Some food servers don’t seem like they are trying to give genuine personal care and aid to the comfort of the older people they serve, yet that is what they are doing. If they love their job, love the work they do, and care for the older people they serve, it appears to be a natural part of the day for them. When food servers practice what they learn in structured training, it comes naturally. Food servers are the part of the employee team that instill the warmth of the table and sets the safe, comfortable ambiance older people need most. They use these professional skills three times a day during meals plus at snack times.

Trained food servers understand their role and the importance of the busyness of the community’s day as they hold the delicate position of creating contentment for a resident through their service at mealtimes. Kind Dining® training helps the unskilled worker learn a better way of completing their work while accepting the responsibilities of their job and building relationships of trust and safety with the residents and others on the food serving team. Kind Dining® guides the skilled food servers to seek opportunities to grow and expand their skills. They become proud of their professional appearance, language, and behavior in the service of hospitality given to all residents. Their value to the organization increases as they are the main key to the smooth running of a community by way of the hospitality of their mealtime service.

In these highly emotional and threatening times of coronavirus, it is imperative to have an ample number of trained food servers on your staff. They are the employees who stay through a crisis because they have been trained to handle unexpected situations. They know the precautions to take, yet continue to instill confidence, pleasantry, and comfort in the residents they serve. At Kind Dining®, we have a saying: Mealtime is the most important time to positively impact your residents’ nutritional health, wellbeing, and quality of life.  That doesn’t change whether you are serving in the dining room or providing room service. It doesn’t change during the average everyday life in an LTC or retirement community or during the present pandemic times we are living through.

Our B♥ Kind® Tip: In present-days of coronavirus find ways to give well-deserved praise to your food servers at every opportunity.