Industry disruption and disruptive innovation.
That’s been the theme of our blog series, and we’ve looked at everything from the coming senior housing industry shift to creating communication that fuels innovation.
Before we conclude this series, we’re looking at one final topic for innovating where it counts—culture change.
Culture is critical for transforming how you drive top-line revenue. If you want to adapt to the coming Silver Tsunami, you need the right culture…ingrained and interwoven into every level of your organizational structure.
By now, it’s clear that changing how your organization radically meets customer needs requires a different kind of atmosphere in your senior housing organization.
But culture transformation starts with your senior housing leadership.
Just consider these stats from Access Perks, citing a report by CultureIQ:
- “56% of employers say they are unable to actively manage culture because they lack leadership support.”
- “52% of organizations believe that leadership buy-in is the biggest obstacle to strengthening a company’s culture.”
- “83% identified executive leadership as the driver of company culture.”
And—as a senior living leader—it’s up to you to lead the charge.
Keep on reading to discover our guidelines for implementing cultural transformation in your operation.
Analyze Your Senior Housing Culture
Creating the right culture starts with identifying gaps.
It’s important to see if there’s a discrepancy between your current culture and the culture you need to create innovative disruption.
For instance, at Bild & Co’s organizational retreats, we’ll do an analysis of each operational level involved. That’s because we can’t provide solutions without understanding the current situation of team members.
In the same way, before making any changes, conduct an intense listening campaign within your organization to assess your culture.
Announce the Change
Don’t keep your initiatives to your C-suite or board of investors.
If you want to radically alter your organizational culture and ensure everyone gets involved, you’ll need to build excitement.
Communicate your vision to your entire senior housing operation.
Explain how the change will create outcomes for each level in your organization—improved time management for your regionals, increased occupancy for your EDs, better conversions for your counselors. Get specific.
Clearly Explain Each Organizational Role
In addition to announcing the change, you’ll also need to demonstrate how each team member matters in the big picture.
Shifting your senior living culture requires complete engagement from your teams.
Sales counselors need to know their performance impacts seniors and the operation’s top-line revenue. Operational teams must understand the value they can bring to top-line growth…and the list goes on.
Whether you’re hosting a webinar or holding a company-wide call, spell out how each person is vital to your objectives.
Give a System
At some point, it’s time to roll out a new way of doing business.
But that won’t happen by simply throwing around buzzwords like “accountability” or “meeting KPIs.” As we discussed in our last blog post, you must attach a plan to your initiatives.
(To establish your system, make sure you leverage a top-down approach. Want to see what we’re talking about? Read this success story on how our client reversed a $2.5 million budget deficit…and achieved $1.5 million in increased revenue.)
Inspect What You Expect
A culture shift won’t happen overnight.
Your organizational change initiatives will meet slow adoption…or even resistance.
That’s why it’s important to inspect what you expect, and the key to this is benchmarking and accountability for every level of your organization.
It’s important to see if…
- Regional management is focusing on equipping site-level teams with skills…not micromanaging.
- Executive directors are providing the ongoing evaluation needed within each community.
- On-site teams are meeting KPIs for conversions and outreach.
What Keeps Senior Housing Organizations from Success
In this series on disruption in senior housing, we’ve talked about…
- Understanding industry disruption.
- Radically serving customer needs.
- Having the right leadership.
- Having the right communication.
- And, finally, creating the right culture.
But the key to meeting industry disruption with disruptive innovation isn’t simply knowing what needs to change in your operation…
It’s knowing how to change your operation.
At Bild & Co, we don’t simply provide strategic consulting and leave you to conduct the implementation.
Our team of senior housing experts can transform how you drive growth from the inside out—from ingraining a new culture into your organization to helping you meet customer needs in an entirely new way.
