by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
Speaking of importance in a dining room…
“I stopped trying to chase the perfect place to be, and realized the perfect place is with your loved ones and your closest friends, around the dinner table, over a good meal, talking about the past year and the year to come and things that you want to change in your life. You hear their stories and talk about things you like to see happen in the world. That’s what we do.” ~ Hilary Swank
While the table in your community dining may be filled with people you’ve met for the first time, the joy of sharing the table is the same. The social exchange of conversation while having dinner, lunch, or breakfast truly enriches a person’s day. In time those other residents may become your new best friends.
“The dinner table is the center for the teaching and practicing not just of table manners but of conversation, consideration, tolerance, family feeling, and just about all other accomplishments of polite society except the minuet.” – Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners
The dining room in your community is the most important room in your community. It’s where many seniors will meet for the first time and often meet residents of other cultural backgrounds. It’s where many will bond and find a ‘chosen family’ of friends. It’s where many will proudly invite their families to join them, to see why they love the community they chose. It is the key to a new life for seniors choosing a new style of life.
“Back in the old days, when I was a child, we sat around the family table at dinner time and exchanged our daily experiences. It wasn't very organized, but everyone was recognized and all the news that had to be told was told by each family member. We listened to each other and the interest was not put on; it was real.” Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo)
It cannot be denied. Universal knowledge, as these quotes from various walks of life, show the focus in your community needs to be your dining room. Kind Dining® has affordable training for your food servers to utilize the most important room in your community. Leading the way for your food servers to do the best job they can and learning how easy it is with practice, to build pride in what they do, and to incorporate teamwork into their daily schedule is within your reach.
Our B♥ Kind ® Tip: Mealtime means much more than food to our residents.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Autumn turns a chef’s ideas to serving comforting foods to your community residents gathering around the traditional table of warmth and congeniality. It’s a time for coming in out of the cold, looking forward to sharing a meal and conversation that warms your heart and your tummy. It’s a special time to bring new and long-time friends together where residents may find brilliantly colored leaves, pumpkins and apples on the table. A time when seeing their table companions creates a feeling warmer than knee-high socks and furry boots.
Hospitality in the autumn has a different aura than any other time of year. It is a great time for your food servers to exercise their teamwork, extending a helping hand naturally the way I teach through Kind Dining® transformational training.
Allow your food servers to invest in your community by their offering suggestions for improvements. Open the door to staff discussions. When your food servers, which include those often unseen in the kitchen, accept responsibility for their work, their self-image rises and they will come to love the work they do. Seemingly small things like restocking the pantry or passing along any particular note of information to the oncoming shift will come as another part of their day. This awareness of higher standards of the work day will overflow to the residents in a positive way. Happy residents mean a happy community which means a happy company. It’s an ‘everybody wins’ situation.
Culture change and personalizing service in the dining room builds trust between food servers and residents. Training sessions with Kind Dining® will show your food servers how to easily please residents whose expectations were to receive good service when they chose your community. Well-trained food servers are your company’s best marketing asset.
Our B♥ Kind ® Tip: Remember, the service you give has the power to build community
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
“As soon as the trees begin to turn into a glorious canvas of autumn colors, I begin to think of Thanksgiving Day. I mean this year’s Thanksgiving Day to come, based on all the previous ones I remember. I love that Day and think it is my favorite holiday of the year because it is all about gathering around the table with friends, family, and a stranger or two, sharing hospitality.”
A friend said this to me recently reminding me of the learning about hospitality I received at each of my own Thanksgiving Days growing up. I carried that learning into my career when I started in the restaurant industry, where a passion developed for customer service, hospitality, and good food. I continued further by becoming a food service director in a primitive residential camp in a remote area of Alaska. That particular position taught me how people rely on food to bring them a sense of contentment when they are in an unfamiliar setting. That is what elders face when coming into a senior living community new to them and stepping into the dining room those first few times.
Emotion sits at the table along with aroma, appearance, and companionship. When I left the primitive camp position, I fulfilled my youthful dream of owning my own restaurant, and became an operating partner who gained a ton of experience in our two restaurants in Juneau. After leaving the restaurant business and moving to Oregon, I became a dietary manager in a large nursing home. That is where I changed the way I looked at food service, differently, and forever. I was called on to do much more outside my job description, to meet each resident personally, and work on equal footing with all co-workers from all departments. I was committed. A seed planted grew into a large tree that eventually became my Higher Standards version of hospitality to the elder care marketplace. I knew I could make an important difference in communities serving
senior citizens.
I gained much more experience and education in those years. My passion continued to grow.
Kind Dining® curriculum was born using hospitality as the foundation and civility as the tone. Hospitality and civility go hand in hand as a universal language that treats others with kindness, love, and generosity. Kind Dining® is a hands-on training session where I teach that food needs to be served, not just dispensed and where food servers benefit by learning the right skills. It’s best to learn by doing rather than trying to learn by words only.
Our B♥ Kind ® Tip: Remember, happy diners make happy residents who will recommend your
senior living community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
When a friend who taught occupational therapy suffered a stroke and wound up in a nursing home for permanent and long term care, she learned a new way to look at what she had been teaching for many years. As her progress restored her to a normal life again she wrote notes about her experience so improvements could be made on the earlier education she taught. She eventually wrote a book about it to help others and their families with decisions they may want to make.
Much later, looking back she realized how fortunate she was in being placed in a nursing home where the caregivers truly did care. Adjusting to mealtimes was major. Food servers showed enough respect for her intelligence by showing her a new way to cut up the food on her plate by using a rocker knife instead of cutting the food for her. As someone who worked hard to return to her former physical self, she didn’t want someone to do it for her. On days when she was thoughtful and quiet, she chose the small dining room off to the side, away from the noisier large cafeteria, appreciating she had a choice of where to eat.
In the earlier days, when she did go into the larger cafeteria, a food server guided her to a table occupied with congenial residents until she acclimated and could choose her own seat. She received individual attention which created a family-like comfort. Food servers called her by name, were cheerful, and encouraging her every step along the way. This was especially important because she had no family living locally. When she fully recovered and returned to her own home, she bought small gifts for many of the food servers and caregivers. She remembered some had gone above the required assistance to lift her spirits when she was frustrated or they just showed extra kindness. She would always remember them.
My Kind Dining® training program was designed to introduce your food servers to being aware of the individual, to unlearn poor serving habits, turning them into skills, and for food servers to become sensitive to residents during their stay in your senior living community. Embracing the new regulations and adapting them into daily routines through my training program will build pride in your food servers and bring sparkle to the eye of the residents in your dining room.
Our B♥ Kind ® Tip: Stop, look and listen. Where can you improve service?
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
My friend told me “I admit that I was eavesdropping in a restaurant when I heard the word ‘bullying’ mentioned. Expecting to hear a story about kids in school I was quite surprised when they were talking about a senior community not too far away. Claiming territory in the dining room seemed to be the most common. Some tables were saved for friends of their own, no newcomers allowed. Name calling was a close second, especially in the Bingo room if a game was not won by someone in their clique.”
She continued, “They talked about a 70 year old woman who was abused so badly i.e. having her dinner table intentionally bumped with a wheelchair hard enough that her soup spilled onto the floor. After being spit on in the elevator, because her partner of 30 years, who had passed away, was a woman, she’d had enough. She filed a law suit against the community and moved to another community.”
Most bullies attempt to feel superior by making others social outcasts if they don’t comply with the bully’s demands. Women tend to do more bullying than men in the senior communities. They often choose to criticize the same person and insult them, trip them entering the dining room, and refuse to allow them to join in a social group. Men have been noted for their sexual bullying in some communities.
Staff and food servers can be bullies and not even be aware of it. They may think they are ‘teasing’ a resident when actually they are insulting or belittling them. Food servers, staff, and residents have an obligation to report such behavior. Administrators must support those who bring bullying to their attention. It’s important that they make arrangements to receive confidential information from witnesses.
Kind Dining® training offers solutions in how to counteract and disarm people who bully, by using non-confrontational responses. You can be taught how to build a solid foundation to reject aggressive behavior and to adopt a Code of Conduct for everyone in your community. Your staff can learn to prevent a situation from progressing before it becomes a calamity. Sensitivity training can make a huge difference to your community. Everyone, including administration, needs to carry the knowledge of how to avert a bully’s disaster when they happen upon a situation. All of your residents have a right and expectation to live a peaceful life in the community they chose to call home.
Our B♥ Kind ® Tip:Do you know how to avert bullying, allowing all your retirement community residents to live in peace.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A writer friend, who enjoys traveling solo, says she prefers staying at B & B style inns rather than hotels when she goes to Great Britain. There is such a huge difference even though hotels also extend courtesy and consideration.
She said, “It is usually like having your Aunt Millie inviting you to stay with her. This would be the aunt who never had children of her own, so she could never do enough to make you feel at home.”
One time she stayed in the popular, small, ancient town, Hay-on-Wye, that sits on a river separating England and Wales. “That night the host sat on the chintz covered sofa in the living room. The carpet that covered the floor in this 800 year old house was a plush, deep, cobalt blue. I sank into when I stepped in.” she continued.
The host brought out his guitar inviting the three guests from the States, all strangers to each other, to sing along. His teenage son drifted in and joined them. The next morning there were two more strangers at the large dining table. They were brothers-in-law who arrived late the night before after being out for a day long, 20 mile walk.
Hospitality flowed easily during her short stay and was capped by a breakfast experience around that dining table that made my friend want to exchange addresses. She felt wanted, protected, and comfortable, as if this was her home. She did not feel like a paying guest. It seemed this hospitality came naturally from her hosts. But I know it is a talent that can be learned. Kind Dining® was built to teach your food servers how to extend this hospitality naturally to your community’s residents. They will do this by being hospitable because they want to be, not by acting with a false hospitality.
This talent of hospitality can be the same in your community dining room where newcomers are strangers who are seeking a welcome feeling at the table in their new home. Your servers can learn the skill of my friend’s host who created warmth around the table atmosphere. She was 3,000 miles away and felt that homey feeling!
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Do Your Servers Exude Hospitality?
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Teenagers looking for jobs during the summer and school vacation times often apply at retirement communities. One in particular was a boy working in the kitchen. When he started, he had no other thoughts than earning money toward future education. His entire attitude changed when residents became interested in him. They took the time to ask his opinions about events.
When asked about his work, he said, “It didn’t take long for me to realize that showing up for work, being there, and being kind made a big difference to them and it did to me, too. Many don’t have family and considered me as part of their family. My interaction with them was a way I could give back.”
Being noticed and respected changed his attitude and focus. He put extra effort into his work often doing more than his task demanded. At the end of the week he looked back to see if he could have done anything in a better way. His focus was no longer only on his paycheck but as a learning experience outside school. He knew these lessons would stay with him throughout life. He remained with the company returning each summer and holiday vacation periods.
He communicated with full time food servers, asking for ways to improve his responsibilities. They shared how residents became people with individual personalities rather than just faces sitting at a table waiting to eat. When the servers asked questions and came to know who they were serving, what their likes and dislikes about many subjects were, their work became meaningful. If they didn’t show up for work one day, they knew certain residents would be concerned or would simply miss them. They mattered. Kindness took precedence. It made a huge difference when employees found their work meaningful.
Kind Dining® training stresses that this concept needs to be nurtured and reminds us that it can be a learned skill. Communities that are committed to a strong workplace culture improve the balance sheet for its company. Food servers, including those in the kitchen who aren’t seen as often, with a sense of identity and purpose is a vital asset to the community.
Responsibility for leaders is to create a workplace culture that helps employees find meaning in what they do. This investment in community creates meaning and value for all stakeholders. Kind Dining® is an affordable training series and direct route to transform staff behavior during mealtimes. They will become your most valuable company asset and will show you how to surpass your competition.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: A committed employee is an asset to the community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
There are days when any commercial kitchen can run into problems. Electrical systems shut down for some unknown reason, the fresh vegetable supply didn’t come in, the chef took ill, the sous chef has poison ivy, and so on. Can those problems be fixed? A back-up system works, the day’s menu is adjusted, the second or third in command steps into the chef’s shoes. The day may not be perfect but all goes well after all. It’s the same in the community dining room. If there are problems; bonds can be formed between residents and food servers, new servers can learn techniques, attitudes can be adjusted, and new ways can be taught to long-time food servers to make their job easier and more pleasant. (Really-you can come to love this work! It’s very gratifying when you do it right.)
Kind Dining® can show you ways to work out your problems and show you how to overcome daily disturbances in your dining room routines. First recognize problems by talking with residents and asking their honest opinions and suggestions. What choices would they like to make?
Create a culture of including newcomers and others unfamiliar to your ‘regulars’ to join them at the table. Directors of the company can show leadership qualities by stopping at different tables to say “hello, I’m happy to see you here today.” It is always delightful to see the chef come out of the kitchen to accept applause from those he designs menus and creates meals for. This builds community and ties that are appreciated. Having a friendly greeter at the door is the first step in the resident looking forward to mealtimes. Happy mealtimes are the first step in staying healthy, eating with gusto, and wanting to meet new friends and neighbors.
Introducing one ethnic group to another, with the intention of encouraged intermingling, helps each culture to understand the customs of the other. Understanding opens doors and brings in respect and knowledge that widens one’s world without leaving the community. Celebrate diversity with joy. A climate of inclusion builds relationships that otherwise would not have been made. When staff becomes a part of these plans, they will themselves be enlightened and become important to the community and to the company.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Building a better community one day at a time.
by Cindy Heilman | Resident Centered Dining Service
I often write about welcoming new residents that have chosen your community for the next chapter of their lives, which may be a fresh beginning for them. Your dining room is an important place for them to meet friends by sharing a meal and listening to their stories. Another way to look at them is that they have chosen your community as their homes until the end of their lives. With person-centered care in demand, training is often needed to learn the ways of considerations not used before.
Time has proven that employee behavior and attitude plays a major role in the success of a company. This includes your community. You want your residents to remain with you for their last chapter of their lives. The impression made by your food servers is considered in that decision for them to remain in your community. Encourage food servers to become aware of the residents’ personal stories to build a bonding connection. When they connect with the diners they serve, a higher resident satisfaction is attained. Higher satisfaction means word of mouth referrals and higher income from frequent family and guest meals served.
Kind Dining® training is designed to assist communities to accomplish those goals. It includes improved professional serving skills, which creates happier food servers who come to love the job they do. This lowers turnover of employees and increased productivity. Changing the culture of dining toward a unique brand of hospitality, civility, and service energizes a food staff that works as a team building trust and changing the process.
It is essential for management to remember and to emphasize that hospitality is a universal language and a learned skill that anyone can adapt if they desire it. Committing to these beliefs will ensure that all residents will receive the same level of service quality and care while dining.
It is what I believe personally and professionally.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, the service you give has the power to build community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
Ambiance in the dining room is vital to success in the community. That means a food serving staff working together, cheerfully, enjoying the work they do. Dining seniors will respond in kind to that attitude if they see it every mealtime. Forward-thinking providers and administrators see the wisdom and value of arming their food serving staff with skills that improve the diners’ and the food servers’ mealtimes. The manner in which they treat each other is driven by their values. That’s why companies establish values to communicate clear direction and shape the behaviors of staff. Kind Dining® training develops food serving personal and professional behaviors to create that ambiance you want in your dining room, attracting customers to prefer your community over any other.
While the seniors are the focus of food servers it is important that food serving staff have and show the same respect to each other. Kindness between food servers is just as essential and will also be noticed by the diners. If food servers notice where an improvement can be made, encourage them to bring it to management’s attention. Food servers can show that they care about the community beyond just earning a living; that they take pride in their work. Cultivating relationship skills and building self-esteem gives each food serving staff member a voice. When they see their own value and are able to care for each other, they are better able to respond to senior needs.
Enhancing seniors’ quality of life by improving the dining experience translates ultimately to the bottom line for business owners and administrators. It’s the goal for the higher standard set for your dining room reflecting over your entire community.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Mealtimes are an opportunity to develop a sense of community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend told me about her friend Anne starting a new job as a food server in a senior living community. She ran smack into a bully that pulled gloom down over everyone in the dining room. It was a sad place to be. She boldly criticized every other food server trying to get the residents to laugh at them.
They didn’t. They did look uncomfortable but hesitated to say anything, lest the woman turned on them. The bully also made derogatory comments about the food that came out of the kitchen. Residents looked down at their plates with an expression of ‘do I want to eat this or not?’ When she started on her friend, Anne put up her hand, palm out and quietly said, “Stop. You don’t know me. I will not tolerate any comments from you to me or about me.” She made it a point to make pleasantries to each of the residents she served. The other wait staff practically glowed when she extended a helping hand without being asked. She smiled at them with friendliness. Anne did not shun the bully but she did not cater to her either. The next day she extended the same pleasantries to her as she did to the others.
The bully’s reaction was silence. It was obvious that she watched Anne and the effect she had on the dining room. The other food servers picked up the cue and began smiling….at everyone! The residents and their fellow food servers loved it! When the bully shot a rude comment to a server, the server shook her head side to side, meaning, NO! She went on serving cheerfully as the bully just closed her mouth and left it closed.
Kind Dining® trains food servers on how to change their attitude and learn to work together. We coach personal and professional habits of hospitality to give the food serving team tools to use in bringing value to their work. These are skills that can be learned to improve your residents’ and your food serving teams’ dining experience.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Mealtimes offer an extraordinary opportunity to excel at customer care.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Seniors telling their stories is an important part of who they are as they evolve into their elder years. I heard a WWII veteran tell his story on NPR’s StoryCorp. He was part of a platoon who had to come up with ideas on deception; how to fool the enemy into believing misinformation. One of the tools they used was sound. The platoon slipped into the Normandy woods after midnight and turned the sound up loud to create the image of tanks and troops moving through the village by the hundreds. The next day local townspeople were on Main Street talking about what they ‘saw’ the night before. Word was passed on to the enemy who had no idea that it was false.
Telling your own stories at the table in the dining room is an excellent way to make friends and for your friends to get to know the real you. They often open up a quiet person reluctant to speak of themselves but want to make a comment in reply to your story. In retirement communities, many seniors will be starting a new way of life and meeting new friends. Often they are coming into the dining room solo which is the most natural place to sit next to someone to hear their story while sharing a meal. Friendships are bonded in this way. It’s part of what makes the dining room in your community so vital. Your food servers can assist in the success by being aware of which resident needs an introduction to the particular table suited to her. It’s part of the food servers getting to know the residents she serves. It is an added helpfulness if your food servers realize your community is expected to be the residents’ last home. That thought increases the intention of making it the happiest experience possible. Families and friends will carry your community as a memory long after a friend/family member has passed away.
This is a situation that Kind Dining® addresses as a transformational process that helps your food servers become aware of achieving higher standards of quality which leads to resident-centered success. Your food servers who need professional development will exhibit a change of behavior and your new food servers will be starting out savvy with the skills they learn. We at Kind Dining® have the resources to offer an extraordinary opportunity to have your food servers excel in enhancing your residents’ health and well-being.
It’s what I do.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
If you think that the next employee you hire will bring a fresh new outlook to your present group of food servers, take a deep breath and rethink that thought. Remember the last time you hired a person you thought was perfect for the job only to find that one little item slipped through the evaluation and analysis. It’s the same one that caused two really good food servers to quit and leave without notice. Remember that? Remember the angry notes and dark looks you got from residents because they missed the most considerate food server in the dining room who was one of those who quit?
Surveys show that increased turnover of employees is the cause of diminished effectiveness, productivity, and profits. Food servers are so much more than someone who sells paper clips. They know the residents they serve and many that they don’t, but see from time to time. They know their coworkers sharing duties, and exchange social chatter that adds to the pleasure of a job. They talk with the caregiving teams, the kitchen workers who plan and make the food they serve. They know those in the office and the housekeeping teams. Exchanges of pleasantries with everyone they come in contact adds to the smooth operating of a community. It takes time and training to obtain this experience. If you need guidance in this area or to understand the process, contact Kind Dining®. It is better and wiser to train the food serving team you have instead of hoping the new person hired will work out well.
Think of the money involved in training one new person to try to make them fit in with your present long term food service team. A better fit is to have your food service improved by the guidance of Kind Dining® when they can call on your entire food servers to work as true teammates.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: You are important to your company’s reputation!
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
Do you remember Deborah Kerr singing Getting to Know You in the film The King & I with Yul Brynner? It’s a lovely, happy scene where she meets the King’s children, all of them. As the new teacher, she is in the same situation as the food servers in your community dining room. She sings “Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you, Getting to like you, Getting to hope you like me.” It’s her responsibility to learn the children’s names knowing she will do a better job when they know each other’s names.
Well, your food servers don’t need to sing to your residents but using residents’ names, greeting them as they enter the dining room, guiding them to a table, and pulling out a chair for them establishes respect and caring. When food servers wear name tags it makes pleasant exchanges in conversation easier for residents and helps to build community. Being able to ask a diner a sociable question shows that your food servers care. Taking a moment to introduce tablemates to others to engage new friends also shows caring. This creates a positive statement about your staff. It shows they care. Smiling and making eye contact throughout the meal times demonstrates awareness, adding to the enjoyment of your residents.
Ms. Kerr went on to sing about being bright and breezy because she is learning about her students day by day. Your serving team will have the same results. It’s reciprocal. When they extend pleasant comments with a smiling face it comes back to them. Social protocol guides serving staff to use skills that improve both the company’s value and increases their own value to the company and your residents. Kind Dining® is here to help your food service team to freshen up their community dining room skills and to lead you into the secrets of success.
Building service elements that are critical to exceeding service expectations for senior dining, improving communication skills, reading the table, guiding the flow of meal times, and accommodating choices are standards I believe in. Incorporate the standards you want your company to maintain based on input from your serving staff and your residents.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: A positive attitude makes a big difference at mealtime.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
We all know that the dining room in the community is not the same as a restaurant vying for its place in popularity with the public. But we also know that a community dining room run like that popular restaurant is a place we are aiming for. To satisfy our residents, their guests and our food servers is a good goal and a result of good teamwork. Steve Wynn of Wynn Resort & Casino fame knows about service in teamwork and how it works for everyone it touches.
He tells the story of being in Paris with his family. For the first morning while staying at the elite Four Seasons they ordered breakfast in their rooms. His daughter ate only half of her croissant thinking that she would finish it as a snack when they returned from sightseeing. Alas, when they returned the croissant was gone. No doubt housekeeping had cleaned the room.
There was a note beside the telephone stating that the croissant had been removed with the assumption that a fresh one would be preferable. All that was needed was a call to the desk and the kitchen would send the fresh pastry up.
Being in the service business himself, Mr. Wynn immediately recognized communication and teamwork formed from different departments in the hotel to perform the best service for customer satisfaction. Housekeeping had informed the desk and the desk had informed the kitchen. Each employee had accepted his responsibility and participation to fulfill a small desire that added to the larger picture of a perfect, memorable visit.
If your dining room doesn’t have that ease of good teamwork Kind Dining® is available to correct your problems and train your food servers to be aware of individual resident satisfaction and to happily accept that responsibility. Training and practice create an easy flow of changing a glitch into a resident being delightfully satisfied and impressed, all because a food server was quick to spot a problem and know how to fix it.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Let your residents see the communication and teamwork of your food servers.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Mealtimes meeting the American Geriatrics Society recommendations and the latest CMS regulations are goals. Communities have been challenged with the problem of seniors changing their habits from relying on appetite stimulants or high calorie supplements to keep their weight up to a healthy number. The community can easily provide the setting in the dining room to reverse old, unhealthy habits by understanding their seniors and what they respond to in order to optimize social supports.
This is about supplying nutrition and foodservice but, in a positive and hospitable way that benefits the resident and shows the pride of the food server. It is about kindness on a daily basis that overflows and spreads over residents and coworkers. The result in these minor adjustments that can be learned by your food servers will encourage the diner to eat at an enjoyable, leisurely pace, eat more than just picking at their food, and probably not need prescriptions to enhance their appetite or additives to gain weight. It will come naturally.
The seniors entering your dining room have those same feelings as when they were twenty-four going out to dinner. When they step into the community dining room they deserve respect, consideration, enjoyment, leisure, and the harvest of their lives. Their appetites will respond to any setting such as this one.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Your community dining room can improve resident weight-loss management!
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by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
When Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple he didn’t sit back and watch others succeed. He bought Pixar and moved the company to a location planned with three separate buildings that would hold separate departments. He scrapped that whole idea quickly and decided that what his company needed was one, open space building with a central location such as an atrium that all his employees could “bump” into each other socially throughout the day while doing their work. He believed creativity and success came from people talking to each other. So, he moved the mailboxes to the atrium followed by the coffee bar, cafeteria, gift shop, and meeting rooms. This most important area was the heart of the building. Employees talking to each other would connect, share, and collaborate easily and effectively. The Pixar Crest was: Alone no longer.
Basically Jobs believed in teamwork though he approached it in a roundabout way. Jobs atrium in your community would be the dining room. That is the central location for all who serve food to ‘bump’ into each other, share ideas on making the service better, and working out a smooth routine that creates the appearance of ease for them and forges contented senior diners. There is a deep feeling of satisfaction when food servers are appreciated for the difference they make at mealtime. No one appreciates that more than the residents being served. This central location idea works for them, too. It’s the sharing mealtimes with new and long term friends that build friendships and creates satisfaction and contentedness. It’s the warmth around the table they can enjoy knowing they are in a safe environment of food servers.
Teaching people to become life-long learners is an element of Kind Dining® that you can call on for answers if you are having less-than-ideal-dining room mealtimes. We formed to help others grow into delivering resident happiness and hospitality one meal at a time. The goal of “alone no longer” works for food servers and residents, too. The answer to dining room problems can be learned, practiced, and be a source of pride for everyone involved.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Remember being 24 years old, going out to dinner with the person/people you wanted most to spend time with. See yourself being recognized when you were greeted at the door of the restaurant and was led to a table you favored. This was where you wanted to savor your choice of food, chat about the day’s happenings and share ideas about what was going on in your life and what the future held. You wanted to linger over dessert without anyone rushing you. You waited all day for that moment. You prepared for it, selected what you wanted to wear and maybe gave thought to subjects you wanted to discuss with that special someone or that special group.
A senior’s physical and cognitive functions may have changed and may have cause for adaptive tools or assistance in one way or another but, inside they are still twenty-four years old and wanting the same joys as when they were that young age. When your community food servers look into a senior’s eyes, as they greet them, and call them by name, they will see that long ago sparkle of youth that still resides within. This moment will relay to the sensitive food server that this person deserves the best service she can give. This is a focus of Kind Dining® training.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Your community dining room can improve resident weight-loss management!
Autumn turns a chef’s ideas to serving comforting foods to your community residents gathering around the traditional table of warmth and congeniality. It’s a time for coming in out of the cold, looking forward to sharing a meal and conversation that warms your heart and your tummy. It’s a special time to bring new and long-time friends together where residents may find brilliantly colored leaves, pumpkins and apples on the table. A time when seeing their table companions creates a feeling warmer than knee-high socks and furry boots.
“As soon as the trees begin to turn into a glorious canvas of autumn colors, I begin to think of Thanksgiving Day. I mean this year’s Thanksgiving Day to come, based on all the previous ones I remember. I love that Day and think it is my favorite holiday of the year because it is all about gathering around the table with friends, family, and a stranger or two, sharing hospitality.”
When a friend who taught occupational therapy suffered a stroke and wound up in a nursing home for permanent and long term care, she learned a new way to look at what she had been teaching for many years. As her progress restored her to a normal life again she wrote notes about her experience so improvements could be made on the earlier education she taught. She eventually wrote a book about it to help others and their families with decisions they may want to make.
My friend told me “I admit that I was eavesdropping in a restaurant when I heard the word ‘bullying’ mentioned. Expecting to hear a story about kids in school I was quite surprised when they were talking about a senior community not too far away. Claiming territory in the dining room seemed to be the most common. Some tables were saved for friends of their own, no newcomers allowed. Name calling was a close second, especially in the Bingo room if a game was not won by someone in their clique.”
I often write about welcoming new residents that have chosen your community for the next chapter of their lives, which may be a fresh beginning for them. Your dining room is an 
Ambiance in the dining room is vital to success in the community. That means a food serving staff working together, cheerfully, enjoying the work they do. Dining seniors will respond in kind to that attitude if they see it every mealtime. Forward-thinking providers and administrators see the wisdom and value of arming their food serving staff with skills that improve the diners’ and the food servers’ mealtimes. The manner in which they treat each other is driven by their values. That’s why companies establish values to communicate clear direction and shape the behaviors of staff. Kind Dining® training develops food serving personal and professional behaviors to create that ambiance you want in your dining room, attracting customers to prefer your community over any other.
A friend told me about her friend Anne starting a new job as a food server in a senior living community. She ran smack into a bully that pulled gloom down over everyone in the dining room. It was a sad place to be. She boldly criticized every other food server trying to get the residents to laugh at them. 
If you think that the next employee you hire will bring a fresh new outlook to your present group of food servers, take a deep breath and rethink that thought. Remember the last time you hired a person you thought was perfect for the job only to find that one little item slipped through the evaluation and analysis. It’s the same one that caused two really good food servers to quit and leave without notice. Remember that? Remember the angry notes and dark looks you got from residents because they missed the most considerate food server in the dining room who was one of those who quit?
Well, your food servers don’t need to sing to your residents but using residents’ names, greeting them as they enter the dining room, guiding them to a table, and pulling out a chair for them establishes respect and caring. When food servers wear name tags it makes pleasant exchanges in conversation easier for residents and helps to build community. Being able to ask a diner a sociable question shows that your food servers care. Taking a moment to introduce tablemates to others to engage new friends also shows caring. This creates a positive statement about your staff. It shows they care. Smiling and making eye contact throughout the meal times demonstrates awareness, adding to the enjoyment of your residents.
We all know that the dining room in the community is not the same as a restaurant vying for its place in popularity with the public. But we also know that a community dining room run like that popular restaurant is a place we are aiming for. To satisfy our residents, their guests and our food servers is a good goal and a result of good teamwork. Steve Wynn of Wynn Resort & Casino fame knows about service in teamwork and how it works for everyone it touches.
When Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple he didn’t sit back and watch others succeed. He bought Pixar and moved the company to a location planned with three separate buildings that would hold separate departments. He scrapped that whole idea quickly and decided that what his company needed was one, open space building with a central location such as an atrium that all his employees could “bump” into each other socially throughout the day while doing their work. He believed creativity and success came from people talking to each other. So, he moved the mailboxes to the atrium followed by the coffee bar, cafeteria, gift shop, and meeting rooms. This most important area was the heart of the building. Employees talking to each other would connect, share, and collaborate easily and effectively. The Pixar Crest was: Alone no longer.
Remember being 24 years old, going out to dinner with the person/people you wanted most to spend time with. See yourself being recognized when you were greeted at the door of the restaurant and was led to a table you favored. This was where you wanted to savor your choice of food, chat about the day’s happenings and share ideas about what was going on in your life and what the future held. You wanted to linger over dessert without anyone rushing you. You waited all day for that moment. You prepared for it, selected what you wanted to wear and maybe gave thought to subjects you wanted to discuss with that special someone or that special group.