My system for eliminating the 50+ hour work weeks in senior living

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Good afternoon. Below are my two cents on the actual weekly work time it takes to be an effective, servant-like leader in skilled nursing and senior living.

What authority do I have to make this judgment? None, I guess, but I do have proof of concept. Here are the results that I attribute to the system I have implemented and practiced.

1. I have been leading SNFs and senior living operations for the past 13 years and ever since I was 21.

2. I have never held a single role for more than 30 months without being promoted.

3. I have achieved promotions by climbing the ladder in the same organizations, not job-hopping. My tenure history is eight years and five years and counting.

4. As a VP, I currently oversee a $200 million/year operation consisting of home care agencies, SNFs, ALFs, and memory care services in four states, all in 40 hours per week on average.

5. My system has allowed me to start and maintain several side businesses, including this newsletter. All of which I would not be able to do if I were working the same 50+ hour weeks as other industry leaders.

Most leaders in senior living assume they have to adopt the 50+ hour work week to succeed.

The truth is, you don't. I have achieved more with less and sustained success for over 13 years. Through Friday, I'll share one part per day of my five-part system to achieve a 40-hour work week and still excel as a leader in our industry.

Elevate your operation in less time

I have refined and tweaked this system for over 13 years now, and I can honestly say that I work an average of 40 hours per week. I have also used this same system leading SNFs and senior living at the community level, and achieved the same results.

Are there times when I work weekends and more than 40 hours/week? Absolutely. But it's the exception, and on average, I clock my 40 hours and accomplish mine and my organization's goals.

Part 1- Trim the fat

You can't always do more with less, so if you're going to cut your work week down to 40 hours, the first thing you must do is remove the fat, i.e., the unnecessary meetings that are wasting the hours in your day.

Step 1

It all starts with maximizing your daily Stand-Up meeting. This 10-20 minute meeting can replace a half dozen other meetings and drive powerful results if done well. After all, that's why we named our newsletter after it. For more details on transforming your Stand-Up meeting, check out this article we featured a few months ago.

Step 2

Eliminate meetings. Now that you're using leading indicators and data to drive results in your Stand-Up meeting, you can identify other routine meetings that are no longer necessary OR may be needed on a less frequent basis. Utilizing the case study I mentioned in the linked article above, we eliminated our weekly sales meeting (45-minute weekly meeting) by focusing on the leading indicators in our daily stand-up meeting.

Step 3

Now that your team sees real change, it's time to ask them to participate and share their thoughts. Make a list of all reoccurring meetings and ask each attendee to pick the most relevant "code" for the meeting through a survey. The codes I used are the following.

Code Blue= The meeting is dead. It's pointless, and we should stop it immediately.
Code Orange= The meeting is relevant and valuable but could be shorter, more efficient, or less frequent. Recreate the agenda, start using an agenda, put parameters in place, etc.
Code Red= This meeting could easily be an email.
Code Green= This meeting runs efficiently and is relevant. We should continue.
Code White= Other. Please share your feedback.

Step 4

Lock your team in a room for an hour, throw the results up on a pie chart to represent the feedback for each meeting, and align what meetings will stop, remain, or become more efficient in one form or another. Document your team agreements so you can refer to them as time progresses.

Stay tuned tomorrow as we dive into Part 2- Owning your calendar.

Webinar opportunity

Be sure to register for the upcoming webinar from our partners at Base 10. Your clinical team won't want to miss learning about the role nurses, and precision medicine can play in managing cardiovascular disease in the skilled nursing and senior living setting. I'm impressed with the common sense services Base 10 brings to our industry. Utilizing a resident's specific genes to determine the most appropriate medication regimen means better resident outcomes, reduced med pass times and decreased pharmacy spending.- The trifecta.

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