urban Institute recently authored a book titled “Caring for our Parents”. In his book, Gleckman shares stories of everyday Americans, struggling with caregiving issues. He points that, in the current demographics, if you are not today a caregiver, you or someone close to you will be very soon. According to Gleckman’s estimates, over 70 percent of our parents will need some kind of long term care assistance during their lifetimes.

The stress of caregiving and the fractured, unsupported nature of long term care in this country, make the experience much more challenging that it needs to be. As many of us are very aware, governmental programs often pay for the most expensive alternative for care, rather than the least expensive, most preferred options.

Gleckman’s book is an excellent look at topics related to long-term care needs and public policy, as well as personal experience.

Here’s my own business take-home lesson from the current debate about healthcare problems and plans: Solutions to problems, globally or personally, need to be simple and clear. We need to help families understand our small piece of the big health or long-term care picture with clear, simple language. We need to advocate for a simple system that meets the needs of the people we serve, in our own small segment of the big picture.

Perhaps as we continue to work toward change, a small, simple step at a time, we’ll achieve something great on a larger scale, too.

Training iPhone style

2009-08-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

So how’s your training going?

That’s a question that Bersin and Associates, a company with over 25 years experience in corporate solutions, training and e-learning asked of the largest companies in America.

The answer was just a little surprising. Bersin found that organizations in the U.S. will spend around $817 million on their learning management systems (LMS) in 2009, a growth of about 115% in just the past 5 years. Especially in a challenging economy, this continuing growth is significant. According to 1,300 surveyed HR professionals, the “LMS is one of the most important software systems in a company’s HR infrastructure, ranking behind only their payroll and HRMS system.” (Report)

While these major companies have found that they depend on their learning management systems to help them deliver quality, consistent training throughout their entire workforce, one area most are looking for is increased collaboration and information sharing.

One solution aligns perfectly with a new program we’ve been developing right here at aQuire: a system that allows all training professionals to “upload and share any form of information or training with colleagues.” The telecommunications company currently implementing this found exactly what we’re creating: a way to have new content developed “rapidly and continuously,” while the community of users monitors the quality and provides feedback to “self-police.”

It seems to be the best of both worlds. You can gain the content our team of experts has developed to train your team, but you can also share some of the extensive in-house training programs you’ve developed with our community of learners.

This sharing of ideas, knowledge, skills and information isn’t new in our shop; lots of computer programs are now being developed as “shareware” open to the public. The iPhone app store is probably the most popular current example of this: many hundreds of free applications allow iPhone users to find their car, map their routes, check the dictionary, follow weather globally, locate a great restaurant, view movie trailers, and even check to see if a picture is level.

It’s time to start open collaboration and sharing with learning, too, especially within client groups or related organizations.

So when someone asks you, “How’s your training going?” you can answer honestly, “There’s always something new and interesting happening with our training program.”

Want to get in on the fun? Contact an aQuire Account Representative today for details.

Tips to increase creativity and insight

2009-08-03T15:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve long believed that creativity is one of the most important strengths of successful team members. From caregivers who creatively problem-solve challenging client situations to managers whose creativity builds loyalty and leadership, it’s a strength I value.

So it was with great interest that I read the article written by Robert Lee Hotz and published in the Wall Street Journal on June 19, 2009, titled “A wandering mind heads straight toward insight” (reprinted in the Dana Foundation’s Brain in the News, July 2009).

It’s really nothing new after all; rather a scientific basis for those moments many of us have experienced when an idea hits us when we’re least expecting it. The great idea that strikes us in the shower is a perfect example of this phenomenon when we suddenly get the answer to a question, the solution to a problem, or simply a new, interesting idea.

It seems that while we think our brain is wandering aimless from thought to thought, subject to subject, it’s actually a time of intense brain activity – more activity than when we’re focusing on solving a problem methodically, in fact. The result is what seems to us to be flashes of insight that feel absolutely correct.

Among ways to nurture these moments of insight and creativity – vital, I believe, for successful business growth – are these:

Be positive. Apparently, individuals who are in a positive mood experience more flashes of insight than those who are negative. This can be challenging during tough times when it’s particularly easy to focus on the negatives and let our concerns gnaw at the fringes of our thoughts almost continually. Try consciously listing things you are grateful for – a proven technique to lift spirits and create a more positive mood.

Turn off the noise. I don’t know about you, but one of my first moves in the car is to turn on the radio. Yet when I walk somewhere, I find that the meandering of my own thoughts a creative, rewarding activity. Often, I arrive at my destination with ideas for the entire day and solutions to some of my most vexing problems. For so many people, iPods and cell phones mean that noise is always on. Turning off the background noise is one great way to let our brains come up with these creative bursts of insight and ideas.

Dream a little. According to the article, one researcher in the field suggests that “the flypaper of an unfocused mind may trap new ideas and unexpected association more effectively than methodical reasoning.” If you’re one those people who is highly focused during the work day, take time around the fringes of the day – on your way to work or on your way home, perhaps – to allow your mind some unfocused wandering.

Talk a hike. Physical activity also seems to create or focus brain activity. Feeling stale? Talk a brisk walk. I remember reading about tech companies during the dot-com frenzy providing ping-pong tables for programmers; the focused physical activity seemed to allow the brain to recharge and become increasingly more creative. One of my best managers and I used to walk while we talked about problems with staff or residents. We’d end our walk-and-talk sessions feeling righteously fit and, almost every time, arrive at creative solutions to difficult problems. Frequently we’d come up with new ideas to implement company-wide that helped build our brand and achieve our goals.

In an article titled “Happy Days: the pursuit of what matters in troubled times,” Daniel Goleman of the New York Times tells of a Tibetan lama called “the happiest man in the world.” Goleman asks, “So how did he get that way? Apparently, the same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice.” This meditative practice apparently leads to the stimulation of part of the brain that leads to positive moods, as well as creative thought. Concludes Goleman, “So while the Calvinist strain in American culture may look askance at someone sitting quietly in meditation, this kind of ‘doing nothing’ seems to do something remarkable after all.”

I think perhaps whether your goal is to be happy, or creatively intuitive in your business development the answer is the same. Find the techniques that nurture this outcome, and then practice until you’ve got it.

Three ideas to strengthen your community relationships

2009-07-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

My mother in law had emergency surgery two weeks ago; now she’s in a local nursing home under hospice care. Meanwhile, my father-in-law, who no longer drives, needs to be picked up from the other end of town daily, brought to visit his wife, and returned home.

Fortunately for my husband and I, his two sisters also live in the area. The three of them are alternating days – for now. Both sisters have summer vacation plans, and we’ve got work-related travel that we can’t reschedule.

Like millions of Americans, we’re living the classic “sandwich generation” life. We’re squeezed between the needs of our elderly parents, our own children and our work demands. Add to this the anxiety many are experiencing related to job layoff or uncertainty, and its no wonder families are feeling the stress.

It seems like the perfect opportunity for senior care companies to step in and provide some relief.

“Hey,” you say, “We’ve got the vacancies. We can help by moving their parent in tomorrow!”

For many families, however, an immediate move isn’t the solution. Worries about finances make this a bigger challenge – and potentially longer closing time – than anytime in the past several years.

So what can you do to support those families in your communities that are feeling the squeeze?

Offer respite care – and let the community know about it. Now is a great time to really promote your respite care options. For families that are on the verge of burnout, just a weekend or a few days mid-week can make all the difference. Can you offer it at a reduced rate for first time users? For repeat clients? Be creative and think of ways to nudge the family into giving respite care a try. They may well become long term clients with this small first step.

Beef up your family support services. You probably tried family support groups with little success in the past. This might be the perfect time to try it again, however. Call them “Family Education Seminars” rather than support group. Schedule area professionals to be your guest speakers, including physicians, pharmacists, occupational and physical therapists, hospice nurses and more. Tap into public service announcements on radio, TV and in newspapers to promote these seminars. This is a perfect opportunity to position yourself as the expert in senior care, and as the trusted advisor to families living in the community.

Offer caregiver training for family caregivers. You probably train caregivers all year long in your community. What about extending an offer of training to family caregivers? You can set up a short series of training sessions, charge a nominal fee and offer it to families in the community who are choosing to care for a parent instead of seek placement in a care setting. Contact us to set up a blended training program offering families some training through our online courses, followed up by hands’ on training you provide in specific caregiving skills. We’ll help you design a ready-to-launch family training program that can be a genuine benefit to caregiving families in your community and a great PR tool for your company.

These are just a few of the ideas you might want to explore to help ease the pain of families in your community who are feeling the pressure of being, as one person puts, it, “the baloney in the middle of a smushed-bread sandwich.”

Training and retention go hand in hand for building a successful team

2009-07-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

Here’s an interesting concept: hiring someone else’s star employee won’t necessarily ensure that he’ll become your star employee. In fact, a professor at Harvard Business School recently found that it can take up to 5 years for a person to work at his highest level within a company. Until then, he’ll be underperforming.

This professor found that it’s far more efficient and effective for a company to take individuals with raw ability and talent and train those persons in the specific tasks needed to do the job.

This professor found that several factors go into getting the best out of your team members, including these:

Colleagues (we know from the Gallup organization that employees are more engaged when they have close friends at work) ;
Supporting functions (employees function best when they don’t have to worry about routine aspects of their job like pay and benefits, having adequate supplies, etc.);
IT systems (there’s a learning curve to any IT system you use, whether its for the purpose of online training, charting or managing work);
Corporate culture (organizations have their own culture; it takes time to learn the culture and feel comfortable and a part of that culture);
Trust with supervisors (you’ve probably heard the phrase: “Employees don’t leave jobs; they leave managers”).

Interestingly, the best and brightest employees tend to stay longer with a company, too, according to the same research. They may be sought out by other companies, and they may threaten to leave for more money, but, by and large, investing in building stars in-house is a big step to improving retention.

Surround your stars with other high-performing employees, and watch your retention increase even more. That’s easy for me to understand: there’s nothing more frustrating for a person who is working really, really hard to achieve a goal than to be surrounded by other people who are not nearly as invested.

Think about the marketing person who is a dynamite salesperson. She knows all of your key referral sources by name and can comfortably call any one of them for a chat. When a family calls with an inquiry, she has them laughing and comfortable with her within the first few minutes of a call. You can tell that families coming for a tour form a quick, deep bond with her. And of course, her results are excellent. You rarely have vacancies; often you even have a waiting list.

Now think about your stellar marketing person surrounded by caregivers who don’t have any investment in the success of the operation. They don’t look at visitors with a smile, let alone know regular family members by name. They don’t bother to keep the hallways tidy, and would never think about making a quick pass before a tour to plump up the pillows on the sofa and tidy the activity room.

How long do you think you’ll keep your marketing director?

This example is one that is very visible and obvious; the same is true, however, for each person on your team. Surround your team with teammates who are engaged and motivated, and they’ll all do better work. Surround them with slackers and even your best will either leave or begin underperforming.

Turnover not only sucks away valuable dollars, it consumes a lot of management time and focus. The key seems to be less focus on hiring the best, and more focus on growing, managing and supporting the best – right within your company today.

4 steps to becoming a learning organization

2009-07-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

Our culture and society is in fast-change mode. If you don’t believe it, look at the largest growth industries today. One of the largest growth companies is Google, whose very business premise didn’t exist just a few years ago.

Many senior care providers are operating in ways very similar to how they operated 20 years ago. Staffing models are essentially the same; the menu of services and the way it is delivered is unchanged.

We’re on the verge of a dramatic change in our society that will affect the way senior care is delivered as we boomers advance into old age. We will likely insist on change, as we refuse to age the way our parents and grandparents aged.

Learning organizations are those that have the foundational structure in place to keep up with these changes. They’ll be the leaders – or perhaps the survivors.

How can you nurture your own organization (or your own department, for that matter) into become a true learning organization?

Get rid of the language that resists change. When you hear someone on your team say, “This is the way we’ve always done it,” ask one question: “Why?” Teach your team to ask why as well. And then open the doors to thinking as a team about how else it could be done. If it’s working really well, leave it alone. If it could be done better, change it.

Take action, then analyze. When we started the first online CNA training program in the state of Oregon, we decided that we needed to own the entire training program. That meant getting lab and clinical training sites located throughout the state, managed by a variety of non-profit, for-profit and government owned organizations. Some of our sites were very well run and managed; some were highly dysfunctional. Within 90 days we realized that the program needed to be changed. Fortunately, our co-sponsor, Oregon Health Care Association, was open to a healthy, rousing analysis of what was working and what wasn’t. Together, we arrived at Plan B. We were no more sure that it would work smoother than Plan A, but we knew we needed to at least try it. Now, we’re offering just the online aspect of the course, and requiring our training partners to manage all other aspects of the training program within their program. We gave up all ownership of students and programs, and simply offer the online course. It works well – today. But we’ll be continually reviewing the program to catch it quickly, we hope, if we need to change it again. The point is that if we would have waited to launch the program until we knew exactly how it should work, we may never have launched it, or we may have been so invested in the Plan A approach that we may have been unwilling to quickly change to another approach.

Include all levels of your team. Typically the folks in the “C” suite (CEOs, CFO, COOs and their kin) make all the strategic plans for an organization. But in a true learning organization, all levels get involved. Who understands best, for example, what works and doesn’t work in your kitchen beside the cooks? Who understands best scheduling dynamics of shifts better than the caregivers? Learning from experience means getting all levels involved. It means fostering an environment, from the ground up, that allows people to ask questions and give input; that takes action and then analyzes that action, without assigning blame or fault.

Make change a part of your culture. Managing change is one of the hardest aspect of running an organization, especially change that affects everyone in the company. Some employees will resist any change; others will actively look for ways to make the change into the problem, rather than truly analyzing the results of the change. Communicate to your team that change is a fact of life – that things WILL change. Invite them to become a part of the change in a positive way. Make change fun, exciting, interesting, and most importantly, productive and worthwhile. Let your team know that if the change doesn’t produce the desired result, you’ll analyze it and take action – you aren’t just changing for the sake of shaking things up. Team members will begin to see the value in this continual iterative process of plan-launch-analyze-tweak until they, too, start participating in the process.

Most of us won’t have the luxury of business as usual, year after year into the future. We’ll need to become true learning organizations to survive and thrive.

Concepts for this article were taken from the Harvard Business School video titled “The Importance of Learning in Organizations.”

Getting ahead of the competition: become a learning organization

2009-07-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy watching the Harvard Business School’s youtube videos. They’re very short (that’s good for my busy schedule) but they’re generally packed with nuggets of information that get me thinking about my own business.

The video I watched today is the one titled “The Importance of Learning in Organizations.”

The point of this video, and the books and articles that it is based on, is that organizations who are able to learn from experience and observation and continually change as the result will be the leaders. They may, in fact, be the survivors.

Think about the change that the internet has brought to many businesses. At one time, information was a commodity that was valuable and relatively scarce. If I needed to know how to create a simple contract between myself and a tenant, I’d consult an attorney. His time was worth a lot of money to me since that information was not available anywhere else.

Today, I can find a dozen landlord-tenant agreements on the internet, most of them free. I can pay a very small fee and download a legal form that exactly meets my needs.

That change undoubtedly affected the business practice of most attorneys.

The accessibility of the internet has certainly changed my own business practices. Now, instead of training a small group of individuals at a time, in a classroom or conference somewhere, we’re training thousands of individuals, disbursed over time and space, all taking the same class over the internet.

Here’s a key concept from this video (which it worth the time to watch):

“The rate at which organizations and individuals learn may well become the only competitive advantage. If you’re learning more rapidly than the competition you can get ahead and stay ahead. If your rate of learning isn’t greater than the rate of change in society you’ll fall behind.”

Next week we’ll look at what you can do to facilitate this crucial learning in your organization.

5 questions to spark innovation

2009-06-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed the Harvard Business video on innovation titled “Thinking Inside the Box.”

It’s a 9 minute interview on video, and I confess it has taken me a week to listen to the entire thing, but I love the questions that the speaker suggests as a framework for finding new and innovative ways to sell your service. Here’s a sample:

Who uses our product in a way we never thought of? Is anyone using your product or service in a way that is completely different from the way you thought it would be used? Is this, perhaps, where respite care came from – families who didn’t want long term care for a loved one, but just a week or two while they went on vacation? What about delivering services outside of your building, if you operate a senior care community?

What is the biggest hassle in purchasing or using our product? Of course, the innovation comes in finding ways to remove the hassle or balance it in some way. In senior care, one of the biggest hassles right now, at least, is the need to sell one’s home before moving into a retirement or assisted living community. Innovative communities are finding ways to help people overcome that hassle so it’s not a barrier to move-in. What other hassles do clients and families have to overcome? How can you creatively remove those hassles?

Which customers could become major users if we could remove one specific barrier we’ve never removed before? Think about the renters in a life-care community, or the individuals who can’t afford private pay. Those two customer groups come to mind immediately – who else might become a major user of your service if a barrier were removed?

How would our product change if it were customized for every user? Does considering this question give you ideas about solutions to creatively expand your market?

Which technologies, embedded in our product, have changed the most since our product was launched? In the case of senior care, consider the systems that are most entrenched in the way you offer your service. Is there a newer, more efficient technology available to accomplish this even better?

This is a great time in the cycle of business to be thinking about innovation. It’s a great time to look for new ways to set your company and your community apart from others who will, as the economy begins to strengthen, be rushing in to meet the needs of this upcoming wave of aging boomers. Let’s not let the newcomers pass us old hands right on by!

Staff training brings bottom line results

2009-06-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

It’s been over seven years since a New York Times story reported that “Shares of companies that spend the most on employee training and development outperform those that spend the least…” (March 31, 2002).

The Gallup Organization determined that companies whose employees are “engaged” see an average of 360% more revenue to the bottom line than those who are not. One key element of employee engagement? The opportunity to learn and grow, to advance and excel.

“If licensing comes in and asks to see my training records today, I’m afraid we’ll be in big trouble.”

If that’s a comment that anyone in your organization might make, you’ve got problems. The number one imperative for staff training within every organization is compliance. In healthcare, compliance is the top priority for training.

Does every employee understand HIPAA? Are OSHA training standards being met? Are you managing your liability risk by ensuring full, across the board training compliance?

It’s a challenge for any 24/7 organization to ensure 100% training compliance, no matter what system is used.

It’s impossible if that organization is relying on out-of-date training manuals and in-person inservice meetings.

How confident are you that your organization is fully compliant in meeting training requirements? Can you prove it – within the next 5 minutes?

Online staff training can give you that confidence. Every employee can have equal access to the same high quality training courses, no matter what their shift or location. Even more importantly, comprehensive training reports, including exception reports, can be quickly and easily generated in real time, so you can track this compliance.

Full compliance is a vital aspect of risk management. If you want to grow your business – or simply stay in business – compliance is fundamental.

Learn how aQuire Training Solutions can help your organization gain full staff training compliance today! Contact us Now

5 things you need to know about a corporate LMS, Part 3

2009-06-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

In Part 1 of this article I shared some information about corporate learning management systems (LMSs) and pricing. Key concepts: having your own LMS gives you total control over courses.

In Part 2 we talked about what content you should expect to include on a company learning management system.

Let’s look at a couple additional features you should consider:

Standardization. This is my favorite aspect of developing a company-wide LMS. You’re no longer dependent on individual trainers or managers community to community. You’re not dependent, either, on a company that has proprietary control of all your course content, training records and enrollment data. You can create a standardized approach to training all employees, company-wide, using courses you’ve created in-house, courses you’ve licensed from other providers, and content and assessments you’ve determined best help you train your team. You can say, with confidence, every single employee receives the same level, quality and type of training. Every employee is trained YOUR way, no exceptions. No gaps, either, with turnover on a management or trainer level. Pull up training reports from a corporate office and see, at a glance, what training has been completed. Print exception reports and immediately see who’s out of compliance.

Sustainability. This winter my family and I went on a one-week trip to Hawaii. It takes me about 4 days to slow down from my usual pace, and 3 days later we were on a plane heading back home. I got to do one hike (from the book I’d purchased of over 50 island hikes); and had altogether too few umbrella drinks. I determined to come back again in two years and stay a full month – but that means I’ve got work to do at the office. I’ve got to build, in every department, sustainable systems that function and report, with or without me.

Whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve built a multi-national company, a corporate LMS might be your solution. If you think you’re ready for this step, let me know. I’ll send you a personalized plan, and help you implement this every step of the way. Better training builds better teams, and that benefits us all.

5 things you need to know about corporate learning management systems, Part 2

2009-06-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

In Part 1 of this article I shared some information about corporate learning management systems (LMSs) and pricing. Key concepts: having your own LMS gives you total control over courses. You can build your own courses (lots of tools are readily available and easy to use); you can license courses from reputable sources. Expect to either hire a full time online training coordinator, however, or purchase the LMS and support for this from a company that has an expertise in this area. The latter is the quickest way to get going.

In terms of pricing, remember the principle of “you get what you pay for.” You can get online staff training at rock-bottom prices, but if you want more features you should expect to pay just a little more. Do compare both pricing and product.

Let’s move on to another one of the “5 things you need to know:”

What content should I expect to include in a corporate LMS?

The LMS is the structure for online training; the content is what your employees will experience. Look for these elements:

Compliance basics. You should be able to meet your training compliance needs without re-creating courses or re-packaging. Some companies will package courses for you to meet specific orientation requirements, for example. Some will create compliance courses if they don’t already have them. Others offer a robust list of courses but you need to pick and choose what works. Be sure you get, at a minimum, compliance basic courses.
Service enhancing courses. If you provide memory care, look for a very full menu of courses that can allow you to train new and experienced employees.
Advanced level training. Your employees will have to complete basic compliance courses year after year. Make sure the course list you’re choosing from offers advanced level training as well as basics. One complaint we hear from employees is that they hate the repetitive nature of compliance training when it is limited to taking the same course over and over.
Courses that train and engage. This is a little more subjective. Simple training is fine for new employees but more experienced employees want more. They want to be challenged with new information; they want to be grabbed emotionally, too. Best practice in online training suggests that emotional learning is every bit as important as fact-based learning. It’s actually more important in building engagement and retention. Look at actual courses, and let your team members try them, too.
Courses that build your unique brand. Look for an LMS company that will provide you with tools, support and assistance in building your own courses. At a minimum, build a course introducing your company. This can be something as simple as a video interview with the company President or CEO, followed by some text with the company’s mission statement and purpose. Create it with some life and emotional impact; give team members ideas on how to reflect your unique brand in their everyday work, and then create a short scenario quiz to assess whether team members “get it.” Make this part of your new employee orientation, and watch your brand build.

Next week we’ll continue with a few more crucial questions and answers about e-learning to help you make the best decisions possible for your team. Better training builds better teams, and that benefits us all.

Innovation means using failure to grow your business

2009-06-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

Innovation is the new business buzz word, it seems. Everyone is talking about companies that innovate being companies that will succeed in tough economic times, but no one talks about the risks of innovation.

Innovation means something new or different. Dictionary.com defines it as “the introduction of new things or methods.” Trying something new or different means risking failure – something most of us CEO types are pretty averse to doing.

Late Friday afternoon I was clicking through links I’d saved during the week to read “later.” I ended up on youtube.com and, as one can easily do there, I moved several clicks away from the original link that caught my attention

One video that struck me as worth listening to – twice – was an interview with Columbia Business School Professor Rita McGrath titled “Use Failure to Grow your Business” (see the full interview below).

My initial reaction was probably like yours: “I don’t plan on having any failures.” But it was a slow Friday afternoon, so I listened to the first few sentences and I was hooked.

Dr. McGrath is the author of “Discovery Driven Growth.” Her book is designed to give leaders tools to innovate in their business; to go where they have no past experience going before; where they risk, in fact, failure.

McGrath points out that as you innovate assumptions form the basis for your business decisions – not facts. If you had facts, as she puts it, “Anyone could do it.” But innovation, by its very definition, means doing something for which we can’t find a road map. It means traveling somewhere completely new to us.

The core idea of discovery-driven growth, then, is to “plan to learn not plan to be right.”

Hence the possibility of failures while we’re learning. While McGrath continues in her interview to talk about ways to fail quickly and fail cheaply as being crucial to the learning cycle, she also talks about setting the stage for success in the fundamentals; the things we can control.

If you’re looking for new ways to grow your business and succeed in a changing economic environment, take 10 minutes to listen to this video.

And while you’re considering ways to minimize your risk, let us help you cover the fundamentals of staff training and regulatory compliance in training. We’re innovating, too; offering you a risk-free trial to see how it works for your company (for details of this program contact Wendy Finch, VP of Business Development for aQuire Training at 877-843-8374 or Wendy@aquiretraining.com).

5 things you need to know about corporate learning management systems, Part 1

2009-05-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

You know the value of training – you wouldn’t be reading this otherwise. You know that training your team is the way to significantly increase retention and build quality and reputation at the same time. You’re probably ready to at least begin considering using online learning as an adjunct to your current training program. Maybe you’ve even taken the plunge and signed on with an e-learning provider.

Whether you’re new to e-learning or just thinking about giving it a try, you can maximize the benefits by understanding a little more how to make e-learning truly yours. After all, you can’t really utilize the benefits of e-learning to help make your company more competitive if you’re just using off-the-shelf courses that your competitors use as well.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll share with you a few of the key concepts in making e-learning truly effective in helping you build a team that stands above the rest. While we’re at it, we’ll look at some of the terms and concepts involved in e-learning that may be new to you – they were all new to me when we first started out in this business several years ago.

Let’s start with the foundational structure of online or e-learning: the Learning Management System (LMS).

What’s an LMS and why should I care?

A Learning Management System (LMS) is different from a subscription you purchase from an e-learning company like aQuire. The LMS is the structure of the system; the courses are the content. The system should give you tools for quickly and easily managing employee enrollment, viewing grades and reports and even having special needs reporting features.

The aQuire Training Tracker module, for example, allows you to enter training received outside of the aQuire system into the reporting database so that you can, with one report, view all training completed by every employee, including conferences and inservices. You can set up exception reports that tell you who hasn’t completed required training, rather than having to pick through completed training lists to find those exceptions yourself. In short, a good LMS will give you the structure you need to manage the training and records of your whole team.

Having an LMS that you control allows you to build custom course content, too. With some programs, you’re simply subscribing to a set of pre-developed courses. With an LMS that you control, you can add your own courses using whatever development tools you wish – from simply PDF documents to flash-animated movies or games.

When you’re considering a new investment in e-learning – or looking for ways to make the investment you’ve already made pay off - look for a solution that allows you to have your own LMS, or at least your own LMS portal. You’ll gain a significant level of control of the training delivered to your team. And if you’re like most corporate execs I know, control of results is a very big deal.

How much should I expect to pay for e-learning?

If you’ve talked to anyone about developing a custom LMS for your company, you’ve probably heard cost estimates of upwards of $100,000 in development, and perhaps 50% of that on an annual support/hosting basis.

You may think that’s the best solution, especially if you want full control.

Here’s a secret: an LMS doesn’t have to be expensive. Open source LMS products are currently some of the best in the market, rivaling those used by corporate or university systems. You can have a custom LMS built, or license one that has been custom built, but you don’t have to do that to gain the same training advantage.

Here’s my advice: pay less for a basic supported LMS and a little bit more for your content. Think about what you want an online training system to do for you: give you the framework to deliver standard, high-quality, custom training and track every bit of training your employees have received in one simple report.

Beyond that, it’s all just bells and whistles. Where your investment really pays off, however, is in content. Your employees will never see the elegant reporting system or the easy-to-use enrollment portals. What they will see is content. They’ll need content that is engaging and effective.

What you need is a system that allows you to add your own custom content quickly and easily, and gives you the support you need to develop and add that content without costing you an arm and leg in tech support fees.

You may be able to negotiate the LMS into a deal for no cost at all, especially if you’re paying for content for many employees. If you do need to purchase your own LMS set up you should look for fees no greater than $2,000-3,000 on a one time basis.

Course content fees typically are based on the number of employees in your company and can range anywhere from $2 – 10 per person per month, depending on your size and the company you purchase courses from. Like with most products, you’ll pay a little more for courses with more features than for very basic courses that are designed to simply meet compliance requirements. Choose the product that best meets your needs for training. You know that investing in your team is worthwhile; don’t try to skimp when it comes to providing quality training.

Next week we’ll continue with a few more crucial questions and answers about e-learning to help you make the best decisions possible for your team. Better training builds better teams, and that benefits us all.

Best of the best awards

2009-05-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

Love those best of the best awards, don’t you? How many did you win this year?

I hope you’re not one of those people that win awards like this year after year – you won’t be able to relate at all.

I’ve never won a “best of the best” award. I’ve never even been a runner-up. But day after day, week after week, month after month I continue to do work that I believe contributes to the quality of care we provide to today's elderly.

Most senior care companies, I’d venture to say, are a lot like me in that regard. They do their work, every day, month and year, focusing on the area where they can improve lives. Maybe it’s just 5 families that they serve; maybe its 40 families, or 400.

What matters, at the end of the day, however, is not how many awards you win, but how much difference you’ve made.

Has someone finally been able to take a guilt-free, stress-free vacation because of your work?

Has someone else had “ahaa” moments that led to more joyful caregiving because of your efforts?

Many of us innovate in our care every day. We creatively solve problems while managing budgets, employee challenges and difficult clients. We see needs and we work to meet them, often by creating new programs or simply adapting existing programs to meet individual needs.

So from me to you – and me to me – here’s an award: The Quietly-going-about-our-business-while-making-a-real-difference Award.

Just around the corner

2009-05-13T10:04:00.000-07:00

One of my alternate routes to work takes me on a path through a sizeable green space behind my house. I need a few extra minutes if I’m taking this path, but I try to set the time aside at least once a week.

Last week, the route took an extra hour, rather than the usual 15 minutes. I had to stop every few steps to take another picture (my favorite feature of my new phone). It was astonishingly beautiful, with wildflowers blanketing the meadow and trees in bloom. I even saw a deer wandering through the trees – a very unusual sight in these woods. By the time I whipped out my phone to take a quick picture, he had sauntered back off into the woods.

I’ve been watching for change particularly closely this spring. Our winter was long and harsh. The trees were just big, barren sticks far into the usual season of new growth. But when spring finally arrived, the transformation seemed to happen right before my eyes. Leaves filled out the undergrowth first, then slowly appeared on the oaks and maples, starting as a light green haze and then, within days, expanding to vast canopies of leaves.

I’ve been looking for signs of spring in our business, too. I’ve noticed how just a little change creates a dynamic cycle of growth. Sometimes we seem to spend a lot of energy with no results; then it blossoms into a period of growth and success.

The take-home lesson for me is simply this: our work isn’t wasted. Sometimes it is preparing the ground for the coming period of rapid growth. Sometimes it’s a matter of tending that growth so that it doesn’t overwhelm us. Often, like in nature, we need the right combination of elements to converge before our efforts will yield visible results.

If you feel like your marketing efforts, for example, are not taking you anywhere, think about the spring. Add in an upturn in the economy, more optimism on the part of prospective clients, and you may see your company experience a spring-like growth spurt, all because of the work you continued to do, even during what feels like the dormant season of no results.

Springtime in nature requires several elements to spur the growth. What we see as the results are stunningly beautiful. I have confidence that the springtime in this business cycle is just around the corner – and the results will be spectacular.

Key ideas for marketing to today’s seniors

2009-05-06T11:49:00.000-07:00

If you’ve ever heard Ken Dychtwald, founder of Age Wave and visionary gerontologist/psychologist/author, speak about the concerns of mature adults today, you know that he often sees things from a unique perspective.

His latest book, Retirement at the Tipping Point, followed more than 2,000 people over time, resulting in a look at people’s attitude and experience before and during the current financial crisis. It contains some insights that may prove interesting to all of us who provide services to baby boomers and the elderly.

Financial concerns top the list of issues. This certainly isn’t a shocker, but realizing the depth of people’s concerns is certainly enlightening. With 60% of American’s losing money in their retirement funds, concerns about delay in retirement or unexpected expenses is at the forefront of today’s boomers. Interestingly, 81% of the people studied said that the most important piece of financial advice parents can give their children is to “live within your means;” up from only 69% who responded in this way before the market drop.

Lesson for providers? Emphasize, more than ever, the financial wisdom of your product or services. You not only need to demonstrate that you provide value for the dollar; you need to be prepared to discuss how your product or service will comfortably fit within the means of the prospect.

Values are shifting from wealth to relationships. Relationships within families are becoming increasingly important as families support members financially and emotionally. Twice as many respondents identified that “loving family and relationships” are more important than being wealthy.

Lesson for providers? Include family members in conversations whenever possible. Point out ways that your product or service can enhance relationships, especially if you offer personal care services that can allow the family to focus on relationships instead of tasks. Point out how your service can offer family peace of mind, as well, especially if you can emphasize areas where you exceed the usual standards, for example in the training or qualifications of your employees. Frame your benefits in terms of building and nurturing the relationships among the family or friends of the prospective client.

Retirees are seeking to make a difference. They want meaningful work or volunteer opportunities, even into later life. They’d rather not just be stuffing envelopes, either.

Lesson for providers? Be sure your activity and enrichment programs, if you offer them, include opportunities for clients at all levels to continue to contribute. Crocheting hats and scarves for kids or the homeless is something nearly anyone can do, for example.

Overall, Americans are resilient and resourceful, reports Dychtwald. Today, they’re more focused than ever on benefits that have meaning – and fit financially – in their lives.

Top five ways to succeed in this economy

2009-04-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

True confession: I love to shop. Nothing is more fun for me than finding something of excellent quality at a bargain price. Must be the ancestral Viking blood that surges through my veins and makes me feel like a warrior.

Every once in a while I go online and start shopping for things that sound like a bargain. Not clothes or toys – domain names. I love website names that seem perfectly logical and descriptive – where else would you go, for example, for your continuing education course than a website named EasyCEU.com? (we own that one). And if you’re a new family caregiver, wouldn’t CaringForMom.com be the logical place you’d turn? (Own that one, too; we plan to launch it fully very soon). My husband and I and a small group of our friends have started a Sunday afternoon hiking group for fun and fitness – so I bought hillhikes.com to record our adventures (it’s not live yet; don’t bother checking).

Last night I was shopping for another name I’d thought of (it was taken) and came across a video blog that I paused and watched for a full 5 minutes. It’s not often I’ll even watch a 2 minute youtube video, but this one was right on the mark. I’ll give you the link at the bottom of this page, but be forewarned: the blogger, Bob Parsons, is a Hugh Heffner wanna be (my assessment) and he uses some fairly unconventional props in rather unnecessary ways (again, my opinion only). His message, nonetheless, is right on the money.

Title: Top five ways to make this bad economy work for your business.

Key points: Anyone can succeed in a good economy. In a bad economy, our true measure is taken. It’s your opportunity to show what you’ve really got – making it now means you’re truly successful. So what should you do?
1) Look for opportunities that arise from less competition. Some of your competition will likely fail, fold or retreat, giving you opportunities that may never exist again in your marketplace.
2) Improve your products and services NOW. You’ll stand out while your competition stands still. Take advantage of advertising bargains today – buy commercials you never could afford before; negotiate bigger ads for less money. (Singing my tune!)
3) Find a way to offer your customers more value for less money. People are bargain shopping today like they haven’t in years, and they’re still buying when the price – and the product – is right.
4) Take advantage of the best talent you can hire, at wages you can afford. Build up the talent in your team while you have some excellent, top-quality candidates to choose from. This won’t last, either, as we all know.
5) Renegotiate with your vendors. Your clients are looking for bargains or flexibility; ask your vendors to give you the same benefit. You’re a valuable client to every one of your vendors; don’t hesitate to ask them for added discounts or payment flexibility.

There are bargains – and benefits – all over in this bad economy. I don’t know about you, but I’m shopping!

Here’s the link to see the video blog for yourself (remember, though, I warned you): http://www.bobparsons.me/blog24.html?watch=1

Save one dollar or one million with online training

2009-04-21T16:44:00.000-07:00

Are you still wondering if online staff training can save your organization money? If that question hasn’t yet been answered to your satisfaction, take a look at the latest effort by President Obama’s Cabinet to cut costs and reduce expenditures.

Top of the list is the Department of Agriculture’s plan to cut $1.3 million by switching from in-person training to internet based training.

The Department of Veteran’s Affairs is planning to save $17.8 million dollars by canceling or delaying conferences, turning instead to internet or video conferencing.

It is now a simple, no-brainer: distance training saves money.

Maybe that’s why in the past six months we have seen the biggest growth in new clients in our company, at a time when the same six months have resulted in the worst sales in history for many other companies.

Companies need to save money; at the same time they simply can’t afford to stop providing training and enhancing their workforce. It’s a time when focusing on the little things – the small expenses, perhaps, that add up over time – and the big things – the quality of care and services you provide – are both competing for your attention.

President Obama is taking a lot of heat from critics for proposing cuts that are too small and don’t add up to much. Only $100 million dollars isn’t a lot for a budget the size of the U.S. government’s.

But for those of us who manage our own organization’s budgets, we know that a few dollars here and a few dollars there add up, over time, to significant savings. Online training is a quick, easy way to start adding up those dollars and saving real money.

Today’s opportunity: Create sustainable systems to reduce turnover and more

2009-04-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

As you know, I’m the “glass half full” sort of person. I try to consciously filter out all the doom and gloom of the daily news (“Economic woes much worse than the Great Depression” for example) and focus on the small hidden articles that headline, “Opportunities exist even today!”

Some companies are frustrated because the phone isn’t ringing quite so often. The traffic in the door might be lighter, and the anxiety level higher. But when you consider the quieter times as a window of opportunity to plan and execute some new approaches, it can be exciting, too.

Here’s the question one of my favorite business consultants suggested: what needs to be done in your company to make it function without your daily presence?

The idea for some people may be to move from full-time-plus into semi-retirement, but for many of us the idea is simply to free up our personal time to write a book, to teach a class, to create a new division within our company. If you’re nose-to-the-grindstone day after day, just to keep the current company functions working as you want them to work, you don’t have time for these new creative – hopefully profitable – activities.

You may not be the owner of the company, or even work in the “C-suite”. The same question, however, is relevant: will the functions that you’re responsible for continue without your daily work?

It’s a question of systems, really. It’s a matter of building expectations for each member of the team so that day after day, month after month, year after year, quality outcome happens.

Creating and implementing sustainable systems takes time, planning, effort and energy. You might need to create a beta-system approach, test it, revise it, re-launch it – maybe several times before you get an approach that becomes sustainable.

Maybe one of your company goals is to reduce employee turnover this year. What sustainable systems will you implement to make this happen, month after month, year after year? PHI has an excellent publication titled “12 steps for creating a culture of retention” that sets out researched activities any organization can follow for reducing turnover. It breaks into two major areas: Recruitment and selection and creating a culture of retention.

My favorite step? Step #10: Offer robust learning through training, on-the-job learning, career development and advancement.

For this step, we can help you create the sustainable system to continue to offer every single team member opportunities for professional growth and career advancement.

For the other steps, you’ll need to evaluate, create, test and implement systems that simply make them a part of what happens in your company.

Automatically. Without your daily nagging or hands’ on efforts.

Creating a system that is sustainable takes focus and time. But what better time to create a system for future excellence than today, when perhaps you and other members of your team are just a little less busy than usual? It’s an exciting opportunity. Those of us that grab this opportunity and benefit from it will see results long after the economy’s turned the corner.

The few healthy sectors in our economy

2009-04-07T14:45:00.001-07:00

Six years ago my daughter took Health 11 online from Brigham Young University’s high school online program. We weren’t into home-schooling; she just didn’t want to miss her dance classes and had a scheduling conflict. I think it was the only “B” she got that term, too – the course was very rigorous.

Today, online education is one of the fastest growing segments of education in general – and education is, along with healthcare, one of the few healthy sectors in our economy.

What’s going on?

Simply this: online education makes good sense. It is increasingly accessible and affordable, and it offers individuals an opportunity to grow and achieve without the customary barriers to higher education like time and location.

Our staff here at aQuire Training Solutions is busier than ever, as new clients contact us, ready to get started – without the traditional need for a sales pitch from our team. They know that, to stay competitive, they need to offer training opportunities to their employees. They are hiring the best and brightest they can find, but realizing that to keep those people engaged and on board they’ll need to provide a competitive set of benefits, including continued learning and growth opportunities.

At the same time, companies are looking for ways to reduce any unnecessary expenses. Adding online training is helping them cut instructor time, freeing up that valuable resource for client relationship building, marketing and more efficient management.

They’re cutting down overtime and worker’s comp claims by increasing the level of employee engagement, knowledge and skills.

They’re achieving benefits that, today, are essential for business health.

US News and World Reports noted this trend, saying,

“time-stressed Americans fed up with commuting costs are already choosing online education. More than 4 million enrolled in at least one online course last fall, up from fewer than 2 million in 2003.”

Typical recession behavior tends to find business operators digging in; avoiding starting new programs or services.

This recession seems to be different. Successful operators are carefully examining how they run their company. They’re looking at their highest wage-earning employee’s use of time, and focusing that time on activities that bring the most benefit – short and long-term – to the company.

That’s keeping our team busier than we’ve ever been. Mind you, I’m not complaining!

Compassion fatigue – are we losing our best and brightest to this?

2009-04-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

Science Daily ran a news story April 1 that’s no April Fool’s joke.

The story details the challenges that health care professionals who care for severely ill, dying individuals experience.

“The term compassion fatigue was first coined in the 1990s to describe a syndrome experienced by a healthcare provider caring for individuals facing dire consequences as a result of their disease. Going beyond empathy or "feeling bad" for the person, it effects the nurse, doctor or other member of the healthcare team in a way that he or she often develops a distance from the patient as a way of self-protection.

Symptoms of compassion fatigue include chronic tiredness and irritability, lack of joy in life, engagement in behaviors which are fine in moderation, such as drinking, at a destructive level. Like individuals who have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), those with compassion fatigue often re-experience the deaths of their patients, according to Dr. Carney Doebbeling.

Compassion fatigue can lead individuals to protect or insulate themselves by loss of compassion, cynicism, boredom, decreased productivity, more sick days and ultimately higher turnover.”

In my early days training senior care staff, we used to talk about the one certainty we face as senior care professionals: every one of our clients will die. Some quickly; some after many years in our care. But they will all, eventually, die.

That fact makes us all ripe for compassion fatigue. Perhaps it explains, at least a little, the high rate of turnover that is endemic to our profession.

Jennifer Phillips Graham writes about the arrival of spring – a promise even where it’s not yet a reality.

“Sweet, sweet spring – a time of renewal, growth and new beginnings. We encounter rain, mud and slush, but our step is lighter because we know the end is in sight. We’ve survived cold and darkness, and emerged with a fresh purpose.

When I consider how vital this renewal is to the human spirit, my heart goes out to those who have depleted their reservoirs, those who desperately need refueled.
Is a change in weather enough for them?”

Graham goes on to recommend simple things we can do to support people who may be in the grip of compassion fatigue:

“As birds fly in flocks to reduce the energy they expend, we can join forces to lighten the load of nurturers.”

Send a card or flowers to a caregiver you know.

Volunteer your time to give a caregiver a break…Even a “How you doin’?” can lift the spirits.”

As leaders and decision-makers, we’re often out of the daily grind that breeds this depth of fatigue. But we’re in the perfect position to support these individuals; to recognize that caring, with compassion, takes a toll.

A hand-written card. A walk-through that includes time to say, “hi” and “thank-you” to team members. An extra 10 minutes helping at lunch time in the dining room.

These simple things may be unexpected, and all the more powerful to lift the spirits and lighten the psychological load of the most important members of our team: the compassion-filled caregivers.

Rapid growth in distance education benefits business and individuals

2009-03-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

This week is spring break in Oregon.

I happen to be away, taking a much-needed sun break in Hawaii.

But there’s no getting away from me, even though I’m not sitting at my desk pounding out articles this week.

And that’s the miracle of technology.

No matter where I am, I can make sure that some things still happen on time and for the intended audience. It requires some advance planning on my part, but it’s a pretty nice feature of technology – especially if umbrella drinks and sunscreen come with the deal!

I can communicate with you. You can read my communication when it’s convenient for you; neither one of us needs to be in the same physical space at the same time.

That’s one reason why distance learning is growing rapidly today. Last year, according to the Department of Education, 66 percent of 2- and 4-year colleges in the U.S. offered college-level distance education courses; over 11,200 programs were offered that were designed to be completed totally through distance education. Traditional classroom learning is not only inconvenient for many adults, it is not essential. The quality of many online educational programs is equal to, or better than, comparable classroom programs.

Corporations have grasped this benefit as well. Just-in-time training – available when the employee needs it to do his job, or when it’s convenient for him to learn – is clearly here to stay.

New-hire orientation training, with clear presentation of company goals and expectations, (and maybe a personal message from the President) needs to happen for each employee at the time of hire. Few of us hire in groups; fewer still can afford to provide this kind of training one-on-one.

Customer service training, skills training, compliance training – these are all more examples of instances where distance learning is appropriate; often even preferable.

It’s certainly preferable for the President of the company to be able to send out her personal message…while lying on a beach!

Training an integral part of building your team: a client comments

2009-03-18T11:38:00.000-07:00

The following is a brief, unpaid testimonial about our staff training program, aQuire Training Solutions. We’re sharing this with you because our client, The Wilsonville believes so strongly that aQuire is a vital link in improving their staff retention. We know this is a concern and focus for many senior living communities, and we hope this gives you some ideas that you can use in your organization. And, of course, we hope you start thinking, “Maybe WE need aQuire!”

I’d like to guide you through our successful experience with aQuire Training, our training partner at The Wilsonville.

My name is Rodney Bruck. I joined The Wilsonville eight months ago as their Caregiver Recruiter/Trainer and Career Development Coordinator. I came out of retirement to apply a management education and 35 years experience as an investment/financial and insurance planner and assist The Wilsonville in their quest to be the cornerstone senior assisted living community in the Pacific Northwest.

Early on in my new position I uncovered many faults in the recruiting, training and monitoring practices being employed in our industry. They are the same poor practices followed by many companies: Shortcuts and lack of accountability and follow-up.

I evaluated the problems: high turnover, low productivity, high absenteeism, low morale, high workers comp claims for new hires, and too much time spent with applicants not suited for our industry.

I also noticed that our caregivers were inadequately trained in the key areas of their job description. Caregivers had a very minor understanding of their complete role. Their training lacked clarity and was ambiguous at best. They lacked the skills to perform their jobs.

As I looked further into the problem, I realized we were not utilizing and managing the complete set of tools provided by our partner, aQuire Training Solutions.

We, like many others, were playing the game without any rules or guidelines. WE were the problem. I set out to change that culture and bring to The Wilsonville a new set of parameters to best serve our residents, their families and our entire community as a whole!

To address these issues, we took our evaluation results (retention, job evaluations, workers comp claims, co-workers observations and, most important, resident satisfaction) and asked guiding questions:

What was our "mission and philosophy" and were we achieving these goals?

How could we improve in ALL areas of performance? Not just a few.........ALL!

I then set out to align our procedures to meet our goals, and aQuire Training was my first step in this endeavor.

First, I personally took every one of their courses to become a certified caregiver. I not only took the required courses, I took ALL of their courses available.

This not only helped me determine their quality of training, but also enhanced my credibility and built on my knowledge base. I recommend this as a sound practice for management.

Next, I completely changed our recruiting ads. They now state "You MUST be computer literate." This filters candidates, limiting the pool to only those who are able to process the training in a timely manner. We required prospective caregivers to demonstrate some basic computer skills in my presence (taking a sample course). I wanted to see how they handled the courses, the sample, game, quizzes, and the scored test. If I sensed, or observed, a major problem in this area I discontinued the interview. No need to waste each other’s time.

The results? In 6 months I've placed 13 new caregivers. 12 are still with us and performing at excellent levels. Workers comp claims are down 200%. Morale is at an all time high. Pride of ownership in our community is flourishing. Most importantly, our residents and their families are exceedingly pleased with our care and the professional quality of our staff. It has made all of us a much more cohesive team, proud of ourselves and our co-workers!

aQuire Training Solutions was a key ingredient in making this happen.

Here's my advice: Your communities will all benefit from a close relationship with aQuire Training and the excellent tools they provide. The Wilsonville is living proof of this.

Thanks, Rod!

Rethinking technology in today’s health care world

2009-03-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

Remember the first technology boom in the 1980’s?

I do. It was the first time I starting thinking how we could leverage the power of the internet to improve senior care. At the time, I couldn’t image how that could happen, but the seeds of my current company – all online – were there, even in those early days of trying to figure out how a very personal, hands’ on service could in any way be improved by use of technology.

A lot has happened in the past 20 years. We’re now into “web 2.0” – defined by many as the use of technology to enhance social relationships. It’s also an age where we don’t assume that the latest website fad will take off like a rocket and be worth billions instantly; rather, we know that building a technology or web-based company takes the same kind of effort, focus, product and pricing work that any new company demands. Some of us are a little nostalgic about the wild valuations of websites…but I digress.

As senior care companies, it’s a good time to look at what technologies we use, and what we should be thinking about using, before another 20 years rolls by and we’re hopelessly behind as an industry.

Let me start with what is nearest and dearest to my heart: online learning. If your company isn’t currently using an online training company for at least some of your training, you’re missing some incredible advantages. You’re missing the reach of the web – into people’s homes, offices, worksites – throughout the world. You’re missing the opportunity to standardize your company’s training programs, quickly, easily, painlessly and affordably, company-wide.

One of the coolest features of the internet is the amount of content that is available, and how easy it is to find. You can research your competitors, your mom’s diagnosis and latest prescription, or your idea for a new business name as quickly as you can type it into google – spelled correctly or not. When you find a page or website of interest to you, you can email the link to a colleague on the other side of the world – and he can instantly go to the exact same site, seeing exactly what you’re seeing.

You may not remember the days of photocopying and snail mail, but believe me, it’s a new – and magical – world in comparison!

Whether you’re looking at corporate policies and procedures, or company-wide customer relations training, using the internet as the foundation of disseminating this information is just smart business today. It’s not revolutionary; it’s basic.

Another area of technology that we’re becoming involved in relates to finding – and hiring – the best and brightest. We never intended to start operating a “job board” but we needed a conduit to get applications for a state-wide program without requiring individuals to come to our office, fax or mail us a paper form. I must admit, we’re finally learning how to use less paper, and starting to ask ourselves “can we do that electronically instead?”

It’s a short stretch to electronic job applications. It’s a wonderful stretch, too. Many of you may have found how much fun and effective Craig’s list is for job postings. Post a job and start getting resumes in your email in-box within minutes. Review resumes, ask for more details via email and get a step of the process done – without ever picking up the phone. On our last hire, we even used a website that lets people upload their PowerPoint projects (free) to require all applicants making the first level cut to submit a work sample. It was free, cool, and gave us tons of information about the applicants before ever speaking to one. We trimmed a pool of 30 qualified applicants to 8 finalists before ever talking to one of them. We conducted 7 interviews (one dropped out) and hired one. Two others will likely do project work for us, too, before the year is out.

I’ll never go back to paper applications now that I know how much easier, faster, and effective it is to use the electronic approach. We’ll be rolling out the rest of our e-application website and offering it to you, free of charge, within weeks. Here’s a no-brainer. Won’t cost you a cent, and will save some trees (and, more importantly, some time).

Community management, records management, data management solutions exist and should be as much the norm as using QuickBooks or equivalent is to bookkeeping. If you’re still using ledger paper and a #2 pencil for bookkeeping, you’re probably wondering why you’re behind the competition; the same will shortly be true if your staff are writing care plans and progress notes by hand.

The world of business, especially in the realm of senior and health care, is changing so quickly. This current recession will likely spur even more changes, even more quickly. Where we can identify current “best practice” using technology, we better implement them now.

Then we might just be ready for whatever “senior care 3.0” brings.

Challenges bring innovation

2009-03-04T10:18:00.000-08:00

Challenges bring innovation.

We should be ripe for a lot of innovation, if that holds true in this particular stage in history as in the past.

Here’s one area where we’re involved in offering an innovative solution: providing pre-employment training to individuals who have lost their jobs, making them job-ready to work for you, the senior care provider.

The challenge: one of the highest rates of unemployed workers in the US in decades.

The innovation: offering unemployed individuals an opportunity to gain a hiring advantage in the workforce by pre-training them for jobs providing care to seniors.

The result: employers (like you) can hire individuals who have proven computer learning skills (a plus for the world where computerization is spreading to every day tasks in caregiving) AND training that proves their knowledge base at a higher level than the unskilled, untrained (but willing) individual. An added bonus to you? You may be able to use documentation of their pre-employment training to fast-track the person into their jobs, avoiding the time and expense for new employee training. Orient them to your organization and to the clients in their care, and they’re job ready, quickly, efficiently and at a lower cost to the employer.

It’s a small step in solving a huge, national challenge. But if it fast-tracks the individual into needed positions in senior care businesses and saves you, the provider, time and money, it could be a small innovation that works.

Want more details on how this could work for you? Contact one of our client services staff today!

Extreme Customer Service

2009-02-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

That’s the headline on the cover of the March 2 Business Week.

It caught my eye, since this is a topic we talk about frequently, both among our team members and with our clients. We’re all focusing on doing the little things – and sometimes the big things – to make sure we’re taking good care of the clients we have. That’s reflected in the actual title of the Business Week article, “When Service Means Survival.”

The article leads with a story about a customer of Hertz rental cars. He’s a loyal customer – until he can no longer find someone to check him in quickly with the hand-held, run-to-your-car approach during a rental return. The problem? Recent layoffs left the company short staffed and no one was available to do curbside returns. The result? A loyal customer is now looking to switch rental car companies. As we all know, when getting to the plane, every minute counts.

The problem comes when a company is faced with a need to downsize its work force. Companies with the best customer service satisfaction – many of whom have been through downturns before – know that sacrificing in this area will have long-term results, both in reputation and name awareness.

The solution is to get more out of the customer service people you’ve got by cross-training and providing them with tools to do even more for customers.

In the senior care business this may mean making sure all staff who interact with the public – from receptionist and wait staff to maintenance people and management – are trained to handle questions quickly and efficiently and resolve problems. It may mean preparing your staff to wear multiple hats, too. Receptionists helping wait tables, housekeepers answering phones – these are the sort of cross-over tasks that top-performers are training and preparing their staff to take on with even greater competence and efficiency.

The truly savvy manager will lead by example, motivating employees to cross out of their typical job role to an area that may be outside their comfort zone - all in the name of exceptional customer service. Staff who see the Executive Director busing tables, for example, likely won't be thinking the job is beneath them.

Going the extra mile means getting the top level execs involved, too. One anecdote in the article mentioned a woman who was waiting for a UPS delivery that was very late. She happened to be an avid social networker – a person who lets her circle of friends know exactly what’s happening with her by using a program called Twitter. This program sends out text messages in real time to subscribers. This individual sent out a tweet (a twitter message) that she was getting very frustrated with UPS. One recipient happened to be a corporate exec of another company, having dinner with UPS’s CEO. The CEO got on the phone to the unhappy customer, connected her with the right people who scheduled her delivery at a satisfactory time, creating one very happy customer.

My guess? Hundreds – if not thousands – of people heard about this. One customer’s loyalty grew stronger; many others heard about it.

Today, perhaps more than ever, customers expect to be treated like royalty. They know that we need and value their business, and they expect to be shown respect in every transaction. Training your team – top to bottom – in providing “extreme customer service” is not a luxury. It’s a business essential.

aQuire Training offers customer service training for your frontline staff as well as managers. We’ll also assist you in building unique online customer service training that communicates your company’s message throughout your communities. Contact us to learn more!

It’s STILL all about retention

2009-02-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

This is the richest hiring market I can remember – it’s exciting. We had the need for an additional online course developer, so I reluctantly placed my standard Craig’s list ad. Hiring new people into this level of a job isn’t fun for me, typically. I know that our needs are unique and that few people even know what we do, let alone already know how to do it.

I was thrilled, frankly, with the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of applicants. It ended up being a fun process: I did a very quick sort based on a 5 second read of resumes; all the ones that went into the “basically qualified” pile got an email from me asking them to provide a work sample based on a couple of paragraphs I sent to them. We used a free website for them to load their projects, and they sent me the link to their work sample. We ended up with 30 applicants willing to spend at least 2 hours developing a work sample, loading it onto a sharing site and sending me their link. I limited the size of the work sample so each one only took a few minutes to view, and, from there, we were able to narrow it down to 8 people who seemed to really “get it.”

This week, our new hire started. He not only comes to us with a master’s degree in educational design but also with years of online course development expertise. Most important for me was his intense interest in educating for careers in health. All together, this is an employee who would have been out of my reach at any other time in history (at least since computers have been around)!

You, like me, may be excited about the caliber of new employees you’re gaining. But probably, like me, you’re hearing the voice in your head say, “Yeah, but how are you going to keep them?”

Even though today we can hire them – tomorrow, can we keep them?

One of our clients called us to talk about adding more employees to his online training program. He was excited about the success of the program and started telling us about what he’s doing to hire better – and keep them.

He’s being careful to craft help-wanted ads that aim to a higher applicant, including a requirement for basic computer skills. He also notes that online training is a work benefit. He makes sure all new hires can complete at least a few online courses in the appropriate amount of time (as a part of their probationary period); if not, they’re out. If they pass this test, he assigns them 4-6 hours of training online right away, and then gives them access to all the courses we offer to his group. As he says, he's training his new people right, from the beginning and he's not investing one-on-one instructor time with them - he couldn't afford it.

Of course, he’s also doing other things to make his community a compelling place to work, but his results are exciting. Here’s what Rod says, “Since we’ve started this program we have not lost one new employee – not one!”

I’ve asked Rod to share more of his experience in retention and what he’s doing to make it work; watch for a guest article in the near future.

There are some great opportunities in the middle of this particular crisis. Clearly, we need to do a better job, as an industry, with the retention side of the equation if we’re going to be able to truly benefit from these opportunities.

Retaining your team: Is your organization a compelling place to work?

2009-02-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

I listened to a short “teaser” webcast today for an upcoming conference. Even though the conference isn’t on my list of “must-dos” this year, I loved the title of the session:

“Will they stay or will they stray: Strategies that engage people with programs and organizations.”

The point of the presentation is to get organizations to look at their retention strategies now – when they don’t have to – to prepare for the inevitable next phase when their very survival will depend on retaining valuable human assets.

One of the key points the speaker made was simply this: what makes your company a compelling employer is much the same as what makes e-learning for your team a compelling business decision today.

Did I lose you on that statement? Ask yourself these questions:

Is your company merely “compliant”? That is, does it deliver the essential product the employee needs to stay there – a paycheck – or it is a compelling place to work, engaging the heart and soul of the team?

Are you focused on simply sustaining business as usual (please, God, don’t let it be less than that) – or are you focused on business: better?

Are you taking this respite from rapid expansion and acquisition to focus on the intangibles of business – the very things that will help you achieve long-term success: quality service, keeping customers, building loyalty?

Are you targeting a strategic plan for managing risk and achieving 100% compliance with regulations, company-wide?

Do you bring in high-caliber (high-cost) trainers for that special session on leadership development or are you creating a sustainable culture of learning and personal/professional growth within your organization?

Does every single member of your team – every shift, every location – have clarity of purpose in their job?

It’s an excellent time to take a measure of your organization – and your approach to building the best team possible.

Are you – is your training – compelling? Or merely compliant? At the end of the day, it may well determine if you get your best and brightest human assets to stay – or whether they’ll chose to stray.

HR opportunity and challenges: planning for the future today

2009-02-04T13:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I met with the staff development and human resources managers at a nursing facility that has just signed on to use our online CNA training program. It’s always fun to talk with managers who are excited about their work, and excited about introducing online learning to their team.

We talked about how many people they had applying for training – more than they’ve ever had before. The local community college had called them to see if they could train even more students, since they had over 400 applicants for their college-sponsored CNA training course.

It was refreshing to hear these people talk about the realities of the current hiring climate. They realized that it’s one thing to hire people; it’s another thing to retain them, especially when the economy swings – and it will, sooner or later, swing.

These individuals recognize that today they have an opportunity to hire an unusually high level of talent. We all remember the days – seems like yesterday – when we were into the “any warm body” mode of hiring, simply to fill essential positions.

We have a window of opportunity to hire exceptional people and create an environment for them to bond with us. Hopefully, we can help them fall in love with caring for seniors like we love it. We can help them find the rewards that come with making a difference in the lives of people, not just selling coffee or burgers for an extra 25 cents an hour.

In our online training programs we focus a lot on the emotional aspect of learning. We believe that people don’t truly master the caring skills unless they also begin to internalize the compassion for caring. We want them to fall in love with their job and with their clients.

These managers, completely new to the idea of online training for caregivers, are excited about offering something new; something different. They’re excited about being perceived as a company that is willing to adopt new technology to improve the level of training, and to achieve a cost-effective solution to necessary training.

They believe, as we do, that these are a few of the steps they can take to build a team – today – that will stay even when the job outlook improves and they can make more money elsewhere.

Senior care in tough times

2009-01-27T14:25:00.000-08:00

I’d like to never again hear this phrase at the start of a sentence, especially spoken by the double-bass “voice of God”:

In these financially trying times…

They seem to be followed by words of advice or, really, a sales pitch.

During the years I operated our own group of assisted living communities I can’t remember a time that wasn’t “financially trying.”

Oh sure, there were weeks, months, and maybe even a year or two when all our administrators and executive directors stayed put and stayed on track, and when our nurses, caregivers and other staff were happy and productive.

But there were certainly days and months when it seemed like we were in an “all hands on deck” environment, trying to avoid some pitfall or another.

Start-up, my favorite part of ownership, was exciting – and stressful. If the fill-up rate didn’t match projections, we could quickly drift into “financially trying times.”

The ebb and flow of census, even though it seemed to be almost predictably cyclical, could give us moments of anxiety and worry.

I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about.

My point is that as a business owner and operator, we know trying times. We live them, breathe them, and know that, with focus and consistency we will survive them.

We’ll survive these times, too, at least most of us. Some of us will have built enough cushion to avoid sleepless nights entirely.

Others of us will see opportunities in the challenges and come out ahead.

Those of us who work hard to consolidate expenses, hire and train smarter and more effectively will see a major upside, not just a slow recovery.

We can learn from watching those in our industry who are plummeting publicly and brutally.

And we can grow stronger. Because tough times are no match for tough, determined people on a mission!

Sunwest reader comment

2009-01-23T11:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Duane who commented:

Your point is well taken regarding focusing on the people—both residents and staff. I’ve known both Jon and Darrell since they were in grade school and it’s sad to witness their preoccupation with expansion at any cost. They made calculated decisions to pursue the bottom line at the expense of quality of services. Don’t feel too sorry for Jon. At a hearing in Portland yesterday it was revealed that Jon is being paid $54,000 monthly by the management company retained to turn around SunWest. This is after Jon resigned as CEO.

Good point! Often developers start from the point of wanting to do something significant for elderly then become enamored with the rush of new development...losing sight of the people. It would be nice if we could learn from this and avoid these mistakes in the future, but history doesn't show that we learn very well.

Thanks for your participation in the conversation, Duane!

Jon Harder, Sunwest, and the assisted living future

2009-01-21T11:21:00.000-08:00

I’ve never met Jon Harder, even though we live less than 40 miles apart, and have roots in the same community.

What I know if him I’ve learned from colleagues who are friends and from the media.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the challenges facing many assisted living companies that focused more on acquisition than on servicing the people in their care. Many have now been caught up in bank and mortgage crises, leaving them with little ability to managing the debt that rapid growth bought them.

Of course, hindsight being so clear, we can now see that these companies were over-leveraged and under-managed, in most cases. They banked on a future of free-flowing money, allowing them to continue to build and acquire; and a healthy economy allowing seniors to sell their homes for a profit and continue to fill their new buildings.

For Jon Harder, it has all collapsed around him.

This week’s Oregonian’s front business page posted a brief article, “Jon Harder resigns as Sunwest CEO.”

Jon Harder has resigned as CEO of Sunwest Management. The 41-year-old Salem man, who built Sunwest into one of the largest senior housing companies in the country, agreed to step aside as the controversy and anger swirling around him has become an impediment to the company's reorganization attempts…

This follows Harder’s personal bankruptcy filing on January 1.

It has to be an incredible low point for a man who built one of the largest senior care companies in the U.S.

One of our readers sent me this email last week:

When I was hired, there was a marketing meeting in Oklahoma City, John Harder came and visited, along with Joe Stephenson, his then VP of Marketing. As a seasoned administrator, I was impressed with their aggressive acquisition phase, but nervous as well. One of the managers asked Mr. Harder what his business plan was. He was a little irritated and told us that they (Sunwest) will keep on growing and looking for opportunities for growth and that was about it. I left that meeting feeling hesitant about my job security.

I had a momentary flash on this subject of my own narrow field of vision yesterday, listening to Barak Obama’s inauguration speech when he said,

…We understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom…

It evokes a mental image of the person who determines to make a difference; who takes a risk to create something profound and worthwhile. And perhaps, who does it all without looking for - or achieving - personal glory.

I don’t know Jon Harder. I can only imagine the personal agonies he may be experiencing as he watches the work of his lifetime disintegrate.

What I do know, though, is that our industry will succeed, and will come out of this time of challenge stronger.

Because behind the scenes, every day in every city of our country, men and women “obscure in their labor” work hard to make sure that they are focused on the people in their care – and the people providing that care.

Because in the end, if it isn’t about the people, it isn’t going to stand.

Thriving – not just surviving – in a tough economy: what’s your plan?

2009-01-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

You see the news: senior care stocks are in the dumps. Managers of small, community-based properties as well as those operating multi-state corporations are feeling the pain as the housing market has slowed to what feels like a full-on stop.

Some of the stories about the challenges today are so bad they almost make you laugh, like this one, told in a Boston Globe article recently.

The daughter (Ms. McNabb) is trying to help her father (Mr. Looney) move into a retirement community he had finally selected:

First, the housing market slumped. So McNabb helped him spruce up the house and he lowered the asking price. They found a buyer - who died the day before the closing. McNabb lowered the price again, and again an interested buyer died.

The community they had selected – a life-care community with a large buy-in required – offered an innovative bridge loan, which covered the up-front fee until the sale of the home.

This story has a happy ending:

Looney took advantage of the loan program, moved into North Hill, and a few months later sold his house for $425,000 and repaid the interest-free loan.

If you’re going to survive you’ve got to do something. If you’re going to thrive, you’ve got to do something even more…go farther, be more innovative and effective with your services.

Several of our clients have told us that this year is their year to focus on customer service. Their goal is that every single employee, every single day, treat residents, families and guests in the very best way possible. Good customer service is one vital characteristic of superstars.

Other communities are adding services designed to bring people into their buildings on a regular basis. I particularly like the idea of offering memory enhancement classes; letting the public schedule time on a computer-based memory building program, and other similar programs. Great PR; great exposure.

Others are adding hospice care, in-home care and other services to expand their reach and revenue.

Whatever it is that you’ve chosen to do, one thing is clear: you need it to be effective, and NOW. And you don’t have time to wait for everyone on your team to get the idea of what you’re trying to do through word of mouth – you need to train fast, effectively and thoroughly.

You need to get new hires up to speed immediately on your mission and your programs. You don’t have the luxury of waiting until you’ve got a full “class” to start a comprehensive training program.

And while you’re at it, you need to save time and money. You need training programs to not only be available when they’re needed, where they’re needed, but you need them to be cost-effective. You need training that is available right now, when the employee needs to learn.

We often sell our employees short. “They don’t want to learn anything new,” we say. “They like to do things the way they’ve always been done,” we believe.

But ask how many of your employees are using new technologies today that they didn’t use just 6 months ago. You’ll be astonished how many of them not only have Facebook profiles, for example, but how many have learned to upload pictures, movies and search the internet for the newest, funniest Youtube video, not to mention how many use their computer to stay in touch with relatives across the world using Skype and other newer technologies.

They’re eager and willing to learn new things and to change the way it’s always been done.

They just need to be motivated, to enjoy the process and to have immediate gratification for their efforts.

If you’re going to be among the senior care companies that will thrive in the coming year you’ll probably be making a few changes. And you can’t do it alone.

Sunwest, Brookdale, Benchmark: A reader's response

2009-01-08T09:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Mark Stevenson, for your email in response to yesterday's post:

Dear Ms. Brothers,

I have to ask, any relation to Dr Joyce Brothers? Ok, I got that out of the way.

I am a past executive director of both AL and IL properties for Torch, which is now Merrill Gardens, Alterra, which is now Brookdale and Capital Senior Living, Benchmark and the infamous Sunwest, when I managed a property here in Tyler for them in 2006.

When I was hired, there was a marketing meeting in Oklahoma City, and John Harder came and visited, along with Joe Stephenson, his then VP of Marketing. As a seasoned administrator, I was impressed with their aggressive acquisition phase, but nervous as well. One of the managers asked Mr. Harder what his business plan was. He was a little irritated and told us that they (Sunwest) will keep on growing and looking for opportunities for growth and that was about it. I left that meeting feeling hesitant about my job security.

When I arrived in Tyler and took over a 136 unit AL/IL property, I noticed right away the inability of Sunwest to pay its vendors on time, and the mountains of paperwork we had to fill out just to get approval for capital repairs, it was a mess.

On the other hand, when I worked for Benchmark Assisted Living, I was amazed at the way they did business. They built up their properties and kept most of them at 83% or better occupancy, and carefully and skillfully acquired more ONLY in the New England area and stayed committed to that region. That philosophy has served them well AND, they are totally committed to supporting, training,and encouraging their staff and front line leadership. Their senior management team is great, from Tom Grape on down the line.

The four points you mentioned in your article about the senior living for 2009 are true. The most important is human capital. They either make or break a company. I am so sorry for all those lovely seniors who face uncertainty while living at Sunwest properties and wondering if they will be cared for. The staff that are delivering this care with professionalism and courtesy are in the middle of taking care of their family and their residents. The lazy ones will quit, the dedicated ones will stay as long as they can. The administrators of those properties will face challenges they have never had to endure before.

This industry is very fragile now, and owners and operators need to think about staff and insuring that they are KEEPING their residents by providing great care. And keeping staff by assuring them that they are valued and needed. I love the seniors I have cared for and gotten to know.

Thanks for letting me share this with you,

Mark Stevenson
Project Controls
Data Analyst
CB&I
3102 E. Fifth Street
Tyler, Texas 75701

Thanks, Mark, and no - no relationship to Dr. Joyce!

I think your observations are exactly on target - those companies whose primary focus is on growth are now struggling and may not survive. Those whose primary focus is on service are doing just fine. To which we can say in unison: "Hello? What were you thinking?"

Thanks for sharing your comments and observations, and for joining the conversation about this important topic!

What’s ahead for the senior living industry in 2009?

2009-01-07T14:08:00.000-08:00

The current price for a share of Sunrise Senior Living stock is $1.75. That’s down 83% in the past three months; more than 90% for the year overall.

Assisted Living Concepts (ALC) dropped 30% of their value in 2008; Capital Senior Living lost nearly 50% of value; Brookdale (BKD) lost 74%; and Five Star Quality Care lost nearly 65% of value; Emeritus (ESC) lost 53%.

Sunwest Management, one of the largest operators of senior living communities nationwide, is currently trying to reorganize, liquidate and, somehow survive. On December 31, 2008, the CEO of the company, Jon Harder, filed for personal bankruptcy. Private investors nationwide, many of them individuals who invested their life savings in what looked like a good thing, face the prospect of losing everything. Regulators are watching Sunwest properties closely as well, making ongoing management and operations an incredible challenge.

We’re in a society that is rapidly aging. More and more individuals are requiring care and the need will grow dramatically in the coming year.

And yet some of the companies dedicated to caring for them are on the brink of failure.

It was a bad year in the economy – no one will argue that. But senior living stocks fell much, much further than the S & P 500.

The housing slump has made voluntary moves into senior living communities drop off, as seniors, ready to make the move, are unable to sell their homes. The Dec. 21 news article in The Philadelphia Inquirer (Housing slump has some seniors uncertain) notes that this housing problem has led to many individuals delaying their move to pricey retirement communities, and even more need-driven assisted living communities.

The credit crunch has certainly contributed, as many senior care communities depended on continually developing new properties to boost their revenues overall.

What’s ahead for 2009?

Clearly, investors and operators alike will need to watch carefully, as the economic outlook remains shaky for this year ahead.

But the prudent operator will also need to consider these points:

People: It’s always about the people – those providing the service, and those receiving it. 2009 is a year to focus on what the senior care provider does to attract the best, train and equip everyone to do their best, and then retain them. It’s a year to implement all those great ideas for engaging employees – at every level of the business. This year, wise investments may not be focused on building or acquiring new properties, but rather on building up the people who provide your core service. We know what engaged employees can do for the bottom line; this year it’s time to truly engage them and achieve those results.

Leadership: It’s still a people-focused area, but one that needs microscopic attention this year. Corporate philosophy is great, but carrying that out to the hands’ on folks requires strong, capable leadership. One of the challenges for any rapidly-growing senior care company is finding enough trained, experienced managers in this relatively new industry. Developing programs to groom leaders in-house can also help engage and energize new employees who see possibilities for growth and advancement within the company.

Innovation: The smart senior care operator will look for ways, in 2009, to reach out to more individuals in the community without adding more overhead or taking on new debt. Providing care in seniors’ homes, offering day care, and looking for ways to incorporate technology should be areas to consider this year. Offering classes to seniors in the community at large in key areas of diet, fitness and memory may introduce more people to the company, and may even provide additional revenue streams.

Technology: It’s a great year to make sure that technology is being appropriately, effectively used throughout the company. Company websites need to be updated and interactive, as more and more seniors – and their families – search, interact, and learn from web sources. Community operations, education and training, and other services can be streamlined and made much more effective and efficient through use of widely available technology. For many companies, the ability to monitor revenue, census, compliance and other key aspects of operations – at the click of the mouse – makes investing in these programs invaluable.

One thing is certain: the year ahead will be interesting. It should be a great year to be a senior living operator, especially with attention to the finer points of management.

Assisted Living Christmas

2008-12-24T11:50:00.000-08:00

The reports are not yet compiled for the holiday sales figures, but I’m guessing they’ll be awful. Snow and bad weather has kept many, many people out of the stores; hopefully safe and warm at home.

It’s been nice at our home to focus more on family and friends than on the great consumer adventure – what to buy for our loved ones who, truth be known, have everything they need and most of what they want. What they really need we can’t get them at the mall anyway – a happy relationship for one; a solid job for another; a secure home for yet another.

The business of caring for our country’s most frail, elderly adults continues day after day, even through the holidays. Yet we experience financial challenges and census drops that feel like a fall from a cliff. We know our staff are suffering, and we’re about to cut their hours.

It’s a difficult time for many businesses and individuals today. It can feel so overwhelming that we may feel hopeless; helpless.

And yet at the holidays our thoughts are turned to a bigger screen than the one our own difficulties are played out upon. Themes of peace, joy and love; memories and tradition nudge us out of our own inward focus.

So we turn off CNN and tune into the Yule logs with their flickering image of a warm, cozy fireplace. We put on old melodies we can sing along to (if the kids are out of the room). We wrap the simple gifts that represent our heart’s longing for the true happiness of those we love.

And we take just a minute to say to friends and strangers alike, “Merry Christmas! Have a wonderful New Year.”

Assisted Living Challenges: making the most of high unemployment

2008-12-17T11:49:00.000-08:00

Two sectors of our economy seem to be thriving: education and health care. My company (Institute for Senior Living Education) happens to be nicely poised in the intersection of these two sectors; yours is likely more in the health care/senior care sector.

Unless your census has suffered significantly with the economic downturn, you’re likely in the hiring mode, not the lay-off mode.

Applicants may be, for the first time, plentiful and qualified.

If you’re lucky, you may have this edge in hiring for the next several months.

Taking advantage of it, however, it not a slam-dunk. It may take a little more thought and consideration to be able to hire the best and keep them into the economic recovery.

What can you do? Here are some thoughts taken from a wide range of studies and industries that seem to apply to this environment:

Spend some extra time thinking about the kind of person you’d love to hire for each opening you have. Look at current employees who are your stars in similar roles. What makes them so great? Consider personality, character and other factors that may be independent of experience and training. You may have the opportunity to hire individuals with similar personality traits and train them to become equally valuable members of your team.
Get plugged into technology to help you with the hiring process – now. Never used Craig’s list before? Give it a shot now. Look for other online job boards you can use. Consider utilizing an online application option to allow those interested in your positions to apply online, without needing to develop a resume or fax/mail/drop off an application. Many tools are available, including one developed by my own team that is currently available at no charge to senior care employers (see www.apply2care.com). Link your job postings or want ads to the application website and gain the advantage of being the first employer to see the application, delivered directly to your email inbox, looking tech-saavy and current to your prospective employees at the same time.
Select carefully. You may have the opportunity to interview several candidates for a position – a delightfully new situation for many providers. Involve individuals who will be working with the new hire in the interview process and don’t hesitate to take your time to interview twice, check references, and slow down the process. Hiring carefully now can save you time and money in turnover later.
Think about career advancement opportunities you can offer in-house. If you hire individuals who may be somewhat overqualified for their new position, offer these employees extra training to be ready to advance as opening occur in your own internal career ladder. Perhaps you don’t foresee any management openings; offer training anyway to keep the motivated hire interested and engaged.
Consider additional training opportunities all the way through your team. This is a proven strategy to reduce turnover and increase employee engagement; now may be the perfect time for you to implement enhanced training programs for all your staff members.

While other companies are laying off employees, most of us are still hiring. Take advantage of this change of pace, and build up your team to become the very best it can be.

Senior Care companies can face the economic downturn with boldness and action

2008-12-10T14:33:00.000-08:00

Look outside your window today. In most parts of the country you’ll see bare tree branches, leaves on the ground, and other signs that Mother Nature has gone into hibernation.

Turn on the TV and you’ll see the stock market and other economic indicators looking much the same: they’re heading toward a dormant state, if not a near death moment.

"There is a tendency for companies to simply cut costs and then hibernate to ride out economic recessions," said Alan Black, CEO of Intelliden , in a recent press release containing five strategies for navigating the downturn.

Black goes on to say, "However, as history has shown, by taking smart, pro-active steps during a downturn, technology managers can help their companies be much better placed when the upturn arrives. The current economic downturn will undoubtedly end at some point and those companies that are leaner, fitter and more innovative will likely have the most to gain from the upturn."

While Intelliden is an IT and networking company, some of the strategies are useful for all business managers:

1. Control costs without compromising the business. In the senior care world payroll costs are the biggest cost center. Can you control your overtime or other costs without compromising the service you deliver? Look at areas of employee cost that can be reduced like those related to turnover and training. Don’t skimp on new employee or current employee compliance training, but do look for ways to reduce cost of that training, for example by reducing the need for overtime or higher cost instructors. Do you use agency staff to fill in gaps? If so, you know this is a significant cost center that does nothing to improve your service. Make it a point during this period of economic downturn to eliminate agency staffing and turn that money to improved training and retention programs that have proven effectiveness for quality outcome.

2. Simplify your technology environment. This is an excellent time to look at all of the ways you use technology. Most senior care providers use a mixture of paper and pen record-keeping along with technological solutions. Now is an excellent time to look at all the systems you use. Find overlap and eliminate it. Seek off-the-shelf packages that meet your needs in a more robust, complete manner. A small investment in electronic records now, for example, may save you millions in labor costs over the coming years.

3. Don’t stop innovating. Downturns are times when we may be forced into creative solutions to problems that, in the past, we just kept pushing off to a future date. Don’t shy away from looking at your key problems or challenges as well as your core strengths and objectives. Look for new ways to improve outcomes, increase customer satisfaction and bring in new revenue. Seek solutions – technological or otherwise – to become more efficient at the same time you’re increasing effectiveness. Are you spending too much time on things that aren’t your core business? Contract them out or change the way you manage them.

In nature, the period of a winter “downturn” leads to a vigorous growth phase in the spring. That seems like a pretty great business model to follow.

A Thanksgiving Story

2008-11-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Three Thanksgivings ago we sat down at the extended table with our extended family and felt so incredibly blessed we could barely speak. My father had survived a small stroke; my husband’s father had survived a heart attack and bypass surgery. We didn’t expect to all be together that year, but we were.

A year later, my father was dead and my mother in the hospital, unable to join us for Thanksgiving dinner. We rushed, somewhat numbly, through dinner, avoiding the traditional recitation of blessings.

This year feels a little like that particular Thanksgiving, on a global scale. It’s hard to find things to be thankful for (if you actually open your investment reports). It can be frightening, as companies and individuals we have long looked up to for leadership are faltering – maybe even failing.

And yet. Today the sun shone through the piles of golden leaves. I walked to work the long way, savoring perhaps the last nice morning of the month, feeling healthy, alive and filled with thanks.

Today, we had a chance to help a whole group of individuals begin their journey to become caregivers and nursing assistants. We connected with business associates who are challenged but persevering; and several who are thriving.

My children are spread out all over the globe; one in India and one in Israel. They’re studying, volunteering, and traveling. They’re excited about their adventures and fully engaged in their work of growing into global citizens.

Our table will be a little lighter this year for Thanksgiving dinner. Our bank accounts and investment portfolios are certainly a lot lighter. But when I count my blessings this year – out loud – the list will be long.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Paddling Against the Current to Achieve True Culture Change

2008-11-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

You’re on a raft in a swiftly moving river. Imagine that you’re not entirely happy with the direction this river is flowing – how do you change directions? Can you paddle the raft upstream against all the power of the rushing river by yourself?

If your community has been talking about “culture change” you may well be facing this same sort of challenge. Custom and habit are powerful forces, pushing against any effort you may be making to change direction.

Can you paddle that raft upstream by yourself? Not likely. But get your team involved, and you can push against even the swiftest moving currents.

How do you get your team involved? If you truly want to create a new culture of care in your community, you’ve got to get the entire team involved.

“Deep learning and cultural change are ALWAYS connected,” says Peter Senge, author of “The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization,” (Currency Publishing, 2006) and culture change consultant. According to Senge, culture change is “deep systemic change” – change that begins at the personal level of each employee in the community.

If you’re ready to make some changes, hand your team a paddle:

1) Start the discussion. To achieve culture change you’ve got to start talking about WHAT needs to change and WHY. It can’t be just your perspective – you’ve got to hear what everyone else has to say about this. Being clear about the WHY of change is every bit as important as the WHAT of change, too, so think it through carefully and make sure the WHY aligns with your mission and message.

2) Really listen. Sounds easy. It’s not. Really listening when you’ve begun the discussion means you may hear things that you think are working well may not be working at all out “on the floor.” Keep an open mind, while you’re keeping your ears open, too.

3) Create a culture of LEARNING. To change behaviors (culture), you’ve got to provide an atmosphere where learning is valued. “Learning is always about people knowing how to do something they couldn’t do before,” says Senge. Is your inservice training simply designed to meet compliance regulations? Are you repeating content month after month, year after year? Are you seeing employees learn to do something they couldn’t do before because of your inservices? If not, make a change in your approach to training to truly create a culture where learning and personal growth are valued. Furthermore, to make the transition from knowing to doing requires more than training; it requires leadership. You, as manager, must “buy in, role-model it and require it,” as Fred Lee (If Disney Ran Your Hospital) puts it, to see true culture change.

4) Keep it simple. Life is complex. Change is even more complex. To make change even more challenging, remember this rule: People always resist change. Especially if they don’t understand why they need to change.

5) Reward innovation. When your employees see that you’re serious about changing the way things have always been done, they may get excited about finding new ways to do things. Make sure you reward the excitement – give praise and public acknowledgment and watch other employees get on board. When staff sees innovation and change resulting in positive outcomes they will become advocates for even more change and innovation.

6) Have fun with it. Not surprisingly, the most effective change agents are ones that people enjoy. If you want to introduce a new approach or technology, you’ll be much more successful if it’s fun.

Changing your culture in any meaningful way is like paddling that raft against the current. It can be done, but only if everyone on the team is rowing together

How to break through the wall – creating success in times that feel impossible

2008-11-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

On my daily walk to work I cross a bridge over the Willamette River. It’s not a wide river, but just upstream is a broad, powerful falls. The banks of the river are steep rock walls, dropping over 70 feet from the roadway to the water below. I’ve been walking over this bridge nearly every day for a year now. It’s my few minutes for reflection and planning; lately I’ve found myself thinking about the power of the water.

I see how the water, when it is focused into a narrow channel, can cut through what appears to be solid rock. The water that falls as a soft, blanketing mist much of the winter here in Oregon turns into a force that literally changes the landscape. It cuts its way cleanly through stone, over time.

As I consider that force, I think of two key concepts that I can apply to my work: focus and tenacity. It’s easy in any business to try something a time or two and then give up, looking for an easier way around an obstacle.

Obstacles like a poor economy, however, aren’t easy to get around. When the primary barrier to your success is money, from the client’s perspective, it can feel like a solid rock wall.

Whether you’re talking about a community that desperately needs census building to cover payroll and other costs, or, as in my business, a product that is needed but may not be considered essential to operations, the barriers can feel rock solid and impenetrable.

That’s when I start thinking about the river. It can’t break through a solid wall with a meandering stream. But when the force of the river is focused into a single, powerful jet of water, it can cut through almost anything – given enough time. That’s the second part of this principle – time and consistency. The Grand Canyon wasn’t forged in a single season, but it created a masterpiece over time with the focus and tenacity that is, itself a force of nature.

From my personal perspective, I’m encouraged by news articles like the one out of London that reports that 78% of human resources leaders are looking to online training to reduce their costs in accessing external trainers and resources and 57% are looking for ways to reduce the amount of time staff spend out of the office on training. This report shows a trend toward more companies looking at custom online training as a way to reduce their training expenses while still maintaining a competitive edge during tough times. Of course, this is exactly what our company has been promoting for the past two years, often feeling like we were running into that solid rock wall of resistance.

The expert quoted in the article concludes, "Now, more than ever, it is imperative to have a fully trained and knowledgeable workforce on hand to see you through these tough times but not at the expense of productivity. eLearning solutions such as virtual classrooms, web based training and mobile learning not only minimise the time employees spend out of the office, but they also allow employees to carry out training at flexible times, thereby reducing impact on their day-to-day work."

Ah, a little crack in the wall is suddenly appearing.

I believe I’ll focus and continue to be tenacious, and see if we can create a channel right through this barrier.

What’s your barrier? Take a lesson from the river, and break through it this winter!

Holiday Gift Ideas from my team to yours

Election is over: What’s next for senior care providers?

2008-11-05T15:19:00.000-08:00

Let me first say this: “Whew!”

It was a long campaign. It wasn’t always pretty or nice. There was mud slinging on every side of every issue. Often it seemed that the strength of some people’s passion overruled their sense of basic human decency, not to mention a sense of decorum desirable in a prominent elected official.

We have big issues ahead of us in the coming years. We’ll need to put aside our partisan passions and tap into our passion for quality care for seniors and for the strength of this industry.

We’ll need to advocate for decent pay, training and benefits for senior care workers throughout the US, because if we don’t someone else will (carrying a potentially big stick).

We’ll need to work hard to continue to improve the quality of care provided in senior living communities from the inside out, rather than wait for increased governmental oversight and regulation.

We’ll need to continue to demonstrate not only the social benefits of senior care in our care communities, but also the economic benefits to a society that will soon be staggering under the mounting pressure of an aging population.

We’ll need to embrace technology and clearly recognize a generation of younger people who have felt – perhaps for the first time – the power of their voice and the strength of their vote. These young people were involved in a strong wave of technology-based communication that has changed the face of our society, probably in ways we won’t even recognize until some time in the future.

It’s a new day in America. None of the old problems are gone, but perhaps we can face them with new energy and new resolve.

Elections and the Economy – scare tactics and employee performance

2008-10-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

I got an email yesterday that still has me a little upset. It’s allegedly written by the CEO of a large company, containing a memo he sent out to all of his employees about the upcoming election. He’s encouraging recipients to send the same memo to their employees as well.

I admit, I was curious and read on. The lengthy memo went into great detail about why employees should be concerned about a tax policy that makes their bosses pay more – it could cost them their jobs. The content deteriorated from there – significantly.

After a few deep breaths to get my blood pressure back under control, I thought about the message we send to our staff when we use scare tactics to try to change their behavior – and there are plenty of scare tactics on any side of the election and the economic issues being debated today.

One study, reported in an article titled “Fear as a strategy: effects and impact within the organization,” (Journal of European Industrial Training, 1998), found that “the use of punishment and fear in the organizational setting has proved to be ineffective and undesirable. Managers must try to create an environment and climate where employees can express their full potential and respond to difficult challenges by letting go of fear of failure, fear of change, or fear of risk taking.”

What does work?

Creating an environment that recognizes the value of the individual employee to the organization, not just the leadership or top management.

Investing in employees by giving them tools to learn and grow, to achieve their potential or climb a career ladder within your organization.

MyInnerView, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota and others found five “interrelated and predictive domains” of focus for providers:

Consumer (resident and family) satisfaction (do consumers receive from frontline employees the level of care and service they expect, or more?)
Employee satisfaction (Do employees feel they are heard, respected and valued?)
Workforce stability (Does the company have programs in place that foster the retention of the best and brightest employees?)
Clinical outcomes (Are problems quickly identified and addressed appropriately? Do frontline staff know what to report, as well as when, how and to whom?)
Regulatory performance (Is compliance in all areas of the program a key focus for all staff?)

Every successful company will have plans, approaches and programs in place in each of these five areas. And they won’t be based on using fear as a management technique.

Systems key to building sustainable training program

2008-10-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

Several times each year I spend time thinking about where I envision my company a year from now; five years from now. I find that doing this exercise often makes me adjust, even slightly, my priorities today if I’m going to be aiming my company in the right direction to reach those goals tomorrow.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize what all good managers know: it’s the systems that you have in place that will take you on your desired path to growth, not just the people.

I have to admit that I stutter a little even while typing this. I profoundly believe that we must invest in our people, and that the quality of our people makes the difference in the quality of our service, and our company’s very survival.

At the same time, I know that if either Wendy or Wayne (very key people in my company) leaves or becomes injured and can’t work, I need systems in place to continue the growth and achieve my goals. I can’t afford to have my company’s success or failure dependent upon any one person on my team - including myself.

When we’re working with new or prospective clients we often hear owners say, “The administrator I have in one building loves to do all her own inservices. I think we won’t use the aQuire training system in that building.”

In my owner/operator days, I had administrators who were excellent teachers and administrators who were excellent marketing representatives. I had administrators who never had a single citation during survey, but weren’t ll that great at teaching.

I knew that, without systems to support the individuals, my communities would never move forward. We’d always be fighting the battle of dependency on the person, and worrying about trying to replace the person with someone with the exact same skill set should - heaven forbid - they leave.

David Finkel, (Investor Fast Track) whose advice I always read and appreciate, says that one of the most important distinguishers to move your business forward “is to build a systems-reliant company versus a people dependent business. 90% of small businesses stay that way because they choose the latter--building a people dependent business.”

Finkel goes on to describe a highly successful, growth-oriented business as one “where the key know how for the business has be captured in processes, procedures, and systems that allow that business to get consistently great results with consistently good people.”

Three benefits occur when you move from a people-dependent to a systems-reliant company:

1) Your business becomes much more scalable. You can replicate your business more easily, and more quickly. Imagine the ease of adding new services or new properties quickly and easily.

2) Your business becomes much more stable. If a key employee gets hurt, for example, you no longer are vulnerable to loss of forward momentum or quality service.

3) Your business becomes much more valuable. If another operator can continue your business, with little interruption, the value of that business increases should you wish to sell or leverage the business.

Clearly, these benefits require a commitment to looking at all aspects of operations. It requires looking at the ways “we’ve always done things” and being willing to shake them up.
It will require an investment in a system that will, in the long run, produce a higher return on that investment.

In the area of staff training, a systems-reliant approach may result in a change in the status quo. It may require a financial investment. But your gain can be significant.

You can quickly and easily demonstrate full compliance with training requirements – for surveyors, investors, attorneys.

You can achieve consistency in training content and quality company-wide. Many people thought they’d achieved that with corporate training manuals, only to find that, once again, the use of the training manual was only as good as the person designated to use it.

You can set your company apart from the rest who only do traditional (read: “boring”) inservices, both in your hiring advantage and in your services delivery.

You can continue quality training uninterrupted, even with a change in key personnel.

Sustainability is a bit of a fad word today. But in the area of operational excellence, it's an element you can't afford to ignore.

Thriving in the Coming Workforce Crisis

2008-10-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

You might not be currently experiencing a workforce crisis in your company or community. With the current economy many people are worried about job security. They’re not looking at the want ads so much as being thankful for the jobs they have.

But even today we have unfilled caregiving positions nationwide. And the gap between trained, prepared workers and the positions we need filled is only projected to widen in the coming years.

The Institute on Medicine recently released a report of their 2 year study into the affects of the aging of America on the health care and senior care workforce.

Their conclusions are pointed: “Unless action is taken immediately, the health care workforce will lack the capacity (in both size and ability) to meet the needs of older patients in the future,” says the Institute, in a report titled “Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce.”

By 2030, the number of older adults will nearly double from the 2005 count, and will increase from 12 percent of the US population to nearly 20%.

Some of us are thinking – great! No more vacancies! We can even build more communities, and they will come!

But what about the staff? Who will be around to provide care in our very full communities?

It’s not like we have the problems of recruitment and retention solved in this field. In fact, many developers, owners and operators have been so focused on building and acquisitions it seems they’ve lost sight of the WHO: who is providing care; who is leading those who provide care, and who is caring for the people who provide care.

Focus on the WHO, and start positioning yourself NOW to become an employer of choice; a place where people will want to work, even when jobs are plentiful and hiring competitive. Here are some thoughts that can also help you position for success:

1) It’s all about training. Are you just skimming by with compliance training? Are you expecting your administrators, nurses, or others who are not educators by training or skills to train the people who will deliver your service? If you’re not investing in your front line folks, they’ll be looking for another employer who will. Provide the best training you possibly can, and then let current – and prospective - employees know that you’re willing to invest in their growth.

2) Who’s Leading the Team? One of the strongest reasons to stay in a job is having friends at the workplace. One of the top reasons to leave? A supervisor who doesn’t understand, support or lead. Look for leadership skills in people you’re hiring for supervisory positions; train for stronger leadership in existing employees.

3) Celebrate your Team. What do you do that is special for your employees? How do you celebrate their achievements, successes – how do you celebrate their birthdays and anniversaries? If you can’t list at least 5 things that you do that is unique and special, you’d better get busy. Your staff certainly will, with the want-ads in hand!

4) Invest in the Health of your Team. According to PHI, one significant factor to the upcoming worker shortage may be inadequate health care coverage for caregivers. It’s an incredibly expensive benefit, but the value may far exceed the cost of turnover for an employee group who recognizes the investment.

Watch this: the smartest companies in the field will be the ones who position NOW to become employers of choice. Then, when everyone else is advertising $1,000 hiring bonuses if you “come work for us!” they’ll be sitting pretty, with a strong, vibrant, well-trained staff.

Report from the Ground on CNA Training Online

2008-10-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

This week the only online Nursing Assistant training program in the
state of Oregon hit the 50 student mark. While far short of the goal
of graduating 100 students each month, it is a significant measure of
the growth of this program, launched only a few months ago.

The Oregon Health Care Association (OHCA) in partnership with aQuire
Training Solutions launched the first-ever online nursing assistant
training program in Oregon in July of this year. The online training
program received approval from the Oregon State Board of Nursing
earlier in the year. This learner-lead training program provides 51
equivalent hours of didactic training online, 24 hours of lab and 75
hours of clinical training at one of more than 40 long term care
facilities around the state.

“I started out in the health care field as a CNA, and am well aware of
the ramifications of what is means to work short staffed,” says
Patrick Patterson, RN, CNA Program Director for Prestige Care, Inc.
Prestige Care, one of the largest nursing home operators in Oregon,
has been a leader in participating in this new online program.

“Working short staffed means that our residents lose out on quality
time, and our staff experience higher burnout and more turnover.”

Patterson says he was initially uncertain about replacing classroom
time with online learning. “I admit I was skeptical at first. I had to
step out of the box to take a good hard look at this approach.”

Just a few months into the program, however, Patterson is a believer.
“Once I saw the vision of what this can do for us I put my whole heart
and soul into making it a success,” he says. “We can offer more
classes with this program, as well as providing clinical training in
facilities where we have no classroom space.” In the end, more CNAs
will be trained and ready to fill the critical positions in nursing
facilities and other care settings.

“I’m proud to be a part of this cutting-edge program,” says Patterson.
“In this technological age, I truly believe that this is the way of
the future.”

Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) are the back bone of long-term
care. The aging of the baby boom generation, increased life expectancy
and increased staffing ratios in long term care, coupled with a
decline in the number of nursing assistants being trained by
traditional means, makes this online training program both timely and
essential to meet the growing demand for CNAs. Jim Carlson, Executive
Director of the OHCA, says, “Our online training program provides high
quality, cost effective, flexible and standardized training that will
enhance care in our facilities throughout the state.”

“This course’s curriculum really showcases some of the very best
practice in e-learning for adults,” says Sharon Brothers, President
and CEO of aQuire Training Solutions. “It not only allows the nursing
assistant student to learn at an individualized pace, without having
to attend classroom lectures, but it is also designed to train the
whole person. Students are actively involved in learning new skills
and gaining knowledge about aging and care, as they increase their
understanding of the importance of their work.”

Brothers adds, “We believe that the collaborative effort of this
course will help us train new nursing assistants to deliver the kind
of exceptional care that we all want for our loved ones.”

Those interested in learning more about the program can visit the
online application website, www.OregonCNAonline.com or contact
Brothers at Sharon@aQuireTraining.com.

Challenges in Senior Care? Try the best solution: Training

2008-09-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

It should come as no surprise to you that I passionately believe that better training is the answer to many of our senior care challenges.

Short on staff? Offer employer-paid training as a recruitment incentive.

Quality issues? Provide more consistent, quality oriented training to all staff.

Turnover breaking the budget? Offer genuine training opportunities to staff – this is one proven method to decrease staff turnover.

Need to distinguish your company from other care providers? Create your own in-house “University” and load it with required training content that will help your staff understand – and internalize – your company’s values and principles.

Let me take this one step farther: I passionately believe in online staff training. Not just because this happens to be my business, but also because I believe that it works.

Last week our RN course developer, a life-long educator, reviewed our most recent new course and said, “This course is better than a classroom course!”

This comment was a first for Judy. I think even she was surprised. Here’s why she said it:

The content is written in an interesting, engaging way (not too many words; designed for a fast-food generation of learners);
Images that illustrate the point and carry emotional weight are used throughout – more pictures than words, in most cases (we know today's learners are highly visual);
Audio overlay allows the learner to hear as they read, making it not only more memorable but even a mini-ESL course for those who can understand English but not read it and vice versa (since many senior caregivers are not native English speakers);
The course is interactive, requiring much more of the learner than just passive listening.

Judy went on to talk about her classroom experience, and her experience watching other inservice trainers and instructors.

“Even in the best of cases, much of the time you’re simply lecturing,” she said. “Giving the person the opportunity to interact with the content is simply more effective – and more fun!”

Thanks, Judy, for echoing my beliefs. Training does have incredible benefits, but training MUST be an active event, not passive video viewing or lecture snoozing.

But can they Learn Online? A look at generational differences and how they learn

2008-09-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

A recent article in the eLearning Guild’s magazine, Learning Solutions, is titled “Understanding Today’s Learner.”

This article takes a look at today’s workforce comprising individuals from 4 different generations, all still active in the workforce.

Age isn’t the only thing that separates these four groups. How they learn, and how they have adapted to technology also varies dramatically from group to group.

Veterans (born 1925-1945): These are the oldest workers still in the workforce. Many of them work in senior care as caregivers, cooks, housekeepers or managers. They tend to be “loyal, hard-working and dedicated” and, as learners, prefer the traditional ways of learning. These individuals are commonly thought of as the folks who don’t know how to use technology and who will resist it if introduced. And yet…

In a recent support group composed primarily of spouses and children of people with dementia (average participant age at least 60), all but two participants indicated a daily use of email and the internet. Many asked repeatedly, “Is there a website I can go to to learn more about this?” (Note to senior care providers: Who’s manning your website?)

This age group will use technology to find answers to their own needs, especially as it relates to their health, and will be thorough in their reading of a website or other digitally presented content. Many of these learners are the most focused in their approach to learning online. While you may need to encourage employees in this age group to get started learning online, once they master the basics, you won’t have to continue to encourage, reward and motivate this learner. They’ll be hooked.

Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964): This generation, frequently called the “Me” generation, focuses on personal accomplishments and achievement. Many of us have balanced career and family our entire adult lives and believe that, with focus and hard work, we can “have it all.” Many of today’s mid and upper level managers are from this generation.

As learners, this population didn’t grow up with their hand on a mouse, but they have adopted technology and use it in their daily lives. They are the fastest growing segment of new Facebook users (the social networking site that started as a college networking tool), and, when the value of e-learning is presented to them, they rapidly adopt and use it.

Generation X (born 1965-1979) and Generation Y (Born 1980 – 1995): These learners grew up with technology, especially the younger Generation Y folks. They tend to be highly social, to multi-task easily and frequently and to assume that learning is their right – after all, they never knew a time when the internet wasn’t available for them to “google” a subject and quickly gain knowledge.

As learners, this generation, our largest employee group, wants to see several things, whether in a classroom setting or online:

They like small bites of information, and they prefer to have freedom to quickly explore and learn, following their own paths rather than prescribed paths of discovery and learning.

They are easily bored (that’s a news flash!) and prefer their information delivered with more visuals, sounds, video and images rather than lots of text to read and digest.

They love to interact with others while they learn, casually throwing off ideas, thoughts, or reactions, blogger or instant message-style, to their friends or co-workers.

They prefer to have learning available to them so that they can access the knowledge when they need it; a “just in time” approach to learning that online learning has made possible and accessible.

They can learn new things without close guidance. These are the kids, after all, that not only programmed our VCRs but that learned to use their iPods, google and other technology without our help.

This learner wants to learn quickly, easily, and without being bored. They will be clear that even online learning can be boring, especially when presented with linear, simplistic content that doesn’t allow or encourage freedom to navigate and explore.

This is the employee, too, that will begin to demand options to mandatory training. They’ll assume that any large, sophisticated company will offer training options that fit their needs and their schedules. They’ll seek out information on topics when they need and want it, whether it is company provided or not. They may, in fact, choose an employer that offers more learning opportunities above one that does not.

Today’s workforce is the most complex in history. Knowing how your employees learn, and adapting your training programs accordingly, will help you build the strongest, most effective team possible to compete in today’s market.

Need to Save Money? Focus on Staff Training

2008-09-16T11:24:00.000-07:00

The economy is pinching even the most robust company today. Certainly individuals are feeling it. Companies are seeking any place to cut even small amounts from the expense side of the ledger.

One area that simply can't be cut is basic staff training. Requirements are increasing; compliance is getting tougher; licensing is focusing on staff orientation and training; liability risks increases dramatically when training is slighted.

All this leads the smart senior care operators to ask this question, "How can I save money without sacrificing compliance and quality care?"

One answer many are finding is in technology. Use of distance learning is increasing quickly in every segment of society, from universities, where it now holds the same credibility as classroom education, to business, where time and money constraints have led to massive increases in this approach to training.

Brookdale Community College (New Jersey) notes that their distance learning courses - once considered a paltry substitution for classroom courses - have experienced a "'phenomenal' growth in popularity," according to a recent news article. Convenience is the primary reason for the growth, as more and more students (and employees) are pressed for time.

In private industry, online (distance) learning is experiencing explosive growth.

Is it for you? Ask yourself these questions:

How much am I currently paying in overtime for staff training? Overtime is one of those hidden expenses that you may not count when you're considering how much your current training program costs. With online training, you can often reduce or eliminate this cost related to training - frequently more than paying for the cost of a new online program.

How much time (and money) is spent in preparing for training, presenting training and in follow-up documentation? If your community Administrator, Executive Director or other top level executive is responsible for staff training, consider the cost of this individual's time as well. Most managers aren't necessarily good teachers; their time is much better spent in managing and marketing your very valuable asset. Shifting this cost can actually save you significantly in terms of the bottom line.

Can I demonstrate, at any given moment in time, full compliance to all training requirements? At the end of the day, this is the most important question of all. Compliance is extremely hard to achieve with the standard inservice approach to staff training. Someone is always sick, on vacation, or simply forgets about the inservice. Make-up classes are time-consuming and costly. Full compliance is not met, in most cases, without focused, dedicated management attention. And that costs money - lots of money, especially if you're caught out of compliance.

Clearly, it's a good time for companies of all types to look closely at ways to cut costs, especially when they can do with without sacrificing quality and outcome.

aQuire Training Solutions - when it's TIME for truly effective staff training.

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Committing to Employee Engagement - Lessons from Community Colleges, Part 2

2008-09-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

In Part 1, we looked at the five lessons the CCSSE (Community College Survey of Student Engagement) had learned in its five years of studying student engagement.

This week, let's look at their "Five Strategies That Work" to increase the level of engagement campus-wide.

#1: Set High Expectations and Clear Goals.

Once in a while I'll hear an Executive Director or top manager say something like, "I can barely get my staff to come into work on their scheduled days, let alone do something extra like take an online class." That same manager likely sets pretty low expectations in other areas of her team's performance. Likely, the expectations are pretty much about all staff can meet.

Interestingly, in the community colleges study the researchers found that you could tell, almost instantly, what the expectations and commitment of management is as soon as you walk onto a campus. The actions - and the focus of problems and solutions - clearly reflect the attitude of management. Is the focus on the team's skills or on their deficiencies? Is the discussion centered on challenging problems or difficult people?

Interestingly, "Institutions that expect students [employees] to perform well use language that communicates students' [employees'] value and potential. This language helps set high expectations for students [employees] - and it is contagious."

#2: Focus on the Front Door.

We're all concerned about turnover. In the college setting they refer to it as "attrition," but it's the exact same problem.

One solution that works: focus on people as they come in the front door. From the first moment of hire, look for ways to actively engage the person in his or her work and work environment. Make sure the job is both challenging and rewarding, and help the person make social connections as well. Getting through those first 90 days often spells success for the employee - or increases your turnover rate.

#3: Improve Early Education and Training.

Once again, the study found that the first semester of the person's work was the most important. This translates directly to our work too: employees who feel like the have not been given the initial training they need to do the jobs assigned to them typically are the first to leave or, if they stay, the least engaged.

Early, specific training - especially during the first 90 days - is crucial for building a stong, engaged team.

#4: Use Engaging Techniques in Training and Education.

Even in a college-based study, researchers found that the time that the individuals actually spent studying and learning was in high competition with their other life demands: work, family and friends.

In a caregiving setting, the time spent in training is even more thinly sliced. Making that training as engaging and effective as possible will help the employee gain maximum benefit from it. Certainly, doing just the minimum - consisting in some cases of the old "read and sign" approach to training - will likely create an environment where training is just one more element competing for limited time in the day of the employee. It will lose value - it will become a barrier, not a benefit.

This can be easily remedied by creating or utilizing training approaches that engage, challenge and interest the employee. Training of this sort has multiple positive outcomes for both the individual and the company.

In addition to engaging training, however, the study found that having the opportunity to discuss what the person has learned with a supervisor (or instructor) dramatically increases the person's engagement. When someone else is actively invested in the growth of the employee, benefits are considerable.

#5: Make Engagement Inescapable

In the college setting, this happens by making meetings with professors mandatory on a regular basis. It happens by making class discussions an integral part of every class. They can require collaborative projects, connecting students with other students.

In the work setting, engagement clearly needs to be just as intentional. Requiring goal-setting meeting with supervisors on a regular basis, for example, can facilitate those one-on-one meetings that are clearly valuable in building engagement.

Fostering team interaction through regularly scheduled pot-lucks, parties, note-exchanges or secret pals are examples of ways to make engagement virtually inescapable for every member of your team.

Employee engagement has clear benefits. Learning from these college experiences and applying them in our own work settings can help us find solutions to building highly engaged, successful teams.

EasyCEU.com: CEUs for senior care professionals · aQuireTraining.com: Staff training for caregivers · Apply2Care.com: Caregiver job applications right to your inbox

Committing to Employee Engagement - Lessons from Community Colleges, Part 1

2008-09-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

You know all the benefits that an engaged workforce can produce: less turnover, happier clients and a much stronger bottom line.

You've probably been taking steps to look at ways to actively increase your own employees' engagements - we all have been.

So when an article came across my email box the other day titled "Committing to Student Engagement: Reflections on CCSSE's First Five Years" I opened it with interest. CCSSE is the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, and five years into their survey process here's what they have learned about engagement:

Lesson #1: Be intentional.

The study talks about students who are busy juggling school, family and work. These students don't have time to seek out study sessions or get excited about the school's bigger picture (sounds like our staff, doesn't it?). The conclusion: "Engagement doesn't happen by accident; it happens by design. Community colleges, therefore, must be deliberate and aggressively create opportunities to involve students so that engagement becomes central to every student's experience." Substitute the word "employees" in place of "student" and "company" in place of "colleges" and you get the idea. We've got to actively work to make engagement happen in the workplace, as well.

Lesson #2: Engagement matters more to some people than to others.

Some people need to be engaged to work at their best. Others work quietly, thoroughly and maintain a level of loyalty and engagement that seems to come naturally to them. The lesson here is not to look at your employee group as all one type, but to recognize that different people will have different needs for engagement, and will need different methods to effectively engage them in their work.

Lesson #3: Part-time people are often not considered in plans to increase engagement.

We all have part-time workers who fill out our schedules and help us adjust to the varying needs of our clients. Do our engagement programs consider their needs? Do they effectively draw in those individuals as well as the full time folks?

Lesson #4: Information is our friend.

Sometimes transparency in data and information is vital to building an engaged group. Do your staff understand your goals and progress made to achieve those goals? It's pretty easy for staff to see large monthly rents or fees, do the quick math, and come to the conclusion that companies are making tons and tons of money, not considering the real costs of running a business. Sometimes a little transparency in this and other operational areas goes a long, long way to increasing employee engagement.

Lesson #5: Look behind the survey results.

You may do regular employee satisfaction surveys - if so, you are to be commended. But taking the time to look behind sheer aggregate numbers may yield rich veins of information that you can use to strengthen engagement.

Next time we'll look at what the same study presented as strategies for improving engagement - excellent ideas and plans that we can steal a little from as well.

EasyCEU.com: CEUs for senior care professionals · aQuireTraining.com: Staff training for caregivers · Apply2Care.com: Caregiver job applications right to your inbox

Corporate Training in State of Transformation

2008-09-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

Corporate training is undergoing a transformation. Resources are getting a little tighter, and expectations are higher. The focus is on employee engagement, retention and building the dream team that will carry the company to success.

In the process, Corporate America has its eyes on training.

"Much of the daily chaos [in senior care] can be decreased when carefully selected staff receive proper orientation, training and ongoing education," notes culture change expert Susan Gilster in her recent article published (with Jennifer Dalessandro) in July/August Advance for Long Term Care Management. Gilster goes on to list some of the positive effects of focusing on training: better care, better decision-making, better family relations, improved feelings of job security.

As training starts to get increased emphasis, other transforming forces are changing the way employees are being trained:

Increased requirements for training and documentation. No longer is a "read and sign" inservice considered adequate. Most states are moving toward requiring "evidence of learning" (read "test") and a documentation of passing the test. Meeting these new, higher standards requires extra time, money and staffing on the part of many companies. Many companies are urgently looking to solutions that can help them meet 100% compliance, while not increasing their bottom line expenses.

Increased risk of lawsuits. Missing training documentation is a big red flag for lawyers. Sign-in sheets are worth a little; individual training records, complete with test scores and certificates are worth considerably more. With assisted living increasingly in the sights of wrongful death, elder abuse and similarly focused attorneys, evidence of staff training that meets and exceeds requirements is essential.

Increased OSHA inspections. How well is safety training being done? OSHA has begun targeting senior care facilities for inspections - and violations of standards come with hefty, mandatory fines.

Increased access to technology. Not only is e-training more affordable than ever, but internet connectivity is more accessible. New hires often come with skills in using computers, email and the internet; computer equipment is affordable to even the smallest provider. Suddenly, what seemed a technological barrier is now an approachable - and substantial - resource.

If it's time for a transformation in your company, take a close look at training. The benefits are significant and the access to quality resources is better than ever before.

Culture Change from the Inside Out

2008-09-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was talking with a colleague in a state office about staff training. Somehow we got onto the subject of culture change. It's a hot topic here in Oregon, as it is around the nation right now. It's a topic that's hot not just because it's an "in vogue" concept - it's hot because it's desperately needed. We're facing mammoth problems of staff turnover, lack of employee engagement, and a continued negative viewpoint within our society on senior care options - from retirement housing through nursing facility care.

We talked about how hard it is to change a culture of care, especially when business needs, not to mention regulatory compliance, seem sometimes to directly conflict with our goals of creating the ideal culture.

It's of increasing interest to me as the topic moves from the theoretical to the personal.

As a senior care professional with more years in the trenches than I care to count, it's an interesting experience convincing your own parents to move into senior care. My mom moved willingly after my dad passed away nearly 2 years ago. It's been the in-laws that have given the whole family fits.

My mother-in-law, dead-set against ever moving out of her home, has been growing increasingly forgetful, difficult to communicate with and depressed. My father-in-law, normally a socially outgoing person, has retreated so far into his home that it has begun to feel like a prison to him. Even his speech has become forced sounding, as he talks less and less throughout the day.

Shortening a long story into a brief summary, they're finally moving into a senior community next weekend. My mother-in-law called me the other day and said, "We've asked everyone we meet how they like it. Everyone has told us they love it there. I can't wait to be that happy again."

Meanwhile, she's exclaiming over and over about how many old people there are in this place. We began to gently point out that, at 90, she's right up there with them, when she stopped us and said, "I don't mean that they're old - I just mean that there are so many of them. I thought I was the only person my age still alive!"

Watching both parents smile more, talk more freely, and even walk with a little more spring in their steps is worth all the past years of convincing them to move.

What I find, in addition, is that this whole topic of culture change is now much more personal than it has ever been. It's me - my mom - my in-laws that need care. It's my family that is affected personally and directly.

And so the topic of how to truly effect culture change seems to come up more often, as I discuss it with colleagues and keep in on the board with my team all the time.

My colleague and I discussed how sometimes culture change happens best from the inside out - or from the bottom up, as it were.

Consider her example of teaching staff in nursing communities to use gait belts to assist heavy-care individuals in transferring and walking. Even though it had become "best practice," some communities didn't even have gait belts, let alone teach staff how to use them.

So she decided to add it to the new caregiver training curriculum mandated by the state. As new caregivers were trained to use gait belts during initial training, they began asking their supervisors to please provide them. Now, gait belts are common and available nearly everywhere in the state. It was definitely a more effective way to change that particular part of behavior than mandating that all staff shall use gait belts.

What if we teach principles of resident care and of working together in the same manner? As we turn out new staff, trained in new ways, we can change the culture from the inside out - from the bottom up.

It might just be the way culture change really has to happen.

Perspectives in Training - or Why Start Now?

2008-09-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

We were into our second hour of listening to a speaker drone on about interpreting our facility’s electric bill. My mind was as glassed over as my eyes, when I happened to glance over at one of the four Administrators from our company who were with me at the seminar. She looked at me, and nodded in that way that told me she understood exactly how I felt – this was the single most boring moment of our lives. And, we’d done it to ourselves.

In our effort to meet licensing requirements for Administrator Continuing Education Units (CEUs), we’d signed up for a 2-day conference held in a nearby casino, thinking that even though the topics were horrid, we’d have some fun after hours gambling.

Instead, we’d spent the night wrestling with sheets that never quite stayed on the mattresses, followed by $10 breakfasts of soggy toast and dried out eggs. The casino was so smoky we couldn’t find each other across the room, and we’d all lost our gambling money. We were really having some fun now!

We came home from that conference determined to change our company’s approach to continuing education – once and for all! Never again would we attend a class just because we needed the credits. From now on, we were going to choose only classes that truly interested us, and that we believed would help us run better facilities, no matter what that took.

Since then, we’ve gone to all corners of the country seeking out the very best training opportunities we could find. Along the way, we started developing our own alternative to boring classes that allows us to complete those pesky required CEU hours without leaving our homes or offices (check it out on www.EasyCEU.com ).

But what else we gained from this decision has been staggering: we learned techniques to make teaching our own staff inservices fun and effective (really!); we improved our skills as managers, and we added features each year to our own facilities to make them continue to stand out from the competition.

We came home from these carefully chosen conferences fired up and excited. We had new things to try to motivate staff! We had new ideas for delivering services to our residents and families! And we knew a new marketing secret or two!

And guess what: our facilities prospered financially in ways we had not achieved before, when we were just trying to meet the requirements. We could afford to travel to these national conferences, and stay an extra few days to take in the sites of whatever part of the country we traveled to. These “retreats” helped our group of Administrators grow into a supportive team, willing to drop whatever they were doing to help each other out when needed – instead of competing for precious company resources like they’d done in the past.

We developed training games to use with our staff too, as our commitment to training in a meaningful way grew. For the first time, staff began to beg for even more inservice training, and our Administrators were able to provide that training (check it out on www.aQuireTraining.com).

Here’s what else we gained: a determination to see every employee in every one of our facilities, every day, come to work saying, “I love my job!”

We discovered that this love of the work of caring for our very special residents is more important that any other single employee qualification. With this attitude, we can easily teach skills and knowledge that each individual needs to do their job to the very best of his or her ability. Learning is fun, interesting, and helps them find even more satisfaction in their daily work of enriching our residents’ lives.

Every day we can “train” while walking through the building giving feedback, tips, encouragement and approaches to care. We can model a love of learning also, by coming home from our specially selected conferences excited about what we’ve learned, and eager to pass our new knowledge along to our team.

So I’m not surprised that every study about Assisted Living concludes, “We need more staff training.”

We do need training, but we need training that motivates, that stimulates, and that re-charges our batteries for this work we do. Just mandating more CEU or inservice hours is not the answer. We need individual facility and company commitments to making training meaningful, not just mandatory. Then, and only then, will we move this profession to a place where we’re not continually being threatened with ever increasing numbers of rules and regulations. We’ll start directing our own path toward a quality of service that will be welcomed by the public, instead of feared as “institutional.”

Opportunities for quality learning are out there – you simply have to look with an eye toward enriching your work, not just meeting your requirements. But you also have to be determined!

Counting your Blessings

2008-09-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

We're heading into the last days of summer. I don't know about you, but global warming (or something) has given us one of the nicest summers we've had in years. I've taken less time off this summer than usual, but I think I've enjoyed it more. Work has been exciting and fun (and weirdly, it has been where I want to be this summer); and evenings have been spent with family and friends, enjoying the unusually balmy, long summer twilight.

I have focused this summer on counting my personal blessings, of which I have many. At the same time, I consider some of the other things I'm thankful for:

People who come to work every day, excited about their jobs and invested in the outcome.
Entrepreneurial operators willing to venture into the unknown to help them achieve big goals of being the best in senior care.
Reminders that success comes in many forms, not just in the bottom line.

And finally, I'm thankful for the many people who work quietly and steadily, making this world a better place for my mom, for my in-laws, and for all the folks who are simply seeking a little comfort and joy in their waning years.

Blessings,

Sharon

Sharon K. Brothers, MSW

President and CEO

Sharon@aQuireTraining.com

Corporate Training in State of Transformation

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