by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
I read in a blog that Glassdoor named a Senior Living Community one of 50 Best Places to Work in 2017. It noted the passion of the employees who stated that they loved the residents and valued their wisdom. Here are three direct quotes from the employees: “I find joy in working with my residents. I like to make them laugh, sing, and dance.” “I work for an awesome and amazing company. I have the support I need to be successful.” “Teams in the communities love their jobs and think of them more as missions rather than jobs.” The CEO states about his employees: “We’re honored they chose a career with us.”
When your servers are committed to their work, learning something new about their responsibilities on the job is like having an infusion of vital energy that pumps them up with excitement. Contentment can bring complacency. Doing the same work every day can become lackluster. A bit of challenge tends to bring out the best in employees who love what they do. Supplying your servers with learning, as with the new government regulations, places a goal in front of them. It’s an investment the company makes in the employee that will return benefits to the company by keeping a good server who wants to grow with the company.
The work of caring for the residents in the community can bring rewards in self-satisfaction when your servers know they are over the top with performance. An excellent server is an inspiration to others who work with her. This is leadership that can be encouraged by learning what Kind Dining® teaches. It is pride that comes from within, about one’s own job and about the company she works for. It’s about growth, personal and professional.
Empowering your servers with on-the-spot decision making adds to their responsibility, but also gives them more of a sense of being part of the company, not just hired help. Learning to greet residents when they enter the dining room, holding a chair for them, or even inquiring about a family member or some other personal item, opens the door for growth. Good manners create a happy, comfortable atmosphere where it is needed most in the dining room. Seniors will be very grateful for mealtimes where good digestion begins with the graciousness of their server with every mealtime.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: When it comes to Kind Dining service, we can all be leaders—we just have to be brave enough to make positive changes.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend told me about me her stay at Duke University Hospital during her scheduled heart surgery to replace a defective aortic heart valve. “I talked to everyone, the man who wheeled me down for an x-ray each day, the lady who cleaned my room, the nurses on the floor, and the person who brought my meals. I even queried the anesthetist.” she said. “I asked how long they worked there. How did they like it, etc.“ She quickly learned that she was in good hands in all facets of her visit. The day after 6 hours of surgery she was ordered to be up and walking as much as possible. So she continued her conversations about work.
She found that people traveled across country for the opportunity to work there. No one she spoke to had less than 8 years, and some had 20 to 25 years, most had 15 years of being employed at Duke. They were treated fairly with respect as employees. They worked 10 hour days, 4 days a week with a 3-day off period.
She watched and heard the cheerful camaraderie between mealtime servers and specialty nurses, between the anesthetist and the lady who brought her meal in when he was still sitting at her bedside. They all worked together, stepping out of their job classification to give a helping hand to whoever was nearby. Even the surgeon came in whistling at 5 am to check his work. Surely that was a sign of a man who loves what he does.
This ideal workplace can be your community with the best training from Kind Dining® showing you how to attain this status. Imagine having applicants moving to your area of the country because they want to work in your community. Imagine not having to advertise for replacements because someone has left your employ too soon leaving the expense of it. Imagine your employees coming to work whistling and the response they will receive from your residents. The people you want to work in your community have the positive attitude that Kind Dining® develops.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: A Positive Attitude Affects Your Community
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The culture of hospitality is the key factor in senior care community and the dining room is the heart of that factor. It’s usually where strangers come to first meet their new lifetime neighbors, to dine, socialize, and generally get to know each other. It‘s also where they will come to see the serving staff three times a day and get to know them as well. When your serving staff has been trained by Kind Dining® they will know how to make this transition easy for the newcomers to your community.
Serving meals, while creating a comfortable environment is a team effort that does not come naturally to everyone. Working together as a team is complex. Each person on the team has their own responsibilities, plus is there to help their teammate when needed. Team participants build trust as they become an important part of something bigger than the individual.
Your community dining room can be a winner that gets noticed in the same way that the late, great coach Vince Lombardi was in football. His legendary teamwork habits remain long after his lifetime ended because they brought the results of a winning team. Kind Dining® training can make your community and your dining room a winner by coaching you to build the best team, one that gets noticed!
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Focus on teamwork that builds trust for a winning dining room.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend of mine told me that she put her house up for sale. She followed all the tips the Realtor® suggested about staging the interior of her home. When one couple came to look at the house, they struck up a conversation. “I noticed how clean all the streets in the neighborhood are,” she commented. This surprised my friend who had concentrated on the interior of the house, but she replied, “Yes, we’re part of the neighborhood volunteers who do our share of tidying up the roadways. You’ll even see a plaque on the roadside letting people know that we care about our neighborhood.”
The couple bought the house because they loved it, but also because it was important to them to live in a place where people took pride and cared where they lived.
Caring and pride where you live and where you work are important and affects not only yourself as an employee, but others around you. When all employees care about the environment they work in, your residents will receive the overflow. A pleasant “Good Morning” can set a happy pace for a resident, as well as tissues dropped in a hallway and not picked up because “it isn’t my job” can turn their day sour. It’s more than being told what to do and doing it. It’s about wanting to come to work where fellow workers care like you do and kindly step out of their job description to be a part of a happy community.
Kind Dining® training knows how to turn your community around to be the best productive and happy community you want it to be. Showing servers, nurses, caregivers, staff, and all who work in the community how to look at the workday from a new perspective will change their life for the better and your residents will be happier for it. A new day will begin once Kind Dining® leads your team through the labyrinth of attitude change toward new regulations. Your employees will look forward to coming to work and your residents will take pride in where they chose to call home.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: A positive attitude always makes a big difference in everyone’s day.
The culture of hospitality is the key factor in senior care community and the dining room is the heart of that factor. It’s usually where strangers come to first meet their new lifetime neighbors, to dine, socialize, and generally get to know each other. It‘s also where they will come to see the serving staff three times a day and get to know them as well. When your serving staff has been trained by Kind Dining® they will know how to make this transition easy for the newcomers to your community.