Tough Topics for Senior Living
The Era of Wholehearted Leadership
“Everyone has a story or a struggle that will break your heart. And, if we're really paying attention, most people have a story that will bring us to our knees.” – Brené Brown
Senior living serves and employs some of the nation’s most vulnerable populations… And most individuals responsible for making decisions – that impact entire organizations – do so without truly understanding the experiences of those whose lives they wield so much power over.
Consider this!
Take a brave look at how prepared organizations are to handle change.
Scenario 1: An applicant navigates their way into the candidate pool and is hired. Their spoken English is fluent, but as their second language, the printed training materials are frustratingly challenging.
Scenario 2: The tenured administrator at a historically full building has made the decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery. The board is struggling with the decision to consider another candidate at the end of the contract period, with no tools or guide to managing staff and resident communications around this topic.
Scenario 3: As the community’s newest depositors put away their checkbook, the sales director is left feeling deeply uneasy. The couple walks out and the realization dawns on the salesperson that the chance of the current residents offering a warm welcome to this lesbian couple is very slim.
These scenarios represent very REAL situations that TODAY’S providers are facing and the areas where TOMORROW’S communities should position themselves to succeed.
What’s driving your decision-making? For senior living prospects and potential employees, it all comes down to one thing… EXPERIENCE. Senior Living is an industry entirely dependent on an irreplaceable human element.
It is time to put down the cape and break out the pencils. You don’t need superpowers to harness eKPI. This is a job for ADage’s Human First Philosophy.
We start by applying the human gaze to organizations – which are, conveniently, comprised of people. Take a moment to evaluate the stakeholders at the value negotiation table:
Residents
Families
Staff
Leadership
Referral Partners
Supporting Vendors
Both current AND prospective!
Experience Matters.
eKPI is an abbreviation for Environmental Key Performance Indicator. Since ‘“environment’” is not welcome in the senior living vernacular, and because we’re talking about it's more than just the physical building, it shall forevermore be known as Experiential Key Performance Indicators.
Most senior living organizations are not prepared to do what it takes to manage the components of EXPERIENCE – and continue to underestimate the importance of getting it right.
NEWS BULLETIN: We are ALL Human First.
Rory Sutherland said, “The fact that there is much more to human behavior than we thought is an annoyance to those with a love of false certainty, but a gift to the intuitive marketer: it allows you to consider and experiment with a range of behavioral interventions which would previously have been rejected as illogical, or which might have been rejected in market research…”
“Having a creative and experimental marketing mindset to bear on problems, since they suggest that the twin lenses once confidently used to inform business decision-making about customer behavior – namely mainstream economics and market research – are not sufficient for good decision-making.”
Design Unforgettable Experiences.
While your sales and marketing teams work tirelessly to represent your company, ultimately, your brand is defined by what others say about you. And let’s face it: – We currently live in a time where nearly everyone has something to say. Customer experience is no longer taking a back seat to product development and pricing research and has become equally important. AMC Technology reports that customer experience currently drives more than 60% of brand loyalty – more than price and product combined.
So, why has customer experience become so influential to the experience/journey in 2023?
Technology plays a bigger role in decision-making than ever before, and most consumers research online before making decisions.
82% of customers prefer working with brands that foster authentic connections.
Companies discovered that consumers spend even more time researching before making purchasing decisions in times of economic uncertainty.
89% of US consumers who have a negative experience are willing to jump ship to a competitor.