Three ideas to strengthen your community relationships

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

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

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?

1. 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.


2. 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.


3. 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.


4. 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

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

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:

1. 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?


2. 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?


3. 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?


4. 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?


5. 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

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

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:

1. 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.


2. 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.


Training employees in a consistent way has been demonstrated to affect turnover in a significant way. Reducing your turnover is one key element to improving your quality of care – and that means a higher census and a bigger bottom line.

Annually required courses that actually build on knowledge and skills, rather than just repeat old training, is not only appreciated by staff, it’s a sign of your commitment to make training real, not just a compliance check-off. It is also vital to any corporation who wants to stand out from the crowd; who wants to say, “Our employees take special care of your loved one – experience it and you’ll see the difference.” You’ll only deliver on that promise if you truly train for a higher level of care than the next company. Not just today, but every single day, throughout the entire year.

How do you build sustainability in service delivery? You set up a standard of training for each new employee, a standard for every existing employee, and you develop reporting and accountability systems – and incentives – on the part of your managers.

Then you can join me on the beach for a month, knowing the quality of the service you provide will continue to remain consistent and sustainable.

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.