erything it is supposed to do; every little detail is lined up. Their turnover is half the company average, and their satisfaction is the highest,” said Tommy Comer, chief hu- man resource officer at Commonwealth Senior Living. “When you walk in it’s just a vibrant place to live, and I don’t think that is coincidental. I want to just clone that kind of feeling.”
How do you do onboarding right? How do you clone
that feeling? To answer that question, we first have to ask another: What is the senior living culture? As the execu- tive director, the human resources manager, the depart- ment lead, what do you need new hires to know about this industry?
How we’re different For almost any new hire, the conversation about what we
are begins with a primer on what we are not. People come to the front door with preconceptions. “They have a vision in mind that it is a nursing home, that it is very medical, and then they are surprised that there are not a lot of RNs running around,” Comer said.
Certainly there are medical concerns in any senior liv- ing community, but new hires need to understand that this is just a small part of the job. Executives in the field say they strive to strike an honest balance, to talk about some of those physical constraints while also highlighting the bigger goals and intentions of senior living. “It’s about how we relate to residents. Maybe they don’t understand that as a server, you need to be patient, you want to be slower, you want to help them come to the realization of what they want to eat that day. If you don’t know that person’s preferences you need to take the time to work through that. That’s not something a typical server would need to know,” said Natalie Suits, director of organizational development at Hearth Management. She’s describing a unique industry mindset, one that strives to serve the whole person, while recognizing in- herent limitations. This approach pertains equally to care- givers, dining servers, maintenance workers, program- ming staff, and every other job function.
There are practical considerations that newcomers
might not immediately or intuitively grasp. “We are in an environment where there are lot of wheelchairs and walk-
ers, and they scuff the paint. Our maintenance people need to understand that you might have just painted it this afternoon, but it’s going to be scuffed before the day is out. You don’t get frustrated. You pick up the brush and paint it again,” said Barbara Lee, vice president of people at The LaSalle Group. Learning to deal with scuffed paint and appreciating leisurely diners—that’s just the surface of the job. New hires need to understand these cultural quirks, but there’s more to senior living. There’s a core philosophy of ser- vice that pervades the industry and that has to be shared early on. “We want people to understand foundationally what we
are doing. We aren’t just providing physical care. Food ser- vice isn’t just making a meal,” said Aaron Catoe, regional property manager at 12 Oaks Senior Living. “Food service and resident care are just the tools. What we are doing is much deeper. It’s about freedom from physical limitation, relief from loneliness. That’s what we are trying to do.” Others echo this theme: Feeding and grooming are
merely tasks. The heart of senior living lies in the spirit of the endeavor. “At the end of the day we are just trying to get the resident to enjoy life for as long as they have it,” Comer said. “We don’t want to overcomplicate things. Find a reason to say ‘yes’ and make this person happy.” But what about the big picture for new hires, such as career-related information that goes beyond the immedi- ate job? Employees stick around when they feel like they are on the path to somewhere bigger or better. Show them the path. “We can help people understand the business of se- nior living and how that works, to get them involved at the business level,” said Mark Woodka, CEO of OnShift, a workforce technology provider. “This is a big business and it’s growing all the time, and we want people to feel that they have a future here. To keep their interest, to hook them into a career, you want to give them an un- derstanding on the business side.” Digging deeper, there’s critical information about the
nature of the industry that needs to be shared. For ex- ample, anyone wanting to work in senior living ought to be told from the start that this is an all-hands effort: No passive players here.
MARCH/APRIL 2018
ARGENTUM.ORG 7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
