We are 57 days away from 1 January, when the Retirement Living Council and LASA developed Retirement Living Code of conduct comes into effect nationally.
With the objective to demonstrate to regulators that retirement village operators can self regulate, the code of conduct is also the cornerstone of the sector strategy to regain trust with the public, potential customers and residents.
Also on 1 January the New South Wales government’s Rules of Conduct for operators – a compulsory code, comes into effect. Non-compliance across a large number of rules delivers penalty points which ultimately will impact the operators right to operate a retirement village.
Both codes require proof of specific village manager training. The commencement of the training is required by 1 January plus a verifiable record of the training must be maintained for five years.
Developed in response to the regulatory regime and launched in April, over 300 Village Managers and head office staff are attending the DCM Institute professional development days these two weeks across all capital cities, including 118 attendees tomorrow in Sydney. (Pictured Brisbane training yesterday).
Budgeting for training
The guidance for 12 month budgeting for village manager training going forward is $5,000 per year per manager for one-off operators down to $3,500 for large operators.
The view of the Resident Associations is that in Year One it is the operator should incur the training cost because it is inferred in a village contract that the operator will provide a ‘professional’ manager.
In following years the operator can submit to residents to co-fund village manager training as it is an ongoing investment in skills.
Head office staff training is an operator cost.
Either way, a training strategy and program is required to be in place 1 January.
