Expert Perspectives: Why the retirement village manager is more important than you think
Written by Janet Brown
This article is part of Eldernet’s Expert Perspectives series. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Eldernet’s position.
Janet Brown is the director of Head and Heart Ltd, a consultancy that has been an associate member of the Retirement Villages Association for 14 years. She has worked across the retirement village sector, with not-for-profits, corporates and independent villages, coaching managers and other staff, facilitating strategic and operational planning, and providing governance support and training. Since mid-2024 Janet has lived in a retirement village, so she now has consumer insights as well.
There’s an interesting conundrum at the heart of retirement village life. Bear with me while I explore it a bit. We expect our two- bedroom, free-standing villa in a new retirement village to be our last home. And we enjoy it, and our lifestyle here. But there’s a significant difference between this home and its predecessors: this one comes with staff. A manager, in fact, plus a village nurse, an administrator, and a team of gardeners.
So what? Isn’t that a good thing, and doesn’t it make our lives easier? Well, yes, in many ways it does. But it also means that our house is no longer our castle. We can’t make all the rules, or draw up the drawbridge and keep decisions we don’t like at bay. Many decisions are made by the village manager. Sometimes village residents agree with those decisions and sometimes they don’t. But those decisions affect them, occasionally quite profoundly.
We moved in with our eyes open. We’d had the obligatory legal advice, and we both knew the industry inside out, having worked in the sector for years. We enjoy our interactions with the staff, who are unfailingly helpful and cheerful. Even if we didn’t, and they weren’t, we’d cut them some slack. But nonetheless, one day, you’re likely to find yourself affected by a decision by the village manager that you have real trouble accepting, or even seeing the logic of or rationale for it.
Perhaps you could try seeing the village manager as like the local council, who also sometimes make decisions ratepayers don’t like. But you get to vote for the mayor. And the mayor, or the council staff, are nowhere near as omnipresent in your life as the village staff. And of them all, the manager is the one whose decisions will most affect the way you live. I’m reminded of a village in the North Island, where the manager was known to the residents as The Mirror, because whenever you took an issue to him, he’d say “I’ll look into it.” And then invariably didn’t, and nothing happened. So it’s not just the decisions that affect people, but also the dithering, and the non-decisions. Either way, the manager is key.
Of course, at times the manager is not the decisionmaker, but rather the enforcer of decisions made higher up the tree by the operator, and this can bring difficulty as well. Having to enforce policies that prohibit putting washing out on an airer on your balcony, or replacing a pet that dies, doesn’t endear a manager to residents.
We all remember the media storm about the Christchurch retirement village that instituted a permanent alcohol ban in all common areas of the village. The village management was technically within its rights, and a disputes panelist subsequently ruled in favour of the operator. But the relationship between management and the residents was damaged, and a resident said “The decision has left residents feeling angry and belittled at the way they’ve been treated. It’s led to real division within the village.”
The Retirement Villages Association offers training for village owners and managers through its Te Ara programme, and regional forums. Many of the larger operators have in-house training and also mentoring or buddy programmes for managers. But, especially in stand-alone independent and not for profit villages, the manager will need to make decisions on the fly, and that carries risk.
All this is on my mind at present, as our village manager has resigned and we’re in the interregnum, waiting to hear who’s been appointed and what their style and modus operandi will be. It’s quite the topic of conversation around the village, so I’m guessing other residents are conscious of this too. I have my fingers firmly crossed that we will be well served by whoever is appointed, and that they will be sensitive to the nature of a resident-led village with a younger average age.
I know, from having coached retirement village managers over the years, that it’s a challenging, as well as rewarding, role. Dealing with an ageing cohort of residents can bring challenges. Sometimes, immersed in the day to day, a manager sees the detail but not the developing patterns. One manager I coached repeatedly brought me her frustrations with what she characterised as a “difficult resident” who had it in for her. The third time I heard another variant on this litany, I wondered aloud whether she’d considered the possibility that the resident was in the early stages of cognitive decline. There was a silence, while she digested that idea. Then we explored the issues through that lens (which incidentally proved correct) and of course the responses and remedies were entirely different. So this is a unique job, and my hope is that we get a fully fledged professional, who likes and understands our demographic, and the nuance of the village.
Here’s the thing: at the end of the working day, the manager and staff go home to the main part of their lives. But this is our home, so the balance is different for residents, and the stakes are higher. Some will always feel vulnerable because of that. So back to my crossed fingers…..