What can you do when the entire industry has been affected by the pandemic? It is vital to help residents understand why you may not fulfill every request they have at the present time. Residents really have no idea about the inner workings of your foodservice team. Neither do they realize that you have suppliers who also have a shortage of supplies, employees, and delivery drivers? Through good training sessions, your food servers know how to start up conversations with the residents while serving meals. It’s a good time for them to discuss with knowledge and confidence the shortages of supplies as well as staff. Volunteers may emerge from those conversations especially from those who have retired from the food industry and know exactly what difficulties you are facing.
The friendships your food servers have intentionally built with your residents are now the perfect way to stimulate their thinking about the problems the pandemic has caused. They will be happy to know about current events and viewpoints other than their own. Knowing others have volunteered for a temporary time may encourage them to also offer their services. Volunteering is a welcome and rewarding experience that benefits residents, staff, and the community. It helps to relieve the stress of a staff member doing the small jobs that take time to perform when employees are short-staffed. It boosts the spirit of the volunteer and enables them to meet new acquaintances. Relationships nurture good health and hospitality is pure enjoyment. These connections may spur the desire to leave the comfort of their rooms and mingle with others again.
Kind Dining♥ training, now available online, can transform food serving teams into leaders, show them how to build trust and heal broken relationships within the community. Making significant improvements in attitudes in your food serving staff increases meal revenues from family and guests and resident satisfaction. Simply adopting kindness to the persona of each employee in virtual practice sessions will introduce harmony to the daily work shift. Practicing serving skills includes everyone and avoids pointing a finger or weakness that may embarrass a worker. The training sessions are about building teams with positive thoughts and actions. It’s about working efficiently, intelligently, and solving problems not by finding fault but by finding a better way. Kind Dining♥ builds relationships around the table. Does your food serving staff do the same?
B♥ Kind Tip: Practice your Kind Dining♥ skills every day; they will soon come naturally!