The international keynote speaker at last week’s RLC conference reflected on her 30-plus years research and consulting in the retirement living and aged care space. She made these statements:
- About bullying – It is impossible to eliminate in her opinion. “I have not found an operator that can eliminate it.”
- “Feeling at home” is the most important measure of satisfaction. Just 6% of 126 US communities she had just surveyed had achieved it.
- “Intangible assets deliver the at-home feeling, it’s not the building”. 28% of the locations that scored high at-home feeling were ranked “institutional and drab”.
- “The number one contributed to sales success was a sales counsellor focused on solving issues”.
The three evils are:
- Ageism – don’t talk about it. “I want to live my life until I am dead”.
- Commoditisation – all the homes and villages looked the same.
- Paternalism – “developers think they know best”.
