Senior Living Wisdom Sep24

Senior Living Wisdom

The senior living industry can be competitive, but it also has no shortage of experienced professionals ready to work together and share their hard-earned knowledge. This sort of collaboration has been needed now more than ever as the industry has had to adapt to new challenges. In search of best practices everyone could use, we interviewed clients who had steadily grown their senior living organizations. We asked them what issues they faced, what goals they pursued and how they leveraged technology in innovative ways. Their answers formed the basis for our How Do You? video series, which you can access and watch on our resources page. But not every piece of advice made it into the final videos. These senior living leaders had a lot to say, and we want to ensure there’s a place for all their insights to be discovered. So we revisited their interviews and pulled their answers together for a new white paper: How do you excel with senior living technology? Here’s a sneak peek at questions we covered: How do you | encourage move-ins? “It’s always ideal to know how close a lead is to moving in. Some leads are two months out. Some are three months out. Some are years out. Understanding that allows us to input a call-out in two years maybe or a follow-up that works for them. We’re not that typical marketing person who’s going to bombard them every week.” – Nicole Graham, Licensed Administrator How do you | improve resident care? “By electronically charting as you go along, it cuts the background stuff out of the process of taking care of a resident. All of the time that they would spend trying to figure out when to chart and what to chart is gone....

Jay Shobe Jul05

Jay Shobe

Jay Shobe, Vice President, Technology at Yardi, has spent his entire life around technology. He grew up using an early incarnation of a PC that ran on a Burroughs operating system, connected to ARPANET (pre-internet) via an acoustic coupler (pre-modem).  “So yeah, I go back a ways,” he says casually. Tech is in his blood. It’s with this full breadth of knowledge and experience that Shobe proudly transitioned into his role with Yardi Cloud Services nearly two years ago. “I was in development for 20 years before I transferred to Cloud Services,” begins Shobe. “This group is dedicated to making sure that the vast environment—12 data centers across the world, 5,000 clients in the cloud and millions of people connecting on a daily basis—and all the different data that we keep in that environment is safe, secure, and performing properly.” The dedication of Shobe and his team is what makes Yardi Cloud Services one of the most trusted and relied upon cloud service providers in the industry. Cloud services play a vital role in the growth and viability of Yardi as more businesses transition to remote networks. The cloud allows clients to transfer IT infrastructure, support services, and data security into the capable hands of specialists. This transition is an integral part of today’s corporate growth strategies: when combined with big data, reports indicate that businesses experience 53 percent greater growth than their self-hosted peers. Client data is stored in a cost-effective and scalable software management solution that is secured offsite under the care of Shobe and the Cloud Services team. They are the unsung heroes of many growing enterprises. “The cloud today is viewed similar to electricity or plumbing; you expect that it’s going to be working. You don’t say a little thanks...

Robert Teel May30

Robert Teel

Many commercial property managers seek to abbreviate the leasing process, expedite reporting, and improve overall efficiency and accuracy. Unfortunately, it is a struggle to compile and interpret data from multiple software programs within their organizations. Robert Teel, Senior VP G&A at Yardi, and his team are redefining the way that user groups interact through software. As a former financial accounting systems consultant, Teel is familiar with the challenges that property managers and analysts face when their software is not fully integrated: long process lifecycles and crippling inefficiencies. “With a single stack, you can shorten nearly every business process lifecycle. In essence, our vision is that our clients can create an ecoysytem on the single stack to connect their front office with back office, and even extend participation to external users,” says Teel. Deloitte Consulting LLP reports that single stack solutions are the new standard for cloud, digital, and analytics. Projects can experience gains through “faster environment readiness, the ability to engineer advanced scalability, and the elimination of power/connectivity constraints.” A single stack solution can remove limitations and promote intelligent growth. Teel observes that self-contained ecosystems allow users to minimize redundancies, capitalize upon a more efficient use of resources, and create consistent and accurate processes that add value to users. For example, Yardi client Prologis (a $20B US REIT with over 4,000 properties) has reduced their quarterly property reforecasting process by months.  “We went from a six-month quarterly forecast process to an eight-week process, and our accuracy is vastly improved,” according to Arthur Nelson, Vice President of Global Business Systems, Prologis. Such results are possible due to the single stack’s ability to track a process from start to finish, offering automated operations and consistent reporting. Teel offers the leasing process as an example, “The prospect—a...

John Pendergast Mar07

John Pendergast

John Pendergast first learned the importance of persistence and attention to detail as a musician. The avid guitarist plays music from a wide range of genres, honing in on the nuance within each piece. “There is a great attention to detail in playing music and different instruments,” explains Pendergast, Senior Vice President, CSD at Yardi. “There is so much detail in how to intonate and emphasize particular notes in a sequence with the right timing. You have to practice often to get it right, but you always keep learning.” “Both of those things are very relevant at Yardi. The need to do things over and over again until you get good at them is a key piece. There is also great importance in exercising attention to detail and making sure that we do the right things for our clients. ” As the needs of clients change, Yardi software and services develop accordingly. Pendergast and his team take the time to understand the details of the user experience. The team then creates and supports software that makes the user experience practical and seamless. Transaction processing through Yardi is one such example. The expectations of today’s renters and tenants are vastly different than just a few years ago, triggering a focus on online and mobile payments. To meet these demands, Yardi created a robust suite of payment processing options for clients: Yardi Online Payments™, Walk-in Payment System (WIPS®), Yardi CHECKscan™, and RentCafe® TextPay™ integrate with Yardi Voyager® and Genesis 2 to streamline rent collection, cut operational costs, and reduce processing errors. Residents can conveniently pay rent online, via text, or at participating retailers. Clients can also quickly bulk scan and digitize rent payments made with checks and money orders. Services are available for residential and commercial clients. Pendergast says:...

Professional Advancement Nov20

Professional Advancement

Problem: You want to be a greater asset to your company but the path to success seems unclear and you feel like you’re spinning your wheels. Solution: Advance your career by developing leadership skills that will prepare you for promotion. The skill set of a solid leader stands out on a resume or CV, and the effects of good leadership are often quantifiable. The Balance Sheet caught up with managers and executives throughout the industry to reveal the most sought-after leadership traits that will help you get ahead and lead with confidence. Getting Started Most of today’s leaders began as deck hands, so to speak, performing intro-level tasks while struggling to find ways to shine. John Crossman, President of Yardi client Crossman and Company real estate firm, believes that you don’t have to be the best student or the most flawless employee in order to catch your boss’s attention. Work your way up the ranks by developing servanthood and passion. “Being willing to learn and serve, helping your team, will provide you with the insights needed to do your job well and build a strong professional network,” begins Crossman.  “Then when your knowledge and experience are coupled with passion, you will be unstoppable. When you’re passionate, that overflows to the entire company. That’s crucial to success in every area.” Integrity is another characteristic that can place you in better standing with your peers and your superiors. Chuck Fuhr, former Division President of Ryland Homes, Atlanta, served more than four decades in the real estate industry. He notes that professionals with integrity are priceless. They prove to be a solid, long term investment for companies. “A leader needs to have high integrity. Team members need to know their business or organization is being run in an honest and fair manner,” says Fuhr. Unethical or questionable behavior is like duct tapping a broken rudder.  It may work for a moment but the situation is likely to get out of control. So much in the world of real estate is tight-knit and interrelated social networking. Bad dealings and poor relationships will place you at a disadvantage later. Don Rogers, General Manager at Yardi, Atlanta, also acknowledges integrity as an essential characteristic of a good leader.  “A leader must be honest, be consistent, and do the right thing for your employees and customers,” says Rogers. But even the best leaders may have a hard time discerning what is right, which brings him to another valuable feature: good communication skills. “It’s a common misconception that good leaders always have the answers,” Rogers says. “I don’t always have the answers but I try to take the time to learn the facts and make a reasonable decision after hearing them. So it’s equally important to have good communication – to be honest, and be open—and to empathize with others. Remember where you came from when working with your staff, and try to understand the other points of view.” Full Speed Ahead Once you’ve secured your first management position, working further upwards is a matter of strategy and careful planning. Laquna Marrable, Assistant Director of Human Resources and Employment Services, has hired for international corporations as well as private institutions. She has noticed that companies of all sizes prize strategic thinkers. “It’s important for leaders to be able to see the importance of what they’re doing right now as it relates to the overall goals and missions of the company,” says Marrable. “They must be able to closely tie every project, every assignment, every team member, to the overall mission or objective. For example, ‘I’ve got Mrs. X working for me and she’s responsible for this. The responsibilities of this position relate to our mission because of Y and Z. By accomplishing her tasks, we’re 20 percent closer to the end result.’ That strategic approach enables leaders to make sure that everyone is on task working towards...