INSIGHTS FROM THE C-SUITE


The three Mainstage sessions gathered leaders from providers and industry services and product companies to share how they have responded to the pandemic crisis and what may be ahead in three critical areas: managing COVID-19, workforce, and investment and growth.


GETTING AHEAD OF THE


COVID-19 CRISIS Cindy Baier, president and CEO, Brookdale


“Our experience is that the vast majority of families have a positive view of senior living. At the same time, there’s no question that some of the news articles about the COVID-19 experience in skilled nursing did cause some concern.


We’ve been very public about our low infection rate…and that has done a lot to influence people as to the ability of senior living to put strong infection control protocols in place and truly help keep residents safe.


Our experience is that consumers are hungry for information, and so we have posted over the course of the past six to seven months an extensive library of videos with new information as it becomes available. That has spanned everything from testing to infection control to what’s happening in the communities, and that has really helped with consumer perception.


We believe that consumer perception does shift with information. We’re very pleased to have had thousands of move-ins during the pandemic. I do think it’s going to take some time for consumer perception to completely recover, but I think with the heroic effort, our industry will ultimately prevail. Perception will improve as residents have more opportunities to visit with loved ones.


The best advocates for our industry are the people who have chosen to live with us. I know from our National Resident Advisory Council they are very pleased with the services they have, and that message will be shared.


As we approached COVID-19, the financial crisis, the social unrest in the country, there was no question you needed to be a nimble learning organization that focuses on what matters most. Finally, we’ve got to have great teamwork, because we have been running a marathon at a sprint pace. I don’t think that’s going to change, but by leveraging an organization that can learn and uses teamwork, we’ll figure out how to overcome any challenges that come our way.”


HOW COVID-19 ACCELERATED CROSS-INDUSTRY STAFFING


SOLUTIONS Zeta Smith, CEO, North America Seniors, Sodexo


“Sodexo is a big company, and it has multiple divisions, seniors being one—but also universities, corporate, airline lounges…and as I rattle those off, you’ll note most of those were negatively impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found ourselves with a lot of furloughed employees.


We created a heatmap that identified furloughed employees around the country. In senior living, we identified where the need was, based on staffing and requests. Then we matched the furloughed employees to the need.


We also created a recruiting video both for internal and external use. As you look at the news, certainly through the first couple of months, there was a lot of negative information shared around senior communities.


The recruiting video emphasized the safety protocols for employees and the safety culture that we have, the gratification you get in taking care of senior residents—trying to rebrand to the positive aspect of working in senior communities.


We introduced an onboarding program for those who were not familiar with senior living to make sure their onboarding experience was effective. It was an interesting time, to make sure we had the right tools and processes, to make sure everyone was set up for success certainly around the safety precautions.


We created a program called Groceries to Go. It evolved from staff—in one of the senior communities, the client created a small “grocery store” of paper products. The staff were working all day, and they didn’t have time to go to the grocery store. Based on those learnings, we leveraged our global supply chain and created a program that could be duplicated across communities. The best ideas always come from staff.”


THE POST-COVID REIT LANDSCAPE


Eric Mendelsohn, president and CEO, National Health Investors


“We have seen a delay in projects because of difficulty of getting bids, difficulty of supply chain issues. We’re seeing most of our financial resources and dry powder is directed toward assisting operators who need flexibility in rent payments, or capex requirements that are in the lease, or covenants, so there’s a lot of activity going on in the background around those issues.


I can tell you that when you have an operator who has a building that has deep value or upside—and I believe this is that type of market, where value is more prevalent—leases tend to be the more favored vehicle because you can control and own the operation and all the profits.


The other thing we try to do is with our escalators—I tell people 2 percent is the new 3 percent. We’re very gentle with our escalators, and we’re very mindful that they could easily outstrip inflation in a low-inflation environment.


Finally, we’ll offer things like purchase options 7-to-10 years down the road, so if the operator does create a lot of value and upside in the business, and they want to monetize that, we can at least have a conversation—do you want to stay in the lease, we can recap, or write you a check with the equity you’ve built, or you want to have a conversation about higher debt or lower debt.”


DON'T FORGET


Sessions held in the auditoriums were recorded and are available on-demand exclusively for 2020 Argentum Senior Living Executive Virtual Conference registrants via the virtual platform. These sessions will be available for viewing through January 2021. Please visit conference.argentum.org.


NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 ARGENTUM.ORG 39


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