SKILLS FOR THE NEW ENVIRONMENT
CONSISTENT FOLLOW-UP AND SUPPORT IS NEEDED TO KEEP A CULTURE INCLUSIVE
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t’s a best practice for inclusivity to be part of every facet of a community. Troy Yates, vice president of learning and development at Belmont Village, LP, explains the different ways the provider strives to build inclusivity
into several processes and programs.
Q. Career pathing and promotional opportunities are important for inclusivity. Are these open to people in different areas of a community—caregiver, culinary, activities, etc.? A. Our managers are encouraged to identify “rising stars” from not only within their own departments, but from other areas where there is someone who may want to redirect their career path as well. We have a lot of examples of internal
growth amongst our front-line staff, with many of them being promoted within their own department and others being promot- ed in other departments after making the transition. For example, we’ve had caregiv- ers who have continued their educations to eventually become nurses. We take a lot of pride of growing and
developing our own, as well as encouraging them to find their true passion. Our leadership training program, titled
“BVLead,” is a key point of focus for Bel- mont Village. We have numerous examples of current managers who were given oppor- tunities to grow and develop into manage- rial roles, even if they originally came from a different department. We started an executive director-in-
training program 15 years ago, and we are proud to say that 30 percent of executive directors today are successful graduates of that program. Many of them came from the departmental areas of memory program- ming, activities, and human resources. One of our current senior executive directors started with us as a food server and then transitioned into an activities-related role
20 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE JULY/AUGUST 2021
before eventually becoming an executive director.
In the past several years, we have added additional manager-in-training programs for a variety of other disciplines. I’m also proud to say that many of our current man- agement team members are successful grad- uates from those programs as well. At the corporate-level, team members who have joined us through college recruiting and internship programs get a lot of exposure to various areas within the company before we align them on a true career path. We try to give them a diverse range of experi- ences in the hopes that they can find their true calling.
Q. What are some ways of getting all voices heard and making that part of the culture? Can you share some ideas on how to include employees in decisions that will affect them? A. Belmont Village has a tradition of valu- ing and hearing the voices of all team members. We do this through various sur- vey programs (e.g., Great Place to Work, new hire surveys based on a timeline of 7/14/30/60/90 days, etc.). We also pilot a lot of processes before
we roll out new programs, getting feedback from all parties involved to ensure we get their buy-in. From our experience, we high- ly recommend that you take a little extra time to pilot a new program and get feed- back from your direct caregiver team before rolling it out company-wide. Having a consistent survey process for
direct caregiving staff to share their voices is important, but following up with them and letting them know that they were heard and were key in creating change is golden.
Q. What can executive directors look out for at the workplace to ensure people are working well together and are open and
welcoming to new faces and voices on the job? A. Executive directors should establish a culture that focuses on frequent connection points with all staff—new hires and current staff. They should learn their strengths, what’s important to them, what they like most about working with seniors, hear their bright ideas, and celebrate their differences. If employees know they are listened to, it
becomes the foundation of an “inclusive” culture. Having a united culture that is consistently championed by the commu- nity leadership team is critical. The execu- tive director must take this to heart. A good culture will be sustained when you have “buddy trainers/mentors” who not only establish this inclusive culture, but also stay continuously connected to everyone they train as mentors.
Having a consistent survey process for direct caregiving staff to share their voices is important, but following up with them and letting them know that they were heard and were key in creating change is golden.
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