OFFERING EMPLOYEE PROGRAMS THAT HELP SENIOR LIVING STAY COMPETITIVE
ferent forms, and the key to one of them is finding people who find satisfaction in helping a more vulnerable population. Like many other companies, Carlton tries to do that by screening potential employees for their values and job suitability by assessing them through a Hartman Value Profile. According to Gallup’s 2017 State of the
American Workplace report, only one- third of U.S. employees are fully engaged at work—i.e. they’re passionate and are en- thusiastic about their jobs. The remainder are either just going through the motions or unhappy. The senior living industry—and the se- nior living industry in California in particu- lar—just can’t afford to run workplaces that don’t attract and inspire new employees who want to stick around. Argentum’s research has found that the industry is going to need more than 1.2 million workers by 2025. Cali- fornia is the neediest state with a projected requirement to hire more than 136,000 staff by 2025. The positions cover all staff roles from nursing assistants, personal care aides,
TOP WORKPLACE
EBENEZER Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., Ebenezer was recognized as a Minneapolis Star Tribune 2017 Top Workplace.
Cheryl Degrugillier, a registered nurse at the Ebenezer in Minneapolis, has learned two key skills that has enabled her to rise up the ranks in a 19-year career at the company.
One is when to say “no” to requests being made of her in the workplace, and the other is being honest with herself about her emotions in highly stressful situations.
“I would have a crying breakout [sometimes] if I were involved in an emergency situation, for example being at a scene where we’re doing CPR, and all of a sudden, that person has passed away,” she says. “There’s a lot of energy that you’re left with. What do you do with that? That would be typically when I have to cry and walk it off.”
Whatever the case, Degrugillier, who is now Ebenezer’s director of nursing, understands that everyone, including herself, needs to recognize and manage their emotions—even if it means expressing frustrations with peers.
Ebenezer uses a personality profiling tool from Insight that helps managers become more self-aware, and the company also trains its staff to reinforce positive behaviors, says Mary Swartz, Ebenezer’s vice president of human resources.
“We have an expectation of our managers that they realize what they bring, and they self-manage around those qualities that detract from employee engagement,” she says.
Among many other benefits, Ebenezer prides itself on offering workplace flexibility for its large immigrant workforce who sometimes have different holiday traditions, and who sometimes also need to take extended time off to travel back to their home countries.
Ebenezer has established a list from employee feedback entitled “Top Reasons You Should Join Our Team.” Some of those include:
• I love how Ebenezer is open to finding creative ways to support staff and residents in their lives and that they strive to care for the whole person—mind, body, and spirit.
• The family friendly environment and knowing that I am serving a greater purpose.
• I love the diversity, friendliness, and compassion of all staff. I love that I’m challenged and encouraged to grow professionally.
• There is a culture of respect at all levels within the organization.
• The empowerment and support of Ebenezer leadership which enables all of us to provide superior service to our residents.
10 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE / ISSUE 4 2017
waiters and waitresses, cooks, and house- keepers. (By 2022, the U.S. will have more people taking care of seniors than elemen- tary school teachers, and almost as many as the retail industry, according to a Paraprofes- sional Healthcare Institute analysis of num- bers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Labor. Continuing care retirement communities and assisted living communities will make up 39 percent of that growth in demand for labor.) These trends are being driven by the tsu-
nami of Americans growing older. Census national population projections predict that the number of Americans 85 and over will triple by 2050 to nearly over 18 million.
Putting Benefits In Context Most top workplaces strive to build manage- ment teams at all levels that have proven that they have high levels of “emotional intelligence.” “Supervisors account for 70 percent of the
variants in employee engagement scores. So really, benefits are wonderful, but they’re the
cherry on top,” says Mary Swartz, Ebenezer’s vice president of human resources. Swartz’s sentiments reflected most of the human re- sources leaders interviewed for this article. “The real importance is training managers on how to instill that sense of support among the people that they supervise. So we have an emphasis on training our managers to be good emotional engagers of our employees.” Ebenezer is Minnesota’s largest senior liv- ing operator and is part of Fairview Health Services. The Minneapolis Star Tribune recog- nized it as a “Top Workplace” for the past seven years, including in 2017. “Engagement is a critical part of the
benefits and perks discussion,” affirms Gallup. “That is, if employees don’t have great managers, if they don’t know what’s expected of them, or if they are not in roles that match their talents, then the longest possible list of perks is not going to be a cure-all. Employees on the fence in terms of engagement may actually regard pingpong tables and free meals as an empty gesture— a Band-Aid fix for a much bigger problem.”
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