Finding a good sober living home manager is probably the most important ingredient to a successful sober living home business. Sure, the right building is important and good residents are key but if you flub up on selecting your manager, your sober living home is definitely headed for disaster.
Being a sober living home manager is a tough job. It takes a rare combination of empathy, tough love, and common sense to pull it off well. When you’re interviewing for potential sober living home managers, you’ll want to look for certain qualities in your candidates. Some sober living home manager skills can be taught but many of them—like the oh so important soft skills that play a large part in the role— are harder to learn on the job.
Today, let’s look at the top 5 things all of the best sober living home managers have in common.
Good Sober Living Home Managers Are Organized
Ask any domestic engineer: running a home is a complicated matter. There are a ton of details to track and they change constantly. Anyone who struggles with keeping the toilet paper stocked up in their house can relate to how easy it is for the details of domestic functionality to get lost in the shuffle.
Add to that the dividing and assigning chores to residents, tracking resident payments, managing group activities, scheduling drug testing, arranging for home maintenance work, maintaining residence vehicles, and everything else that goes into running a sober living home smoothly and you have quite the “to do” list to contend with.
Good sober living home managers are organized. They have systems (like the Sober Living App, perhaps?) to keep track of everything that needs to be done. Automated reminders and easy-to-use templates make the workflow easier to manage.
Good Sober Living Home Managers are Consistent
A good sober living home manager is also a rule enforcer. Residents in recovery need structure to relearn sober living so they can thrive in their new lifestyle without drugs and alcohol. Sober living home rules help provide that structure in early recovery.
When it comes to rule enforcement, it is so important that your sober living home manager draws firm and consistent boundaries with residents. If residents perceive that your sober living home manager treats them unfairly, it is very easy for the home to devolve into chaos.
A good sober living home manager will treat all residents equally and create systems that are built on fairness. They adhere to the rulebook at all times and don’t make exceptions lightly. They will not hesitate to enforce rules, especially when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient.
Good Sober Living Home Managers are Proactive
The best sober living home managers are proactive, meaning thy anticipate problems and deal with them before they become crises. This includes everything from interpersonal conflicts to leaky pipes.
A good sober living home manager is observant of their surroundings and is always looking for ways to improve what’s around them. They know that early intervention is the key to a well functioning home.
Good Sober Living Home Managers are Awesome Communicators
The best sober living home managers are top tier communicators. Their “people skills” come in handy when managing residents, sure, but they are also important when negotiating home repairs, dealing with prospective residents, and communicating with you, the owner.
Find a sober living home manager who is responsive to your texts, calls and/or emails. It should be easy to get clear, concise information from your sober living home manager. A good sober living home manager loves to talk through problems and solutions. They value direct, open, and honest communication.
Good Sober Living Home Managers Document Everything
There is a lot to document at a sober living home: behavioral incidents, damage reports, rent payments, drug testing results, chores. A good sober living home manager doesn’t shy away from documentation, in fact, their motto is, “when in doubt, document.” Strong documentation not only helps with smooth day-to-day operations and easy bookkeeping, but it also helps coordinate care between managers and other players in the residents’ care team. Moreover, excellent documentation acts as a kind of insurance against liability claims or other potential disputes with residents, community members, or even maintenance workers. A good sober living home manager will never have to resort to “he said, she said” debates because they’ll have access to written documentation about most incidents.
Every Good Sober Living Home Manager Needs the Right Tools to Get the Job Done
At BehaveHealth, we created the Sober Living App to help sober living home managers save their organizations time and money. Designed especially for the recovery industry, the Sober Living App eliminates paper record keeping and puts everything sober living home managers need at their fingertips at all times.
From bed management to resident records to maintenance tasks, the Sober Living App automates the management of sober living homes in a frustration-free, intuitive format so that your staff can focus on providing excellent service to residents.
Why not claim your free trial of the Sober Living App today?