“Senior leadership has to care,” Tracey
explained. “If they don’t care about learn- ing in general and the investment in human capital broadly, then it doesn’t matter really what goes on operationally.” Assuming that senior leadership is on board,
success comes from two things: hiring the right people and giving them the right training. White believes the most important piece
is hiring. “You need to hire people who fit the culture, who have that heart of hospital- ity and are willing and able to learn from us the specifics of what we want them doing to help make our resident experience better.” To get the right people in place, White’s
organization uses the Predictive Index to help determine whether a candidate’s personality will be a good fit for the job. “We really do want to make sure that
we’re identifying people who are resident- focused,” she said. “Yes, they have tasks to complete, and yes, they have administrative things they must do, but that is always sec- ondary to the needs of our residents. We are looking for people who don’t get those priorities backwards.” After your hire is on board, the next step
is to make sure they know what’s expected of them. They need communication skills, of course, but they also need to handle emergencies, troubleshoot problems, juggle priorities and, sometimes, take action quickly and decisively.
Safety is the priority Job one, of course, is safety. “Safety is the most important aspect of our concierge team’s responsibility, and really of every employee’s responsibility,” White noted, “but the concierges are the ones who are charged with responding to an emergency call. We don’t have any assisted living com- munities in our portfolio, so there’s not a medical on-site employee who is responsible for that. Our concierges carry a pager all the time, and when a resident presses their emergency pendant, the concierge drops everything and goes to assess and appro- priately handle whatever the situation is.” That situation can range from a mistakenly pressed pendant to a genuine emergency. Either way, the front desk employee is making sure the situation is properly ad-
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• The Hourly Employee Orientation, Socialization, and Training Process
• Mentoring
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dressed. “I’ve seen concierges sit down on the floor next to a resident who just has fallen and is having trouble getting up, and we’re waiting for lift assists to come,” said White. “The concierge keeps them comfortable and keeps them distracted and not worrying about their situation.” To be most effective, a concierge must be
empowered to make important decisions on the spot and willing to exercise that au- tonomy. While not all people come to their jobs with that sense of initiative, White said, it can often be taught.
“Safety is the most important aspect of our concierge team’s responsibility, and really of every employee’s responsibility,” White noted, “but the concierges are the ones who are charged with responding to an emergency call.”
“It is inherent in some people, but some people—because of their previous jobs—may have been in situations where they were not empowered to make a call on their own, and so sometimes they have to be coached. They have to recognize that in our world, in this role, that is exactly what we want them to do.” Ekholm agrees that the empowerment
of concierge staff is most important when a community is facing an emergency, but she sees it applying to a range of non- emergencies as well. “With something as small as with a dissatisfied resident, they can give them a meal voucher or pass a note on to our business office that they heard a resident was dissatisfied with something,” she said. “To be a conduit of information is really important.” It’s that role, acting as a conduit, that can
make concierge staff the secret weapon for a senior living community. People go to the concierge for information, and when they do so, they share information of their own. “I just notice that everybody goes to the
concierge,” Ekholm explained. “So how can you use them in a way that’s beneficial for the organization—to keep lines of commu- nication open, maybe informally test ideas or concepts on policies that we’re going to change out. Could we utilize that position to test the water, so to speak?”
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