ENGAGING FAMILY IN THE SENIOR LIVING TRANSITION


“We go to health fairs that we know are aimed at baby boomers, not in order to educate those boomers about retirement living for themselves, but because we know they will have an interest on behalf of their aging parents,” Gosselin said. Lately the team also has been experiment-


Wayne Lender celebrates at Élan Spanish Springs grand opening soiree where mom, Claire Richter, was one of the community’s first residents.


sue. “Our director of plant operations visited the home and repaired the wall,” said Harvey. “It’s about understanding who the customer is and where they are coming from. If this gentleman’s wife was upset and there was something we could do to alleviate that, we will do all we can.” Going personal means digging deep.


That means training sales people to ask ex- ploratory questions in order to uncover the relevant family dynamics. “We are learn- ing who is in the picture, who is not in the picture. One child might be a health care surrogate, one child might make financial decisions. Good discovery is essential. It’s what helps us to make the right connections, to engage with all of the important players in the equation in the right way,” she said.


Wide net Digging deep presumes you have been able to make first contact, either because the family member has made a direct approach or because the resident has brought a son or daughter into the conversation. But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes senior liv- ing executives need to take more active steps to engage those family members. Gosselin employs a number of strategies at Holiday. There’s a resident ambassador program,


which invites a prospective resident and their adult child to visit with current resi- dents and their family members. In addition to giving the prospective resident a peer with whom to bond, “this gives that adult child a chance to talk to another adult child, and they can get some candid feedback about what life is like in the community,” he said. In addition to these targeted invitations,


Holiday also takes broad aim in the hopes of making contact with family members.


10 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE / ISSUE 3 2017


ing with the dinner-and-a-sales-pitch ap- proach once favored by timeshare companies, with invitations broadcast widely to those in the demographic likely to have parents with an interest in senior housing. “People don’t feel threatened. They are with other people like themselves having dinner and they don’t think they are going be getting a hard pitch,” he said. “Someone who might be hesitant to just come into a community directly might think this is a little bit more safe.” While the effectiveness of this approach


has yet to be decided, it may prove one more way to engage family members.


adult children to the table, while still defer- ring to mom and dad’s leadership role. It plays out differently in different fami-


lies, though, and part of Scardigno’s strat- egy lies in finessing those varied situations. “We may see a child who is completely in-


volved and really running the show behind the scenes. If you have the recent widow a son will step in to help with finalizing the financial approvals, making the appoint- ments, just because the parent is on their own and needs that support,” he said. Sales staff will shift emphasis appropriately. “Then you also see the parents running


their own show. They have made the multiple contacts, they have made the decisions and now that it comes to finances they bring in the son or daughter at that point in the pro- cess,” he said. This is a common scenario and one a sales staff needs to know how to handle. “They are writing a check and signing a con-


“Good discovery is essential. It’s what helps us to make the right connections, to engage with all of the important players in the equation in the right way,” said Katie Harvey, executive director, Élan Spanish Springs.


Showing respect Scardigno tries to walk a fine line, some- where between the deep dive and the wide net. He wants the family members to join in the discussion but considers it a matter of respect, as well as good business practice, to always ensure that the prospective resident is at the center of every conversation. He’ll do a zip code blast screened for age


and income, inviting potential residents for a tour and a meal. “Often they will say, ‘Can I bring my daughter?’ and we welcome that,” but the invite goes to the resident, he said. The community’s golf course is a big draw,


so he’ll invite folks for a round of golf, a concert, or an academic lecture. The sales team will make family feel welcome here too, but mom is still front and center. “They are very savvy, they are very independent. These are sophisticated people so we prefer to go through the resident, to show them that respect,” he said. This soft approach still gets him to the


same end: Parents want their kids to be a part of this, and the open invite – ‘Of course the kids can come!’ – will often bring


tract for care for life. That’s a big deal and the kids want to be good protectors at that point.” Scardigno says one key strategy for family


involvement is transparency. “We are very open about our prices, our options, our ame- nities, the care that we provide. It’s really easy to explain,” he said. That level of visibility makes it easy to address the most fundamen- tal family concerns in a straightforward way.


Digital tools When it comes to engaging the family of prospective senior living residents, the tar- get demographic is digitally savvy, and that can be a big plus for communities that are able to leverage technology to engage adult children in the process. Harvey likes a high-tech fix, and it needn’t


be the highest tech. She says Facebook is one of her most powerful tools for bring- ing family members into the dialog. “It is a great window into our community culture,” she said. “Should a family member browse our Facebook page, it’s very likely they will find something mom or dad can connect


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