by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
In helping her mother find the best retirement/assisted living community that would fit her personality, a friend of mine decided the best time to look was during the Christmas holidays. She paid special attention to the dining room. She learned a contest was held for the residents to make the decorations for the tables. The staff held a decorating social to include the residents while they strung popcorn and hung the holly in the dining room. Christmas music played in the background to get them all in the holiday mood. From December 1 until January 6, the chef selected particular days to feature various traditional foods for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year’s, asking the residents for recipes and suggestions. On those days, a holiday-related door prize was given to the lucky winner who found a randomly placed Star sticker under their placemat.
Framed photos of the servers were pleasingly hung on the wall of the dining room. During the holiday season the servers wore themed aprons, some outrageously funny! The residents applauded the best and the server got a star placed on her photo.
Family members were encouraged to join residents for lunch or dinner. She also noted how the servers were chatty, interacting with the residents, often calling them by name. My friend was an observant person, wanting a home where her mom could make new friends easily. She wanted assurance that she was leaving her in the hands of servers and general staff who cared enough to use kindness and thoughtfulness in her mom’s daily life. This is what Kind Dining® teaches.
She noted that the entire community glowed with camaraderie, activities, music, and contests, such as door decorations. Knowing her mom would soon need the assisted living section of the community, it was important that when she needed to stay in the community during the holiday season, it would be an enjoyable time.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, the service you give has the power to build community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend of mine told me of a conversation she had recently. She asked her friend what it is about her job that makes her love going to work. The friend replied, “My coworkers are happy to see me and greet me with a hearty Good Morning! What a great way to begin my work day! I know who I am, that I’m important to my company and help to make it successful. I handle my responsibilities with ease and have the confidence that I handle them well. My boss praises me sincerely and I’ve formed friendships. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have off-days. It does mean that when I need help it is offered with a smile and a thought that we all have days that go off.”
She continued, “It’s exciting when a new challenge comes up because the company gives us the training we need to learn what to do and how to do it best. I interact with the public and have met delightful people and learned how to enlighten someone who walks under a dark cloud. It’s an effort sometimes, but I always benefit from helping someone else. It’s amazing how that works.”
My friend thought for certain she had attended one of my training sessions because these are the goals of Kind Dining®. The value of training your food servers, encouraging them in teamwork, and learning to love the job they do is vital to their living a happy life and creating happiness everywhere they go. It is most important for food servers because the dining room is the heart of day for residents. It is more than just eating a meal. They look forward to socializing with other residents and when you have cheerful, caring servers, they look forward to seeing them, too. So it is also vital for your residents who will bask in the same glow as your servers. Ask your residents what makes their mealtimes so pleasant and ask your servers if they are happy to come to work in your community.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, you are unique, valuable and worthy of respect, but proceed humbly
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Some time ago a particular community called me in for a training workshop. I sat in the Administrator’s office with, I’ll call her Anna for anonymity, to learn the issues that were preventing a higher resident satisfaction rating. She was discouraged that her food servers weren’t performing better. When I asked whether she would be attending my training session, she gave me a funny look.
“If I’m sitting there, I’m not sure anyone will speak up and be honest,” she said. I smiled because I’ve found that this is the reaction from most people in management.
I gently replied. “The reason you need to be there is so that you can hear what’s going on when they do speak up.”
Anna attended each training session and saw that my training is not just my telling how to grow a community or fix a problem. We have hands-on practice, interaction, and discussion. A first step in creating trust and working relationships is to have all staff attend meetings to repair any broken lines of communication, remove barriers, share ideas, and plan goals for themselves.
It’s important for employees to learn how to think and solve the issues they encounter on the job, to settle disputes with grace and courtesy. Encouraging servers to take ownership, to share their thoughts, and to build relationships with management, as well as those working in the same dining room is a goal that will create growth.
Your food servers are the most visible and valuable employees in the community. They interact with your residents throughout the day. Taking the effort to teach your serving staff about hospitality, inviting them to become leaders by offering their opinions and solutions allows them to fulfill their positions as important assets to the company. This will improve the quality of life for your residents and that is the goal of every senior living community.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Be visible in your dining room to grow your community’s team culture around meal service.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want must be one of his most revered paintings. It shows the grandparents placing the turkey on the Thanksgiving table with the family sitting happily around it. I think so highly of it that I have used it in my presentations. It is the very essence of my beliefs of bringing warmth to the table in every community. The feelings that lift off that picture can be in every community. The grandmother probably had years of learning about cooking, how to present the foods, set the table, hospitality, and relationships, both within the family and for newcomers to the family as it grew.
It is what a community ought to be, year-round, creating a family atmosphere in the dining room between the residents, the serving teams and the residents, and between the serving teams with each other. Like Grandma, the serving teams can expand their knowledge and learn how to be the best at hospitality. It’s the glue that brings all other efforts in the community together. You can learn how from Kind Dining® training in less time than it took Grandma!
This time of year opens new opportunities as the holidays burst onto the scene. Servers can make a difference when new people move into the community. The dining room is the perfect place to introduce them to the ‘regulars’. A good server will know exactly which resident will add a welcome feeling to a new resident and would be delighted to help. This is a result of bonding between serving staff and resident. The glow of this small interaction will overflow onto your server knowing she has performed a good deed. It is also a reflection of the decorations that adorn the tables encouraging that wonderful feeling of family between the blending of traditions that share a community.
Many families and visitors will be in the dining room as guests during this holiday season because 50 to 80 percent of seniors surveyed prefer to remain in the community, avoiding the hectic for the comfort.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: You and your staff have an important role to play in helping residents overcome loneliness during this holiday season. Give them a sense of home.
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by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend of mine told me about a recent dining experience she suffered through. Her words, not mine. “We were excited, out to an upscale restaurant new to us and celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. Of course we mentioned that fact to the perky young lady that came to us, announcing her name was Brianna and she would be our server tonight. As she handed us each a menu she told us she was a college student, working to help pay her way and dashed off. No congratulations or pleasantry came from her mouth.
The menu was large. When she returned we weren’t ready to order but did ask for glasses of wine and also water. She dashed off again and soon returned taking our order and giving us water. She got busy and just dropped our salads off on her way to another table to take their order. We wanted our wine to whet our appetite. We tried to catch her attention as she buzzed around the room.
Our food arrived hot and steamy and very good. She never did ask us if we enjoyed our meal or if we wanted dessert because she was too busy telling us about how tired she was after tending classes all day. We reminded her that we never did get our wine. Oh, I’ll take if off the check, she said in a nonchalant way as she scratched the amount from the check.”
My friend did the owners a favor. The following day after her anger and disappointment faded, she wrote him a note about their experience. In her note she asked him, “Do you ever watch and listen to your serving staff? Do you know they represent you even before your wonderful food arrived?”
They received an apology and a complimentary dinner. Of course the special moment could not be replaced. Maybe one day they would laugh about it but not for a long time. They accepted his graciousness but when they returned they asked for the best wait person in the restaurant to serve them.
Your dining room is your residents’ restaurant. Good service can smooth over a bad meal but poor service only ruins good food. Kind Dining® trains wait staff to be the best.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember how much time residents anticipate mealtimes and how important dining is to them.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Every generation seems to complain about the younger generation in the way they dress, in their awful language, and especially in their lack of the good manners taught to the earlier generations. It’s true! There is a new trend begun in the last few years that shows people are leaving high-income and high-stress positions in big cities to return to their home towns or at least to smaller cities to jobs with appreciation of the employee. They cite many reasons for leaving; one of the reasons is incivility in the workplace. They refuse to be insulted, treated like they are worthless and lacking respect any longer. Their complaints are about their superiors and their co-workers!
Where do they go? To one of the many Start-Up Companies offering and supporting new entrepreneurs an inexpensive, easier way to go into their own businesses. There are niches in the marketplace to fill. Some are able to work from home creating a business out of their former hobbies. Others are willing to work for less money in a position they look forward to going to work each day. These decisions are not made lightly. A person does not leave a fulfilling position unless the atmosphere becomes intolerable. Incivility will do that.
Looking at incivility from the company view point, shows less work production. Employees unhappy with jobs that they spend at least a third of their life doing, do not enhance the company. Misery in the workplace is like a disease that spreads infecting other employees. A company cannot survive long term under those conditions. The good news shows that training by Kind Dining® for every person in all levels working for your community can avoid the problems that rise from incivility.
Since serving teams and all employees are encouraged to create relationships with residents, it’s also important that they create respectful relationships with their coworkers. This builds a bonding where one helps another coworker when needed. This is more important than ever in the dining room. Kindness and respect for coworkers overflows onto the residents who also benefit from it.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, you are crucial to your community’s success and so are your co-workers.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
It’s usually easier to train new people to the community than to update new training to those who have been doing their job their way for a length of time. That’s where Kind Dining® comes in. With skill, experience, and the new rules and regulations at hand, we will show your serving staff training and how it benefits them to increase their knowledge about their job that they haven’t needed before.
You can bring out the best in your serving staff, including your caregivers, by showing your own passion and appreciation when you see the residents’ positive responses to this improved personal care. When your residents spend 60% of their day looking forward to a social mealtime, they include thoughts of camaraderie from the staff as well as other residents. Everyone will bask in the glow of success when they see the change good training has wrought.
Your serving staff will notice the changes that increase the happiness and satisfaction of the residents, when they feel a bit more gratitude from the new training they receive. They will know immediately that it is well worth pouring an extra cup of hot coffee as their caregiver. This small act performed with a smile and a pleasant comment brings warmth to the table and shows hospitality at its best.
When teamwork results from the new training sessions, you can encourage your serving staff to take ownership of their positions, share ideas on making small improvements that make a difference to the residents. Let them become leaders in the dining room, proud of their accomplishments. Make every effort to bring their suggestions into being as soon as possible to let them know you are listening. Praise, support, and reward their encompassing changing roles that are changing the dining room environment.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: You have the power to make a big difference in resident satisfaction!
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The lessons learned in life are often as important as the first ones we learn in school when training for a career. This happened when the state surveyor pulled me into her confidence by telling me how much better I could be in my career by embracing the changes and broadening my expanse of expertise. My value to my community expanded as my purpose grew and the residents benefited most of all.
This is the knowledge I share with nursing, care-giving, and ancillary staff in my Kind Dining® training workshops. Changes in our industry are here. The new regulations stress for widening the service offered within the community. The nursing staff in turn becomes more valuable and in the true sense of a caregiver, will gain in the satisfaction knowing they endeared a resident who has left her former home behind to live in their care in this community.
That presence of the nursing staff in the dining room is an extension of hospitality, not turning into a wait person. It’s part of making home feel like home. Communities are in the throes of cultural shift, in organizational changes, and in service quality. The dining room is the most important room in the community. It’s personal to the residents, where the public is also invited to be part of the bonding process of residents and serving staff. They carry away impressions that will want others to live in your community!
Enlighten the nursing staff of the new skills, competencies, attitudes, and commitments needed with the new federal requirements for improving person-centered quality of life and care in the dining room. Allow them to grasp the benefit for themselves. They are receiving potential life changing skills that compliments and broadens their relational expertise. Can it be any better for them? My job is to train your serving staff in proper serving but with the best attitude and behavior adjustments that will make them and your community proud.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, you are unique, valuable and worthy of respect, but proceed humbly.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Some time ago I was explaining the importance of learning new skills for nurses during a training session of Kind Dining. One individual balked at the idea of needing to do anything different than she had always done. She was so adamant that her arms folded across her chest looked like they would block any new information from entering her made-up mind. She didn’t want to learn anything new. She was used to the old ways. She was not about to change regardless of new regulations. And she refused to take orders from her residents. It just wasn’t done!
I explained to her that if she didn’t take orders, did she ask her residents what their choice was from the day’s menu? “Of course” she grumbled, determined to cement the wall she built between us. Using communication and instruction to erode that wall, I went on to explain how her residents’ lives would improve in a personal, caring response to her nurse’s service. Serving meals gives an extended homey, family feeling to mealtime when resident’s nurse also serves her food. It’s called nourishing. I continued to explain how learning to serve meals properly, in the best possible way was an opportunity to add to her list of nursing skills. It would make any nurse a well-rounded, more desirable leader.
Embracing the new regulations in a pleasing manner and implementing them through proper training, creates happier residents, employees proud of their skills, and smooth running communities that sparkle with perfection. Kind Dining is thoroughly knowledgeable and can train your staff about government regulations that were conceived to bring quality of life to each community resident. This presents opportunities for all.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, the service you give has the power to build community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
In a successful community dining room, every staff member needs to perform their individual part to please residents, just like each musician in an orchestra plays from his sheet music to deliver a unified audience-pleasing performance.
Executive Directors tell me, “Resident caregivers grumble about serving food or pouring coffee.“We didn’t school to be wait staff and resent this part of our job.”
I understand this long-standing schism between departments. This is really about complete care of each resident, not waiting tables vs. nursing. Serving is respectful work when viewed correctly. The dining experience is the most important area to enhance residents’ well-being.
Communities in cultural shift of service quality and organizational change are beautifying dining rooms, overlooking the most important aspect: staff enlightenment. Change requires staff to embrace a new set of skills, attitude, and commitment. Those roles and responsibilities are changing rapidly with new standards. A good leader takes the focus off pettiness and orchestrates staff unity around mealtimes, where residents spend 60% of their day.
Remember that furniture, chandeliers, and new paint, no matter how beautiful, don’t bring warmth to the table. What does? Joy, generosity, patience, love, and a kind staff working in the residents’ home dining room, touch their hearts.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, a good leader unites all employees to the same goal.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
I recall a teenage kitchen worker in one Kind Dining® class. He was looking for a job and found one in this community. His focus on just earning money changed after he noticed how the residents became personal to him. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that showing up for work, being there, and being nice made a big difference to them, and it did to me, too. Many don’t have family and consider us their family. My interaction with them was a way I could give back.”
This young man developed a new sense of purpose and connection that motivated him to improve service. He would stay with the company regardless of his minimal wages.
Other employees also expressed an emotional gift exchanged between residents and staff. This concept needs to be nurtured.
It makes a massive difference in results when employees find their work meaningful.
Companies that are committed to a strong workplace culture improve the balance sheet for its company by 20-30 %. Research shows that a sense of identity and purpose within the organization is vital to employees. Some communities may be unable to offer employees perks of top-ranked companies (health insurance, family leave, childcare, etc.) and cannot pay more than minimum wage to some.
Workplace culture, which top companies rank as the most influential aspect (80%) of daily operations, can be created and sustained for little money.
Leaders are responsible for creating a workplace culture that helps employees find meaning in what they do. This has nothing to do with paychecks. Training in communication, customer service and hospitality skills helps personalize the dining experience which is an ideal place to start.
This is career development that motivates employees. Giving life-long tools helps relations with residents and each other. 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 outshine your competition. Our B♥ Kind® Tip: A committed employee is the community’s best asset.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
My friend’s brother Bob, who owned a bistro, told me about the difficulty he had with a chef. The food she prepared was excellent. She even brought some of her own recipes. But she refused to come out of the kitchen to say hello to the steady customers who wanted to meet the chef who cooked their wonderful food. These steady customers spent their money to support this business. The bistro was personal to them. She was temperamental. Her people skills were less than desirable as she also created a lack of self-confidence in the young wait staff. The last straw of her resistance to fit into the formerly smooth running bistro, she refused to attend the compulsory training session. As a chef she felt above it all. Continuing to learn and to listen to those she worked with was not on her agenda. She was let go the following day.
Managing a bistro is probably not as complex as the kitchen and dining room of a retirement community serving a large number of people from various backgrounds and demands 24/7. Yet there are many basics that need to be learned by each person involved in making the entire food environment of your community one that runs as smoothly as any first class restaurant.
Strong leaders within this environment can build a foundation of higher values that the others will want to become a part of the team. While the community may lose a kitchen worker or dining room server now and then, the strong framework of the team will produce a dining complex to ensure that higher standards prevail.
Yes, it takes empathy, knowledge, patience, and the desire to truly want to serve seniors that may be cranky or picky because their meds are off or they have a personal disappointment on a particular day. Kind Dining® training will show the way to problem solve issues that may arise, how working together as a team strengthens every area of food service. The kitchen staff and the servers in the dining room can each reinforce the responsibilities of the others, to form a formidable team.
A chef in the kitchen must be willing to embrace the challenge of food preparation in appearance, nutrition, taste, in satisfying the desires of the culture mix of diners. Ideally the chef must be willing to bond with those serving his creations in the best possible way. Dedication to a person-centered philosophy in your community builds a solid foundation that improves relationships within the team and will overflow onto your dining residents and their guests.
The Kind Dining commitment to training and on-going education is the heart of helping communities build the team that excels in the most important area of the community- the dining rooms.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Is a teammate having a hard day? Ask if there’s anything you can do to help.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
When I was in my mid 20s I was working in the wilds of Alaska at an isolated camp where 100 young adults, ages 16-23 from multiple states came together for conservation work. This was bare bones living and working! There were no luxuries or electricity! Gracious, we did have running water. Cold, only!
I was in charge of the menus, budget, and making sure their nutritional needs were met. Resources were limited. There was no convenience store down the street where I could pick up a few things that weren’t delivered. There was no store at all! I worked with confidence because I knew my job. What I didn’t know was people gathered from across the country had radically different ideas on what food was good. Southern California wanted expensive granola; northern California wanted whole wheat bread with sprouts in it! Wisconsin wanted lots of real butter. Easterners were serious vegetarians that stood on principal and even refused fresh caught salmon!
It took 3 weeks for the residents to rebel. That’s when I learned a valuable lesson that I have always remembered. I learned while listening to these young adults, that, it is the birth of hospitality. I learned that food means so much more than eating, it means home. It means community. It wasn’t easy but we worked things out so everyone got some of what they wanted and needed. It seems that experience revealed that I care deeply about people, food, home, community and hospitality. I still remember to listen.
It is vital that your servers learn to listen. Your residents also come from many different backgrounds with desires that need to be heard. Serving staff are the bridge between your residents and everyone else. It is necessary for them to know how to create the hospitality that your residents deserve. Conversation that may seem casual is key to providing that connection. Listening and conversing is a skill that can easily be learned with practice.
Your servers can also be the bridge in bringing residents together, especially newcomers who may be shy about sitting at someone’s table who they have never met. Kind Dining can teach your servers how to listen and the skills of conversation and hospitality that are vital and valuable to your community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend of mine, who married very young, told me about leaving an unhappy marriage after fifteen years and entering the workforce for the first time. She started by taking orders from the salesmen for a wine wholesaler. Practicing the pronunciation and spelling of imported wines was vital to her. She didn’t last long. Her employer saw great potential in her desire to learn her responsibilities and moved her up to the telephone switchboard. During the year she was answering phone calls, she temporarily filled the position of each office worker when they went on vacation. Her employer encouraged her to get her high school equivalency diploma. She did. In the following year he offered her the option of becoming a sales representative for the firm. It was the highest position in the company, below his own, of course, and she took it. She never disappointed the boss who saw her potential.
It makes no difference which position of responsibility your employees hold, you want them to do and be the very best they can. Kind Dining ® Training can teach them this different kind of training to see their potential and what it takes to attain it. It makes no difference what knowledge your employees begin with but how willing they are to believe in themselves so they can absorb the training and adopt the fullness of their job. This also applies to the staff when they step in to help at mealtimes. It becomes part of their job description and they will be especially pleased when they notice the huge difference they are making in the lives of residents.
Senior care community servers need to learn how to blend service with hospitality in order to enhance the residents’ quality of life, regardless if they are full or part-time servers. When the administration leads the way with enthusiasm, showing respect to each employee, they, in turn, will catch that emotional pull and seek their full potential. As a result the residents will be treated to the hospitality they deserve.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The leader in the community that is afire with passion for being the best at working toward a common goal inspires every other employee who becomes aware of that devotion. That dedication is contagious and will spread to your employees who also want to be the best at their particular job. Kind Dining® training gives your servers the opportunity to evolve to their highest level of potential resulting in success for them, the business, and for the community. This type of training changes negative attitudes and habits to create improvements in daily life and work that becomes a lifetime benefit for the individual employee and the company. I’ve seen this happen.
I have witnessed the change that is so apparent and successful to business that I have dedicated my career to helping make this happen where it is needed most: in the dining room of senior living communities. Growth comes from forward thinking-leaders who are willing to put forth the effort of culture change. It is a concept whose time has come. Government regulations presently encourage and will soon enforce culture change in long term care communities. Kind Dining® training advances these ideas for you to become the leadership with the excitement for learning and sustaining common purpose with personal and professional development.
While your employees are reaching for their highest potential, take notice, you’ll see that everyone benefits including the residents and that is the first and final goal.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
One day an instructor called me, very excited, about a community where she had been conducting Kind Dining® training sessions.“The Licensed Nurse Aides (LNAs) have been serving meals in the dining room and came to me to ask permission to buy decorative baskets for the tables. Naturally I happily said, This is your dining room, please do it!”
She sees that the concepts of Kind Dining® teaching servers to accept ownership is transforming behavior and positive thought about their service. Servers taking initiative to make the changes are an outward expression of pride in what they do. I know instinctively that these servers are looking forward to their workday. The residents will receive the extra benefit of being served by employees who care enough to buy pretty baskets to brighten their table and their mealtimes.
When employees enjoy and honor their work they tend to take fewer days off for a simple headache. Because they have invested their ideas in their workplace, they are less likely to quit, saving the company a loss of time and money on training someone new. Best of all, a happy worker influences her co-workers positively without even realizing it. Knowing the success of the community is based mostly on their contribution allows them to grow and blossom.
Teaching good manners and social skills used daily so it becomes second nature will enhance the servers who didn’t have those experiences in their own youth. It is important, basic practice in every dining room. Setting higher standards is a positive move forward. Embrace it! The service you give during mealtimes influences the reputation of the community. It is part of passing along a positive review of their home community so their friends will consider moving in, too.
Engaging a resident in pleasant conversation enhances their day and overflows onto other staff. It’s contagious! Sharing a story delights everyone who listens in and helps people to talk to each other even if they have never met before. Residents know when serving staff enjoy their work. It shows! Servers carry a powerful position. They matter because they care!
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, servers are the face of the organization and have the power to make or break mealtime.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A Kind Dining® instructor called to tell me of an incident showing a big result from one of her Kind Dining® training sessions. One of the servers donned an apron just to see what reaction she would get. Surprisingly a resident told her she looked like Kind Dining® and that she liked the look of it. Others agreed with her. Even more surprising was the reaction of the other serving staff. They wanted to join in and wear aprons, too.
A few new aprons were bought and the laundering was arranged. Aprons were discussed at the next Kind Dining® committee meeting with everyone in agreement about the positive resident and staff reaction. A few servers wanted to wear their own aprons, especially during holiday seasons, so we agreed on that, too. The fun was spreading without any policy or procedure involved. Relationships were forming between staff members and also with the residents. Relationships matter.
This instructor, who happens to be the Administrator, keeps the pile of suggestions the staff brings to her. She is delighted with their enthusiasm. A few are taking the empowerment to the hilt and others are catching onto the ideas. She was not telling them what to do, but encouraging and supporting their ideas.
This is a perfect example of a strong culture change in the community. Employees are happier when they are encouraged to be part of building the community daily process. It gives them ownership of their working lives and a sense of belonging to the community. Through these challenges insight and growth emerge allowing servers to reach their full potential. It dissolves the negative thinking that servers are waitresses.
Embracing the ideas of staff tells them that you are listening and respect their efforts to make mealtimes a better experience for the residents. It gives the residents a chance to join in the fun simply by acknowledging the addition of aprons added with residents in mind, especially when holiday themed aprons can be so joyful. Implement the best suggestions quickly to keep the eagerness flowing, making it clear that their opinions matter. That it matters because they came to work today and show they care. Praise, support, and reward your servers changing roles and growing responsibilities in the dining environment.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
A friend told me that without revealing her professional interest, she’s asked friends of friends that live in a retirement community what made them choose a particular place for the expected final home of their lifetime? They invariably made an overall comment about the pretty and neatness of a place just before they raved about the dining room. It was a visit to the dining room either invited by a friend or recommended by someone in a friend’s family that brought them to the community they eventually chose.
The feeling of being welcomed into a fresh, clean, neat dining room by pleasant servers who seemed to be naturally skilled in serving correctly made great and lasting impressions. These are the results of Kind Dining® training, whether teaching skills to newly hired servers, or correcting the careless habits of servers who have never been taught how to do it right.
The goal is not to achieve a formal, hotel dining atmosphere but one of a gracious home where friends gather around the warmth of a table to enjoy life. Sharing a meal in the dining room became a way of meeting and forming new friendships. Creating this ambiance can be achieved by the staff understanding the process and becoming aware of the proper way first, followed by the practice of their newly learned skills.
Customer service standards for the dining environment must be in place with the management emphasis on the importance of these standards becoming a daily habit for all servers. Kind Dining® leads the way for necessary adjustments and solutions in the workplace that also benefits the employees by creating confidence and pride in their adjusted responsibilities. Enthusiasm for additional skills learned, is contagious, encouraging management and staff to become part of the teamwork that makes a great community. That is how you attract new customers. Embracing what is within becomes luminous.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, the service you give has the power to build community.
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A friend of mine told me of a conversation she had recently. She asked her friend what it is about her job that makes her love going to work. The friend replied, “My coworkers are happy to see me and greet me with a hearty Good Morning! What a great way to begin my work day! I know who I am, that I’m important to my company and help to make it successful. I handle my responsibilities with ease and have the confidence that I handle them well. My boss praises me sincerely and I’ve formed friendships. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have off-days. It does mean that when I need help it is offered with a smile and a thought that we all have days that go off.”
Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want must be one of his most revered paintings. It shows the grandparents placing the turkey on the Thanksgiving table with the family sitting happily around it. I think so highly of it that I have used it in my presentations. It is the very essence of my beliefs of bringing warmth to the table in every community. The feelings that lift off that picture can be in every community. The grandmother probably had years of learning about cooking, how to present the foods, set the table, hospitality, and relationships, both within the family and for newcomers to the family as it grew.
A friend of mine told me about a recent dining experience she suffered through. Her words, not mine. “We were excited, out to an upscale restaurant new to us and celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. Of course we mentioned that fact to the perky young lady that came to us, announcing her name was Brianna and she would be our server tonight. As she handed us each a menu she told us she was a college student, working to help pay her way and dashed off. No congratulations or pleasantry came from her mouth.
Every generation seems to complain about the younger generation in the way they dress, in their awful language, and especially in their lack of the good manners taught to the earlier generations. It’s true! There is a new trend begun in the last few years that shows people are leaving high-income and high-stress positions in big cities to return to their home towns or at least to smaller cities to jobs with appreciation of the employee. They cite many reasons for leaving; one of the reasons is incivility in the workplace. They refuse to be insulted, treated like they are worthless and lacking respect any longer. Their complaints are about their superiors and their co-workers!
It’s usually easier to train new people to the community than to update new training to those who have been doing their job their way for a length of time. That’s where Kind Dining® comes in. With skill, experience, and the new rules and regulations at hand, we will show your serving staff training and how it benefits them to increase their knowledge about their job that they haven’t needed before.
The lessons learned in life are often as important as the first ones we learn in school when training for a career. This happened when the state surveyor pulled me into her confidence by telling me how much better I could be in my career by embracing the changes and broadening my expanse of expertise. My value to my community expanded as my purpose grew and the residents benefited most of all.
Some time ago I was explaining the importance of learning new skills for nurses during a training session of Kind Dining. One individual balked at the idea of needing to do anything different than she had always done. She was so adamant that her arms folded across her chest looked like they would block any new information from entering her made-up mind. She didn’t want to learn anything new. She was used to the old ways. She was not about to change regardless of new regulations. And she refused to take orders from her residents. It just wasn’t done!
In a successful community dining room, every staff member needs to perform their individual part to please residents, just like each musician in an orchestra plays from his sheet music to deliver a unified audience-pleasing performance.
When I was in my mid 20s I was working in the wilds of Alaska at an isolated camp where 100 young adults, ages 16-23 from multiple states came together for conservation work. This was bare bones living and working! There were no luxuries or electricity! Gracious, we did have running water. Cold, only!
One day an instructor called me, very excited, about a community where she had been conducting Kind Dining® training sessions.“The Licensed Nurse Aides (LNAs) have been serving meals in the dining room and came to me to ask permission to buy decorative baskets for the tables. Naturally I happily said, This is your dining room, please do it!”
A Kind Dining® instructor called to tell me of an incident showing a big result from one of her Kind Dining® training sessions. One of the servers donned an apron just to see what reaction she would get. Surprisingly a resident told her she looked like Kind Dining® and that she liked the look of it. Others agreed with her. Even more surprising was the reaction of the other serving staff. They wanted to join in and wear aprons, too. 
A friend told me that without revealing her professional interest, she’s asked friends of friends that live in a retirement community