I have always wanted to improve my time management skills—who doesn’t? So I bought a couple of books, The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch being one of them. The 80/20 Principle, also known as the Pareto Principle,  basically says that 80% of your outputs result from 20% of your inputs. The principle works in all kinds of ways, even in the criminal word. Apparently 80% of the crimes are committed by 20% of the criminals.

(In the US the 80/20 rule also refers to the Federal Fair Housing Act as it applies to communities that are designated for seniors—at least 80% of the units must be occupied by someone over the mandated age, 55 or 62 or whatever.)

So all this got me thinking about the world of service-enriched seniors’ housing and how the rule could be applied there. Here are some possibilities:

• 80% of resident satisfaction is attributable to 20% of operational efforts.
• 80% of food satisfaction is due to 20% of menu items.
• 80% of profit is due to 20% of effort.
• 80% of positive word-of-mouth marketing comes from 20% of residents.
• 80% of complaints come from 20% of residents.
• 80% of internal productivity advances are suggested by 20% of employees.
• 80% of new residents come from 20% of marketing efforts.

Operators who are able to figure out the 80/20 distribution in their communities are in a position to make a huge contribution to resident satisfaction as well as to the bottom line. After all, if the principle works in the world of crime, it must certainly work in the world of seniors’ housing.