Good Morning.  If you're like the crew at NHA Stand-Up, you hate to get the question, "What do you do?"  It's an impossible question to answer when a single day can include creating a strategic plan for a $50 million/year budget, cleaning a toilet, and swabbing 200 employees.  Hit reply on this email and give us your best answer!

Elevate Your Operation

The Pareto Principle, better known as the 80/20 rule, signifies that the inputs and outputs of your efforts are not equal.  More specifically, 80% of your outcomes come from a mere 20% of your actions or 20% of your actions can decrease 80% of your time and stress.  You can apply this rule to numerous areas of your day-to-day as an NHA, but here are the ways we've managed to make the most impact.

1.) Identify and make a plan to manage the 20% of residents and family members that take up 80% of your time.  As you're reading this, there are inevitably a handful of residents that come straight to your mind.  Utilizing a person-centered approach, identify what makes them tick.  Implement a plan alongside your team to meet and monitor their needs and proactively communicate efforts and results to the resident and their family. 

Here is a very simplified but great example.  I once had a resident who could not hear without his custom hearing aids.  When they weren't in, he became understandably withdrawn and quiet.  Without fail, the few days when the team forgot to help him put them on were always the days that his daughter would come to visit, and inevitably I would get a visit from her.  We sat down with the care team and came up with a plan to ensure that the resident had his hearing aids in each morning.  The team then took it a step further and began proactively reaching out to his daughter on the days she didn't visit with a text, email, or quick call to let her know that all was well with the hearing aids and her father.  The results and corresponding feedback were astounding.  The daughter was touched and shocked by the personal attention that she and her father was receiving, and the care team was thrilled and motivated by the compliments they received in return.  All in, it took minimal time and effort to carry out and combined with other similar initiatives saved the team and myself hours (80%) on the backend by not having to follow up on complaints and concerns.

Customer service is hard, but it becomes much more manageable when focusing on a subset (20%) of your residents.  Once you and your team see the results, let the momentum take you to the next level.

2.)Identify the 20% of your team who drive 80% of the positive results.  It's easy to take this group of employees for granted but make a plan today to celebrate and thank them: a sincere compliment, a thank you card, or a meal delivered to their home.  There is no gesture too big or too small.  Carry around a penny in your left pocket for each one of these employees.  Find something positive each day to compliment them on, and as you do, move a penny from your left to your right pocket.  

 Maximize Your Commute

I picked up a great habit in 2021 of listening to content-rich leadership and business audiobooks on my commute to and from work.  In each book I listened to, I increased the audio speed slightly while ensuring I could still comprehend the content.  Now, eight months in and comfortably listening to books at 2.1x audio speed, I can knock out 1-3 books/week.  It has been the single best professional decision I have made for my career.

To learn more about the Pareto Principle, listen to The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch for an in-depth and detailed guide.  For a briefer summary, we recommend. The 80 20 rule explained.

Tech We Love

As you're diving into the 80/20 Principle, communication with family members is a key driver and time saver.  In our experience, the best piece of tech available to assist in this process is the family communication app by Caremerge.  It's affordable, easy to adopt, and HIPAA compliant.  Most importantly, family members will love the proactive "just because" communication.

*NHA Stand-Up is not affiliated with Caremerge nor receiving compensation of any form by recommending their products.  

Make It Fun!

Steve Blank, the legendary entrepreneur, and start-up investor, is famous for telling his entrepreneurs to "get out of the building" and talk to customers.  His advice is the inspiration for this week's edition of "Make it Fun."

Get yourself a money wheel and some carnival tickets, and get out of the office!

Every time you see an action or attitude worth rewarding, shed a few tickets to the deserving team members.  Bring out the money wheel every few days and celebrate your high performers by letting them cash in each ticket with a spin on the wheel.

Get creative with the customized prizes on your wheel.  Some of the best we've seen include:

Gift cards, prime-time parking spot for a month, and "make a wish"  where the staff can gift something for a resident to be paid for by the community.

Grab your coffee and make it a great day.  We appreciate you and your dedication to your team and residents. -Thank you!