by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
“When I entered the store, with my mask on,” a lady was telling me, “I was terrified! Everyone looked so weird and scary hiding behind their masks. This was all new and looked so very strange. I took a deep breath. This is life today, I told myself. Then I truly looked and found that people were smiling at me because they were feeling the same way I was. I could see it when I looked in their eyes and I knew it would end in the months ahead and all would be well again.”
This is where we are today. Life goes on. Retirement, long term care and assisted living communities quickly adapted to protect their residents and their employees. Next, they refined daily routines to further keep residents as safe as possible. Those working in food service, now bringing meals to resident’s rooms but just as important, they continue to be cheerful, confidant and smiling behind their masks to convey safe haven to each resident.
In Kind Dining ®, you learn that your mask only covers the nose and mouth. The twinkle in your eye when you smile shows like bright shining stars. Your cheerful “hello, how are you today,” when you enter a resident’s room communicates comfort and safety. It is just what your residents want to hear. Your body language is universal and understood by all nationalities.
Your pleasant and engaging demeanor with residents is especially important now because they have been denied personal visits by family and friends. It helps to fill that empty space of aloneness when food servers spend that extra moment or two passing the time of day. Eating a meal is still an emotional experience. Your residents have taken care to place their orders and have waited in anticipation for the meals to arrive. Mealtimes are meaningful times of the day. The manner in how they are served is vital. Food servers are providing nutrition for the body, the heart, and the soul. They remain key figures of the community.
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
Many positions covering a wide range of skills are open in nursing homes and assisted living communities now. These include a new position created as ‘room service attendant’ in response to in-room dining resulted from necessary physical distancing. The positions may sound like a temporary solution while this pandemic lasts but if the community has the Kind Dining® coaching program to train newly hired food servers, their employment is more likely to be permanent. Studies show that employees who know their jobs well know they are valued by the company and know the residents appreciate their work, they tend to stay with that community. It is a win-win situation for everyone when professional training has been given. Turnovers of employees are costly and cause discomposure to senior residents. They are more content with familiar faces than a constant stream of newbies passing through.
Food servers’ responsibility is still complex even when entering one room at a time rather than a communal dining room. Residents who know their food servers by sight and by name are reassured of their safety. Social graces and etiquette are still expected. A bit of conversation while the food server brings a tray to a resident in lockdown is comforting and fills a small social span that is missed with communal dining at a standstill. It is a universal hospitality-language that breaks through all barriers, all ages, both genders, and all cultures. Remember that even now, as a food server, when you enter residents’ rooms, you are entering their home. That deserves respect and the quality of service they paid for when they chose your community to be home.
COVID-19 has changed dining practices in the nursing homes and assisted living communities but the performance expected from food servers remains the same. The skills learned in Kind Dining® training go with each food server regardless of the routines of mealtime. Residents deserve pleasant, competent, praiseworthy food service that doesn’t reveal the stress that is happening outside their realm. The company that has invested in professional, hands-on training will see their returns over and over again during these unsettling times.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Regulations and Standards
Gail has been a food server in a senior living community for fifteen years. “Our community service team donned masks and closed communal dining early in this pandemic” she reported. “But we still lost some of our food serving team because they were afraid of taking the virus home to their families.”
She went on to comment on how helpful it is to hire food servers with some skills or have in-house courses in place to teach newly hired servers before they even think about picking up a plate. “People don’t realize the skills necessary to have a positive impact on a residents’ dining experience. Hiring anyone who comes in looking for a job doesn’t work. It is essential to be trained at what we do.”
Food serving teams wearing full personal protective equipment, adhering to intense disinfecting, and physical distancing protocols is the new normal for the foreseeable future. These extraordinary precautions are as fundamental as professionally – trained food servers and will be in force until reliable testing and vaccines are available.
Trained food servers stay on the job because they know how to adapt, take on precautions naturally, and still tend the resident with hospitality. Frequent staff huddles will keep your servers up to date and in touch with any new changes in residents’ status. The administration must keep the residents and the staff safe while keeping business sustainable. Monthly virtual meetings and frequent communications can reassure the public that your community is still the safe place for the elder in their family.
Kind Dining® training guides you to growing your serving team personally and professionally to impart your community values and standards. Teaching best practices in foodservice, safety, and kindness regardless of it being physically distanced, is still the ideal and training reflects your company’s extended love and care for residents and staff you serve.
Rise to the challenge COVID-19 has placed on the shoulders of every residential and assisted living community by operating from a place of strength and integrity. Be certain all your food serving staff have trained for the highest skills necessary to perform under stressful circumstances wrapped in kindness and consideration. Remember that these are also skills that can be trained to each person you employ.
Teach them to bring warmth to every table. It is needed now more than ever.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Can you make mealtimes more satisfying for residents during these extraordinary times?
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend of a friend told me her 12-year-old daughter was creating greeting cards while being at home during the pandemic. She handed them into a local group who were passing them to a local organization. They were creating connections by sending cards, drawings, and notes to Assisted Living and retirement community residents nearby. The mother was delighted to see a positive result from several years of art lessons and she was happy her daughter was engaged in a worthwhile activity.
This sounds much like the program of sending Christmas and Holiday cards to hospitalized Vets in December. Pen Pal relationships are also being formed. These are ways to add some cheer to a senior who is now isolated without the privilege of going into the dining room for meals. It’s an especially nice diversion for those who enjoy reading their mail while they eat their meal. The best way to put this idea into practice is to contact local social organizations. They would be experienced in guidelines and who to contact with retirement and assisted living communities.
Another way to keep spirits from lagging at solo mealtimes is to enlighten residents to virtual tours they can take on their computers or Ipads. Tours of foreign countries, art museums, castles, national parks, etcetera are a few available. Some seniors may not be aware of games for multiple players that connect them with others socially such as Lexulous (Scrabble), Words with Friends, Checkers, Mahjong; the list goes on. FaceTime, Skype, and Zoom will put them in touch for visits with friends and families.
Kind Dining® encourages pursuing ways of keeping isolated seniors’ spirits raised during these difficult times. Some chefs have begun turning their cooking into ‘how-to’ shows and streaming them to residents’ TVs and computers. It whets appetites and keeps seniors anticipating their next meal. Chefs have also added a little something extra at dinnertime to let the residents know he is thinking about them, knows the stress some suffer, and that their kitchen food servers care. Some communities have added rolling carts with a bartender visiting each room, ready to make favorite alcoholic drink concoctions before dinnertime to spike appetites for those who indulge. Appetizers are served at the same time.
This is a time when food servers working as a team, being extra cheerful with residents and each other, is vital. It is now that the food serving team in a senior community knows their good hospitality training has paid off.
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
When regulations introduced meal options for residents in senior living communities, it brought changes many thought were going to be costly and difficult to adapt. It has actually proved quite the opposite. Handwritten food orders that were often misread and produced mistakes, waste, and dissatisfaction from the diners were now clearly printed menu selection options. Efficiency increased while waste, cost, and mistakes were decreased. It became much easier to track allergies and special diets keeping the safety of the resident foremost in mind. Food servers found they could spend that extra minute or two conversing with the resident.
Chefs have faced the test of keeping the menu interesting while facing the change in dining services. It has been vital for the food serving team that begins in the kitchen to keep their team skills mastered in their training sessions. Kind Dining® emphasizes the importance of always carrying the team spirit. In these days of COVID-19, it is the food serving teamwork that is the lifeline of any senior community. When food service protocols are in place and followed your food servers will be providing a pleasant dining experience even though the communal dining room is closed. While stress may be in other parts of the community, mealtimes need to show none of it. Team spirit reigns from the kitchen through the halls to the individual rooms being serviced during this pandemic period.
Kind Dining® advises to set standards above those required by regulations and you will always be moving forward, improving your community. Training for new food servers and freshening up training for all food servers keeps your community with a forward-thinking mindset. Consistent training communicates expectations and reminds staff of the community’s values. It is also for the benefit of the food servers to be reminded that their skills and attitudes are to increase their cultural service, confidence, and personal value. When your leaders become coaches through Kind Dining® your staff will be able to adapt easier to build that determination that works for them.
When the permanence of change is sought, it comes from within. That is where the strength is located. Intentional focus on education, trust, and respect for residents, other staff, administration, and other food-serving teammates comes from proper training that changes the way your food serving staff think.
That is the heart of the matter.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Do you tell your food servers that you admire their style and efficiency?
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
The story came to me about a daughter’s sadness who planned to have a big celebration for her mother’s turning 80 years old in the senior living community. How disappointing, even in the midst of all the coronavirus chaos going on, that her big party plans could not take place. An 80th birthday only comes once. A party planner friend clued her in on what to do even though her mom was living in physical distancing.
She was advised to ask the chef if he could prepare a particular dinner. She and her family at home would have the exact same dinner, but they would be ‘sharing’ their mealtime by Zoom since her mom possessed an iPad. The daughter arranged lots of colorful balloons to fly high around the dining table at home where Zoom showed them.
She provided balloons along with their gifts to the community for her mom’s room. Of course, everyone dressed for the occasion, this was a video! Even Mom had good reason to dress up, pouf her hair, and add a bit of lipstick. Voila! A party atmosphere was blooming! The daughter had also arranged for a cake to be baked in the kitchen, again matching the same birthday cake that sat in the middle of the table at home. The final icing on the cake, pun intended, was a Birthday Parade! An hour after dinner was over daughter and family stepped into their cars flying Happy 80th Birthday flags and asked their neighbors to come in their own cars. Everyone was physically distanced and Mom had a very special 80th celebration with the food serving team helping out.
With all the focus being paid on prevention these days it is time to add some merriment to the picture. The dinner requested doesn’t have to be extremely exotic, only a simple dinner the chef can handle with ease in between his efforts to keep everyone happy with the new regulations of eating in their room. We celebrate with food, sharing a table but with lockdown, the sharing has a distance between them.
Kind Dining® is all about training food serving teams to serve meals hygienically and professionally. Good training is more important now more than ever! The basic skills are still necessary for good service but it’s also time to stretch those skills by adding a bit of imagination for those special occasions. These occasions will help keep residents from depression or feeling completely isolated from others in the community’s loss of visitors. Your food servers will feel confident when they apply what they have learned in training, knowing they will reduce the spread of germs of any kind and still able to contribute to a deserved 80th birthday celebration.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Your food serving teams have an important role to play in helping residents overcome loneliness and isolation during these stressful times.
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
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There is no ‘I’ in team!
Find ways to praise co-workers at every opportunity.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Get Ready! Get Set! Go!
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
UCLA coach John Wooden
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
It’s important to continue having celebrations in this time of extreme caution and stress. Have you ever been in a restaurant when the table or two over from you received a cake lit with candles and the wait staff singing Happy Birthday? Didn’t it make you and the other diners around smile, maybe applaud or even join in the song? Maybe this is needed now, especially in today’s senior living community.
Happiness overflows to everyone that touches the celebration. Knowing the occasion, the kitchen will be joyful in preparing a special meal or cake, the food server in bringing it to the resident and everyone it passes will smile. Adding a balloon to the food cart is adding some fun.
Fine Dining® coaches the food serving team to work together in bringing a bit of joy at a time when it is most needed. It’s impossible to have a grim face when bringing a special celebration cake to a resident, so the food server gets to feel joyful, too.
It isn’t necessary that celebrating be confined to one resident. One night can be titled a “Jungle Safari Night” when the chef prepares kabobs, lots of fresh vegetables, and desserts with bananas or coconut to fit in with the theme. Elephant or monkey paper napkins can be used. Food servers can wear straw pith helmets or animal striped visors to join in the fun. Residents can use a little silly with all they have been enduring.
At your food serving staff meeting, invite your food serving team to come up with ideas for themes and how they can work it into their daily routine without disruption. Appealing to them at the planning stage encourages them to add their enthusiasm and makes your food servers a part of the overall team. This creates a bonding effect that guides the plan’s progress in a smooth way. It boosts morale and inspires a working team at a time when they can use the camaraderie. This in turn will strengthen your efforts toward person-directed culture change. Studies show staff empowerment is the key to leadership practices and decentralizes decision making. This shift to include the food serving staff to be part of change and responsibility leads to higher rates of staff retention and lower turnover. This makes for a stronger company and higher company values.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Kind Dining® coaching encourages leadership when you are brave enough to make positive changes.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
It seems like Halloween, the food serving team is dressing up in weird costumes and carrying grandma’s dust cloth. Actually it’s the attire necessary for today’s responsibility for being on the job. Face masks, gloves, and cover-ups that the surgical team wore in the operating room is now what we see wherever caregivers gather to take care of residents in senior living communities. The dust cloth is probably Clorox wipes in hand wherever they may be needed. It’s the new normal but the old normal for food serving teams has remained the same, adding a little extra to what they have always done.
Many residents will need to have a gentle reassurance served with their meals. They will want to know the news of what is happening inside and outside their area. With time being crunched, trays must have everything on it that your diner will want with the meal, saving time of returning with an item overlooked or forgotten. Kind Dining® teaches that organization and training shows up in times of crisis. Mealtimes need to go just as smoothly regardless of what is going on in the external world. Food servers that excel in senior care are company assets that need to extend serving skills, share camaraderie, and show community spirit. Food servers are called upon to continue their high standards of quality service now when service can be a bit more difficult than the normal times left behind.
You can ask what your residents value most these days. Certainly, the answer is seeing the food server coming through the door to their room. It isn’t only the food. It is everything else the food server brings in, most of all her/his presence. The sound of a voice they recognize and a smiling face they know.
For forward-thinking administration, remember to show respect by thanking your food servers for their responsibility, loyalty, and courage. Let them know how highly they are valued in the company and by the residents. Surveys repeatedly show appreciation is high on the list of importance to food serving staff.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Mealtime means much more than food to our senior residents, now more than ever.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Already many stories have come out of our physical distancing for more than a month now. One I heard recently concerned a woman’s husband who was ill but not with the symptoms of the novel coronavirus. The husband didn’t have a cough at all, or fever, muscle pain, chills, loss of taste or smell, or any shortness of breath. He had swollen glands and a sore throat just as he had the previous year. When his wife called the doctor, he said, “With the present situation being what it is, do not come to the clinic.” He gave her an appointment time when he would pay a visit via online video. Sitting in bed, in front of his computer at the appointed time, the doctor’s image appeared and went through the usual routine, say ah, turn your head so the doctor could see the obviously swollen glands and bingo. The visit commenced with a prescription sent to their pharmacy of choice.
This was modern technology put to good use just when it was needed. Don’t panic. Your food serving team will not be replaced by robots. The personal presence of a ‘Good Morning!’ is cherished by residents. In the times we are living in now, many are craving a hug from a friend or family member they cannot be with. We must stay the required 6 feet away when outside the home. A handshake has long been a first indication of meeting a stranger and knowing instantly whether this stranger would become a friend. Times are changing.
The serving team that has been well trained knows the importance of a familiar face or voice and how comforting it can be to residents sequestered in their rooms. To address the person by name and make small talk is a lifeline to many residents, aside from their computers and cell phones. Modern technology keeps us in touch with the outside world, but humanity needs a personal connection, i.e. a pat on the hand, a flower on the food tray, a reassurance that dark times will end.
Many of these personal connections necessary to keep residents contented, comforted, and free from fear, came from the hospitality customs offered for centuries. It is the same hospitality Kind Dining® has been teaching since the beginning. People are not born with these skills but once they become aware of them and how easily they can learn them with the right instructors, they can practice them until they come naturally. The food serving team is the lifeline of the senior living community in sickness, in health, and in physical distancing times such as we are living in today.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The story came to me recently about a conversation between a few friends. They were reminiscing on FaceTime about their earlier married years when they used to have themed parties on Saturday nights after settling the kids into bed for the babysitter. Now they were looking forward to themed dinner times to break up the monotony of being physically distanced from their friends in their retirement community. It helps to hold the gloom of the present pandemic situation at bay. They mentioned how thoroughly enjoyable a Hawaiian luau was one night and a Mexican Fiesta another. Laughing, they told how the food servers joined in on the fun and dressed the part to match the theme, even bringing a little related music in with their appropriately decorated food carts. It worked to lift everyone’s spirits.
We at Kind Dining® have long embraced fresh ideas and proven techniques to keep your residents happy and contented with their mealtimes. Themes are one tool that can be used to enlighten moods, especially at this time when many are uncertain. Hospitality remains a constant in giving people satisfaction at mealtime while it also encourages your food serving team the pleasure of helping residents be reassured during these days. The present is a time of stress we are all experiencing daily. Let your genius show by being creative. Ask your food servers for their thoughts, too. They may have new ideas from talking with residents as they serve their meals.
At Kind Dining®, we have a saying: Mealtime is the most important time to positively impact your resident’s nutritional health, wellbeing, and quality of life. That doesn’t change whether you are serving in the dining room or extending room service. Support your food servers by letting them know how valued they are, how you appreciate the additional work they are providing to residents to keep them calm during this crisis. When you give your food serving staff a new sense of purpose, they will get along better with others on the food serving team and with residents. Now is a good moment for them to focus time and energy on what matters most: mealtimes. Your residents will respond in kind.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Provide a warm, sincere greeting when you enter a resident’s room.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
The food serving team in a community sets the ambiance for each mealtime and everyone agrees that mealtimes are the most important time of the day for residents. With today’s required physical distancing, food servers are often the one human, in-the-flesh-link to the outside world for some residents. They carry the most responsibility, not only bringing in food the resident anticipates, but also brings in a live one-on-one conversation, community news of the day, and calmness to some residents who are still fearful of COVID 19. Your food servers are the company’s most valued asset in normal times; in times of the pandemic they are vital. Good always comes out of bad. When your foodservice team comes into work every day knowing there is possible danger to them, but also knowing they are needed is an act of heroism. The company and the community are depending on them, as are the residents they have come to know through the service they have been giving before the Coronavirus appeared.
Forward-thinking administration will tell their food serving teams just how important they are and how appreciative they are of their food serving performance. Let them be aware they are crucial to their work; their achievements reflect company values. Most of all let them know the impact their food serving technique has on the residents. They may not be aware that the job they do every day is vital to the well-being of the residents’ quality of life as well as the life-line of the company.
Kind Dining® training is a great way to achieve the food serving team you want to have in your community. It is a time for paying attention to detail in delivering the room service necessary today. Kind Dining® trained food servers who participate especially on theme meal days will help to relax residents upset by the COVID 19 threat. Dressing to match the theme, adding appropriate music, and extra notables all help in the process. The themes are meant to create a fun time to loosen up worried residents. Theme dining is one way to lighten the moods of those who are in restricted social gatherings, especially at mealtimes.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: You are important to your company and community; how you serve meals makes a difference!
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
Serving food has always been so much more than bringing food to the table. Every person who loves being in the kitchen or has restaurant life in their blood system knows that “Bad service can ruin a good meal yet good service can save a bad one.” Even your finest chefs will tell you that. When it comes to senior retirement communities and nursing homes it is even more critical.
Surveys have proven over and over again that social engagement and building relationships for a quality living are paramount to seniors in nursing homes and retirement communities. The social engagements and relationships must be continued even if the residents are restricted to their rooms. Food servers who engage with the seniors they serve are found to be happier individuals themselves. It is their devotion to the idea of mealtimes being a social event that reflects back to them when seeing a resident enjoy having the food server enter their room. Address them by name, make a casual comment to engage a conversation, and pass on information gathered on the events of the day in the community.
When families cannot visit, the cheer they would bring is left up to the food server to convey. A sincere compliment will quietly encourage a senior to continue ‘dressing up’ for dinner. Asking a simple question will encourage an otherwise shy or reticent person to engage in much-needed conversation. Kind Dining® training continues to direct the food serving staff to expand their own intelligence, responsibility, and to improve the food serving protocols installed in your community. Remember to wear your name tags so people may speak to you personally. Smile and make eye contact so others may read the twinkle in your eyes the smile they can’t see under your mask that you are happy to be serving their meal.
The food serving team is the most valuable community asset it has. They set the dining ambiance for your resident whether it is the community dining room or their private room where they are now taking their meals. It still is the most significant time of the day for your residents. The brief social interaction received during the dining hour presently comes from the food serving team. Hospitality is always the key factor and just as essential as ever.
Our B♥ Kind ® Tip: Practice your Kind Dining® skills every day until they come naturally!
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The story came to me about a woman lamenting the loss of her friend’s meeting for meals at
noon. It was her big social time of the day. Special. A reason to pouf her hair and add a pretty
scarf around her neck. Now she was hovering in physical distancing. All meals were brought to
her room. Her lifted spirits drooped after a few weeks of bad news on the TV. Then she paid
particular attention to her food server who was now taking a few minutes to pass the time of day
and share the news from the community.
One day last week the food server complimented her on the rings she was wearing. It was just
enough to put the sparkle back in her mind. She began dressing up again at noontime. The food
server smiled noticing the difference. Each day at noon the food server looked for that extra bit
her resident wore and complimented her on it. It made them both laugh and created a bond
between them. It was nothing humongous but it was important enough to create a flicker of
enjoyment in life, even in physical distance time.
Modern technology finally entered in with ways to use the cell phone and the internet to connect
with her friends again. They noticed how well put together she was like she had not lost her zest
at all. “It was my food server,” she said as she called her by name. “We’ve gotten to know each
other like we never have before. It’s wonderful.!”
What Kind Dining® has been teaching and coaching is more important than ever. The basics are
the same for food servers whether in the dining room or in the residents’ rooms. Emit that homey
feeling. Allow those you serve to know that you care, that you want to do a little extra to add to
their contentment and well-being. When your food servers create good relationships the
community moves forward.
Food servers who bond with their coworkers, help create a team ensuring that everyone wins.
Teammates enjoy being together and look forward to coming to work to see each other. The
residents receive the overflow from that good team energy. The food serving team receives the
benefit of loving what they do and the amazing results their efforts bring about. They see it
happening each day.
Our B♥ Kind ® Tip: Thanks for the responsibility you shoulder and everything you do to honor
residents.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend of a friend told me how upset he was because he couldn’t enter his mother’s assisted living community to visit her. “That’s why I moved to this area,” he said. “I visit her three times a week until today. The door was closed to me. I want to see how she is doing.” It was explained to him about the COVID-19 virus and this is what they were doing to stop the spreading of the disease. It is a time for active commitment for the common good-social solidarity– in order to stop the spreading of this disease. It was difficult but essential for him to understand the depth of their continued care. He was informed that they were even delivering all meals to each resident’s room as a way of fulfilling physical distancing.
Kind Dining® stresses that mealtimes are the most important time of the day for residents because they benefit from social contact. Until presently, communal dining has been an essential social time for residents. Now food servers will be filling that mealtime space by individual service to each resident’s room. At a time when the general population is upset, worried, stressed, and concerned, your food serving team can embrace being calm, uplifting, pleasant, chatty, and reassuring to each resident served. Add remembering to constantly wash hands to the list of duties. Find ways to give your food serving team time and techniques to give extra care and attention to residents who need to stay in their rooms for solitary meals for the common good of all. It’s what a food serving team does. It’s what a good food serving team does.
It is also important that every food server in your community needs to understand their vital role during this time of crisis. Let them know how valued, appreciated and supportive they are to the community, resident, and resident’s family. Facilities must include a training program for volunteers if they are brought in to help in the food serving process.. This pandemic will not disappear overnight. Communities ought to prepare for a lengthy stretch. We at Kind Dining are here to support you and your success.
_________________________________________________________________________
Thank you for your service and the hard work you do.
You matter
You are needed
You are appreciated
Remember, coming to work today, you made a difference.
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Additional Resources you may not know about:
Suzanne Quiring with her SuzyQ cart system: Please email Suzanne directly or check out her website
Becky Dorner with Becky Dorner & Associates: Becky Dorner & Assoc: Becky Dorner resources
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In case you missed it-repeat: My latest video message on the LiveWell site
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: In-Kind Dining® service, all food servers can be leaders and empathize enough to extend work commitment.
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
Kind Dining® has always stressed the importance of mealtimes in the community dining room. Now that residents have been restricted from coming into the dining room for meals it is more important than ever for food serving teams to take up the social aspect of mealtime. Take at least a minute, or so to talk with each resident served. Ask if everything for the meal is on the tray. Chat for a moment. Ask, “How are you today?” Listen to the answer. Show that you care more than just bringing in a tray of food. After you have delivered to the next resident, stop back to your last room served and ask if all that was needed was on the tray.
Surveys report that residents spend a good portion of their day preparing for mealtimes for social exchange. It is essential for food servers to fill a small portion of social interaction at mealtimes now that the community dining rooms are closed. Even brief comments will help the resident feel like they have not been forgotten but are still connected. You are their link to what is the latest happening in their community. Keep your conversation pleasant and promising. Remember that your personal appearance speaks for you and the community. Don’t let the current COVID-19 situation fluster you. Allow reassuring words to pepper your conversation. Residents will pick up your sensibility. Stay clean and neat. It represents a calm environment. Be polite and courteous. Tell your residents that all is well within the community. Kind Dining® training is available to help your food serving team to learn quickly how to lead in this time of pressure and need.
Your food servers set the ambiance for your residents. Let them know their value, the company, and the community’s appreciation. Demonstrate extra kindness to all your food servers for the excellent job they are doing just by coming to work. Notice and support their sense of serenity. Mealtimes have been the social highlight of the day for residents. Now they are even more dependent on their food servers. Show compassion and give special attention to those who are in their rooms by themselves and those who do not have access to the internet for staying connected socially.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: You have the power to make today’s meal more special than usual.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The Coronavirus has changed the landscape of our lives in a matter of two weeks. A week ago I entered the hospital to visit my husband Mike after his elective back surgery. First, I was screened, temperature taken and a series of questions to answer. I was the only visitor he was allowed to have; not one visitor at a time, but the only visitor for his entire stay. He was the last patient in surgery before the ward was being transformed exclusively for Coronavirus patients.
Each day tighter restrictions were put in place. Only one entrance could be used. Visiting hours were reduced and ended at 6 p.m. It was essential that the visitor remained in the patient’s room at all times until leaving the hospital. The hospital corridors were reminiscent of a ghost town; completely empty. I barely found my way out.
Several clients called to ask my opinion on how to cope with the jarring restrictions, including ending communal dining, in their senior living communities within those four days. Kind Dining® has always stressed the importance of mealtimes in the community dining room. Now it was not permissible. Yet it is most important to enhance residents’ nutritional health, emotional well-being, and quality of life, no matter the setting. That’s true for all of us.
In this complicated and extraordinary battle with COVID-19, it is even more important for different reasons. I’m here today to share a few important tips to create a new normal about eating in isolation. Here are 5 ways that will consistently make a difference.
- Introduce yourself and greet your resident by name.
- Be able to describe their meal as you present their plate.
- Quickly scan the tray for any missing condiments, and have a backup supply close by.
- Exit graciously after sharing a kind word, a community news update, or report on the weather outside.
- Make arrangements for yourself or a co-worker to circle back within 3 minutes to Ask: Is there anything else we can get you?
Keeping this routine lowers the feelings of isolation and frustration. It Improves the feelings of solidarity and familiarity and improves the feeling of appreciation for one another. Expect each interaction to be different but keep your response calm and consistent.
Thank you for your service and for all you do.
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Many positions covering a wide range of skills are open in nursing homes and assisted living communities now. These include a new position created as ‘room service attendant’ in response to in-room dining resulted from necessary physical distancing. The positions may sound like a temporary solution while this pandemic lasts but if the community has the Kind Dining® coaching program to train newly hired food servers, their employment is more likely to be permanent. Studies show that employees who know their jobs well know they are valued by the company and know the residents appreciate their work, they tend to stay with that community. It is a win-win situation for everyone when professional training has been given. Turnovers of employees are costly and cause discomposure to senior residents. They are more content with familiar faces than a constant stream of newbies passing through.
Gail has been a food server in a senior living community for fifteen years. “Our community service team donned masks and closed communal dining early in this pandemic” she reported. “But we still lost some of our food serving team because they were afraid of taking the virus home to their families.”
A friend of a friend told me her 12-year-old daughter was creating greeting cards while being at home during the pandemic. She handed them into a local group who were passing them to a local organization. They were creating connections by sending cards, drawings, and notes to Assisted Living and retirement community residents nearby. The mother was delighted to see a positive result from several years of art lessons and she was happy her daughter was engaged in a worthwhile activity.
When regulations introduced meal options for residents in senior living communities, it brought changes many thought were going to be costly and difficult to adapt. It has actually proved quite the opposite. Handwritten food orders that were often misread and produced mistakes, waste, and dissatisfaction from the diners were now clearly printed menu selection options. Efficiency increased while waste, cost, and mistakes were decreased. It became much easier to track allergies and special diets keeping the safety of the resident foremost in mind. Food servers found they could spend that extra minute or two conversing with the resident.
The story came to me about a daughter’s sadness who planned to have a big celebration for her mother’s turning 80 years old in the senior living community. How disappointing, even in the midst of all the coronavirus chaos going on, that her big party plans could not take place. An 80th birthday only comes once. A party planner friend clued her in on what to do even though her mom was living in physical distancing.
It’s important to continue having celebrations in this time of extreme caution and stress. Have you ever been in a restaurant when the table or two over from you received a cake lit with candles and the wait staff singing Happy Birthday? Didn’t it make you and the other diners around smile, maybe applaud or even join in the song? Maybe this is needed now, especially in today’s senior living community.
The story came to me recently about a conversation between a few friends. They were reminiscing on FaceTime about their earlier married years when they used to have themed parties on Saturday nights after settling the kids into bed for the babysitter. Now they were looking forward to themed dinner times to break up the monotony of being physically distanced from their friends in their retirement community. It helps to hold the gloom of the present pandemic situation at bay. They mentioned how thoroughly enjoyable a Hawaiian luau was one night and a Mexican Fiesta another. Laughing, they told how the food servers joined in on the fun and dressed the part to match the theme, even bringing a little related music in with their appropriately decorated food carts. It worked to lift everyone’s spirits.
Serving food has always been so much more than bringing food to the table. Every person who loves being in the kitchen or has restaurant life in their blood system knows that “Bad service can ruin a good meal yet good service can save a bad one.” Even your finest chefs will tell you that. When it comes to senior retirement communities and nursing homes it is even more critical.
The story came to me about a woman lamenting the loss of her friend’s meeting for meals at
Kind Dining® has always stressed the importance of mealtimes in the community dining room. Now that residents have been restricted from coming into the dining room for meals it is more important than ever for food serving teams to take up the social aspect of mealtime. Take at least a minute, or so to talk with each resident served. Ask if everything for the meal is on the tray. Chat for a moment. Ask, “How are you today?” Listen to the answer. Show that you care more than just bringing in a tray of food. After you have delivered to the next resident, stop back to your last room served and ask if all that was needed was on the tray.