“We have to adapt our workforce and our training into accommodating how people’s brains are wired.”
Alford has closely watched how they learn today. Instead of textbooks, they have digital resources. Students break into groups, and teachers look to tailor work to all learning styles. Meanwhile, lessons delivered in short snippets help students process information. That has helped to inform Avanti’s ap-
proach to training. For instance, the Avanti onboarding process is all digital, and the company is moving to a streamlined train- ing process that focuses on short videos, short stretches of interpersonal interaction, and the flexibility for team members to set their own pace. “We have to adapt our workforce and our training into accommodating how people’s brains are wired,” she said. “That’s not by sitting in a classroom and having someone lecture to you for eight hours nonstop for onboarding, and that's not shadowing someone nonstop and just walking around behind them. These younger generations want to be engaged and want to know their purpose. So, we’re really trying to dig in and totally reinvent and redefine how we look at our onboarding and training systems.” “We Wear Swag” Reinvention with staff development
means listening to your people. Alford said serving your workforce is a matter of under- standing them and developing a culture that fits them. For instance, younger generations particularly value transparency, openness, and honesty, she said, and they also do not appreciate unnecessary formality. At Avanti, that means working to avoid
sounding and looking “institutional” and instead seeking a more “hip” approach to everything from nomenclature and internal communications to clothing – “We don’t wear uniforms,” Alford said. “We wear swag.” “We don’t want to look and sound like the
normal senior housing company.” Alford said younger workers also “love access to the top because they all think they
should be the CEO within a week of work. You have to give them that freedom and flexibility to have direct contact with you,” she explained. Alford said the part of her work that she
finds most rewarding is helping team mem- bers achieve their goals and “helping them reach the best version of themselves.”
Being a Mom and an Exec A single mother of two children, Alford said she particularly has “a huge heart” for women in the workforce and with approxi- mately 87% of Avanti’s payroll women, the company is primarily led by females. “Our industry is predominantly women,
and helping other women realize that they can contribute to the work environment and be a great team member and add contri- butions on a lot of levels, while also being a great mom or a great significant other is very important to me,” Alford said. “It’s difficult because of the things that we
have to juggle and do and the stresses and the worries, but it can be done. It just takes a vil- lage to do it. I love having the ability to kind of share my story and give my tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years and help other women to become really successful.” She needed a lot of help from friends and
mentors to navigate the challenges of being a working mother, and Alford believes that is key for others, too. She wants working moth- ers to absolve themselves of “mom guilt.” “Part of removing that guilt is having the
freedom to talk about it openly within your work organization and we do that quite well and we do it frequently,” she said. “You have to be OK with understanding you're not go- ing to be at every single thing for your kid.” Alford said she was inspired by successful
women in the industry who were also mothers. “Having a networking and support system
for you mentally is equally as important as having that support system to fill in when
you can’t be there because of work,” she continued. Setting that tone
“definitely starts at the top,” Alford said. She said she speaks with her fellow mothers at Avanti about the challenges she faces raising children as a working mother. “That gives everybody else that comfort
Lori Alford
Co-Founder and CEO Avanti Senior Living
to start talking about their struggles of being a mom,” Alford said. “I might say, ‘I’m feeling kind of guilty today because my son's at a golf match, and we’re having to do financial calls and I can't make it.’ It’s about removing titles and just showing peo- ple, ‘Hey, we’re all in this together, trying to figure it out.’ If we can comfort each other and support each other through it and give each other tips and tricks on how to nav- igate through it, I think it just creates the right kind of culture.” It is challenging to put in the kind of
effort necessary to prioritize innovation and change, but Alford said she finds that effort energizing. She is fortunate to work at Avanti with a team that is eager to critique the way things are done and try new things in their place, always looking for ways to in- novate, improve and take risks, Alford said. As a result, Alford said Avanti aspires to
focus on “who we are on an ongoing basis.” “We want to keep focusing on being OK
to say this isn’t working and being OK to say we really have to reinvent this part of what we're doing,” she said. “Because times are changing, the generations are changing and people are changing, and we need to get with the times – and not take a long time to do it. That’s how we’re going to continue to evolve and grow.”
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