by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Even in these hard times of pandemic, we have much to be thankful for in our senior living community. We have been fortunate to learn quickly how to protect our environment, residents, staff, and have learned ways of social distancing in everyday activities. Incorporating virtual technology into our daily lives has kept residents from loneliness, kept all of us in touch with each other, including families and friends who cannot enter our premises. We combat the coronavirus by following safety rules.
The food servers in our communities have always been essential to healthy living by their service, caring, attitude, and the responsibilities they accept. Older residents have lived long lives, have endured the pitfalls of life, and survived. They are the first to know that this pandemic will also pass. Hopefully, it will make our communities stronger and wiser in the service they provide.
Beginning the holiday season with Thanksgiving Day, it is ideal for your food serving team to be aware of holiday blues, sadness, or unusual irritability that may be sneaking up on a resident. Often a loss of appetite is an indication of a problem pending and one that food servers can take note of. It is easier for your food serving team to notice a tentative problem when they are familiar with the residents they serve. They can also notice personal appearance and mental attitude. Your chef’s selections can make a difference by creating a healthy appetite during the holidays. An old Irish proverb: Laughter is brightest where food is best.
Memories are a big part of the holidays and are connected to food. Preparing the special requests of favorite or traditional foods will help to keep residents cheerful. Those who are new to living in the community may need someone to listen to them reminisce a bit. Food servers may encourage them in their conversation to form new traditions and remind them that these times will not last forever.
Kind Dining ® continually updates training to reflect the needs of food serving teams as traditional service changes to include new rules, regulations, and suggestions that keep residents healthy and safe. New challenges in community living have essential, loyal, and faithful food servers learning how to combine hospitality with healthcare using kindness and compassion. They master the skills of food service at a time when they must adapt to change with fortitude, patience, and kindness.
B♥ Kind® Tip: “Clean plates don’t lie.” — Dan Barber
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” — George Bernard Shaw
A friend who comes from a family of cooks starting with the great-grandmother, down to the grandmother, mother, and father, and two brothers who each had a neighborhood restaurant, one in the Caribbean and one in New Jersey, said that while the love of good food permeated the house, Thanksgiving Day was looked forward to the day summer ended.
Surprisingly, it was a day that the menu was the same as last year and the year before that, and the year before that, etc. Each of the three children had their favorite vegetable on the table, two of which were never served during the rest of the year unless requested for their birthday dinner. Their mom wouldn’t dare alter the turkey stuffing by trying something new! That would have brought out a lot of dissension! Of course, the table was laden with far more food than could be consumed even with a few guests pulling up a chair. Thanksgiving Day was a warm memory remembered and savored long after most of the family had passed away.
While different people favor different holidays throughout the year, Thanksgiving Day is when people who don’t normally travel commit to getting to the homestead. After coming together as a family, whether by family connection or by choice, the main feature is a day where food and the abundance of it are celebrated. This year many family and friends will need to use Zoom or Facetime to connect, but the food is still the main feature. It is a day for your community chef to put his whole heart into the menu to extend the variety of favorite foods that will be expected, whether in the dining room or delivered to the individual rooms. It is a time and purpose to share the many cultures that have populated and made our country different from any other.
Kind Dining® teaches how the power of good service comes with the food servers when they carry extra cheerfulness along with the food brought to individual rooms. Pleasant conversation complements good food and is vital on holidays. As food servers, body language, a smile that shows in their eyes (above their mask), and their voice tone will help community residents remember they still have much to be thankful for, and a happy food server is one of those assets.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Food servers have an important role in helping residents overcome loneliness and isolation, especially on holidays.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, personal history, province, region, tribe, and grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” ~ Anthony Bourdain
The late celebrity chef’s chef Anthony Bourdain loved his work. He loved people, and he loved food and all the socializing around food; enough to travel the world to learn what we already know in the food serving end of long term care and retirement communities. Food is an individual love and the social aspect of it, go hand in hand like a pair of twins. Knowing this and knowing these communities are now in quarantine makes the food serving team bring joy to the residents. They can spend a few minutes to socialize while bringing good food. The power of enlightening the day of a resident is in the food serving team’s hands, including those working across departments.
It is vitally important that your chef is onboard, providing foods that show the residents are in his heart and mind. A great chef is a great planner. Along with planning an efficient kitchen, he knows what meals his diners are looking forward to, and they come from him. Now is a time for specialties to soothe the concerned resident. Food can appease and comfort. Since their food served comes from a team effort, the servers can pick up hints from these older people they serve, look for information about meals that created memories and meals that will bring pleasure in this stressful time.
Kind Dining® training sessions encourage teamwork. Working together by understanding and respecting your coworkers’ responsibilities and your own makes for a smoother transition of foods served at mealtimes. A skilled chef is aware that the kitchen is a workshop full of open fires, sharp tools, and people racing in and out to pick up and deliver hot meals. Top chefs educate themselves with ethnic cuisines of other cultures and methods of preparation trends. Passing along the wishes of diners allows the chef to add personal menus to his continuously expanding knowledge and innovations of different dishes and plate them. The chef knows more than how to prepare food and be in touch with the diners the recipes are created for. Anthony Bordain knew it was about the people he met, the friendships formed, memories kept, and the foods that brought them all together.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Confidence in your food serving team is an early step to loving what you do!
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Being a top-performing food server in a senior care community is complex and challenging at the best of times. During COVID 19 it is so much more. Add being alert to the residents’ emotions, having small chit-chat handy, and being cheerful and making sure they have the resident’s meal correct to the standard usual of being neat, clean, well-spoken, and efficient.
One more skill added to the list is having empathy, the ability for a food server to imagine being in the mindset of the resident they serve. The resident may be stressed, lonely, feeling isolated, and abandoned. Feeling empathy is a highly desired talent. Kind Dining♥ addresses empathy in training sessions.
Food server-to-resident relationships and server-to-coworker relationships often need a heavy dose of reconnection to company values. Empathy is often listed as a core company value in many senior living communities. Hanging posters to remind staff of these company values is not enough.
Encourage coworkers to see the extra effort their teammates are working under, to lighten the load by giving praise with a positive comment or cheerful, sincere compliment. This is part of building strong coworker relationships by showing empathy. The rapport we extend to each other is often a reflection of company values.
It is the company’s responsibility to hire a sufficient number of serving staff and give them the skills needed to perform at their top level. The administration that is aware of the food servers’ critical obligations can show empathy and extend welcome support. The absence of a server must not affect the quality of service to residents or overburden the other servers.
The team of servers must be allowed to give their top performance. They cannot do that if the community is understaffed. Other staff needs to be willing to fill in as food servers when an emergency arises when too many servers are absent. Other staff skills should be equivalent to the same standard of serving the regular food serving team’s skills. Quality of life and resident satisfaction is always the priority and must never be compromised. Kind Dining♥ training prepares all staff for emergencies when their service is called upon. This level of training for all staff is what creates great companies out of good ones.
When the food serving staff uses their skills, tending to comfort and keeping the residents happy and content, especially under the strain of COVID 19, it is the duty of top-level administration to take note and convey their appreciation to the team. Sincere compliments that excellent service has been noticed is one of the best rewards a high-level administration can give.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, just by coming to work today, your food servers make a difference.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The discussion was all about new words and phrases coming into our language every year. One man was complaining that he couldn’t understand a word his grandson said to him. The other two laughed, agreeing with him in complete understanding. Then the words New Normal were tossed into the discussion along with wearing yoga pants, tee shirts, and pajamas during the day. The other man swore he saw a woman in pajamas in the grocery store. Again they chuckled to see such a sight compared to the times when they were growing up. All agreed nothing was normal anymore as they sat in the park at least 6 feet away from each other.
The New Normal has been around for a while now, though people are certainly comparing it to the Normal they took for granted. Creating a routine for yourself to use every mealtime makes your work go smoothly. I encourage reinforcing trainees, reminding them to introduce themselves to residents coming into your community. Take note of their name and write it down if necessary, making the connection to their room number. Every time you enter their room, use their name, and soon it will come without checking.
Cheerfully describe their meal as you scan the tray to be sure nothing is missing. It’s better to check immediately than need to return with a forgotten item. It’s a good time to chat a bit about community news or tell a story you’ve brought to work with you, allowing a little social time to enhance digestion. Even talking about the weather is an acceptable subject. Social interaction with other residents is sorely missed during this COVID 19 era, making your brief time with the resident even more vital. After delivering to the next resident on your schedule, check back with the last one to ensure all is okay and nothing else is needed.
Kind Dining♥ teaches that this small amount of attention given by the food serving team members eliminates frustration, isolation, and loneliness while building a feeling of solidarity. The time and attention are greatly appreciated by the residents being served. Residents are as different as snowflakes in winter, so food servers must incorporate being alert and flexible in their care. Their New Normal has taken over and is actually improving their service as they became acutely aware of the older people they are serving.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Practice new habits and improvements every day.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
It’s harvest time for your food serving team. During these times of COVID 19, they realize the skills learned have been so critical to their work in the community. To harvest their sense of fulfillment and to acknowledge that they are the heroes of today. Is that not enough to feel joyful in the work they do?
If ever they doubted their value as a member of a food serving team, these past several months must be acknowledged and appreciated. Of course, the residents are the first to appreciate and show their pleasure when seeing their food server at the door. Their food server will be bringing news from within the community, maybe some personal or funny story, and relief from boredom, social interaction, and lack of activity. In return, the food server will note the resident’s overall appearance and attitude to see if they need any special attention or help with a problem.
Food servers are providing health care and hospitality to each resident they serve. Their attitude, professional appearance, serving skills, and smile of acceptance offered are most welcome. This is the joy they offer and spread among the residents. Yes, they have cares and fears of their own, afraid of carrying the coronavirus to their own families. Yet, they are on the job each day accepting their responsibilities seriously, knowing their value, and carrying on because they are needed. Joy is the gift from personal service, knowing the importance of your work, and knowing you perform your work with inner satisfaction.
Kind Dining® still teaches the improvement of the dining experience for the residents in your community. Serving food and the joy of serving at mealtimes is even more meaningful to the residents. It cuts into their solitary times, breaks up the quarantine monotony, and builds the bond between the food server and the resident. A sense of purpose for the food server, which focuses on what matters most, the resident also fulfills the server. In these times of stress and sometimes fear, the food server that sets the ambiance of mealtime and mealtimes are still the significant parts of the day for each resident.
“We know it is the one thing your residents universally value.”
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember your vision to build stronger mealtime relationships.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
While trying to stay in touch with family, Dina’s niece emailed her at her retirement community, asking if she had been visiting the kids lately. The kids had kids of their own and often held family celebrations or took Dina out to dinner, shopping, or somewhere special for the day. No, Dina told her, if she went to stay with the kids, she would need to be quarantined from the community for two weeks when she returned. Two weeks totally alone was too high a price to pay for one night out for dinner. Also, she wouldn’t want to be the cause of possibly bringing the coronavirus into the community. At least she had Facetime, Zoom, email, and the staff’s camaraderie to keep her from feeling abandoned. She remarked how appreciative she was that one of her food servers, in particular, was one of those people who could never say ‘hello.’ She always had a funny story or a bit of gossipy news to share. She continued to say, “You have no idea how important this one person is to me. She spreads joy wherever she goes. I know because I asked others in the community who are friends with me. They agree.”
Spreading joy, like Johnny Appleseed, freely spread his chance to grow new trees, during the time of this pandemic is not necessarily an easy one. Food servers are especially carrying a big responsibility along with the trays they carry. They, too, are concerned not to bring a virus home to their families. They, too, are covering the work to be done on days when they are short-handed, worried that a coworker staying home doesn’t mean they have contracted the virus. They, too, are still feeling the joy of helping when help is needed. They, too, are health care professionals doing their share of work while maintaining conversations with the older people they serve to wipe away fears, loneliness, and boredom.
Kind Dining® will be unveiling an exciting new updated and expanded training series via an on-line format that will be available very soon, giving food serving workers even more tools needed to perform at their finest in these times when health care professionals come in the form of a food server.
The professional reports for work whether quarantines are in effect or not. They achieve joy in their work and share that joy with each person they meet in the community because they know how critical it is and how their presence on the job is meaningful. Food serving teams are formed to bolster each other, ease the stress they are all carrying, make their work easier, do what teammates do, and supply service beyond their duty.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Your food serving team has a critical role to play in helping residents overcome loneliness and isolation.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
Supportive staff administration, especially your food serving team, is the keyword in successfully Senior Living (SL), Rehabilitation Centers, and Long Term Care (LTC) communities. Kind Dining® strongly urges that an organized environment creates a comforting sense of a home feeling for residents, eliminating the old institutional appearances and habits. Teaching an adequate food serving team the skills and connections of hospitality to healthcare is imperative to a successfully managed community. Training, along with the empowerment and support for front-line workers, are parts that make a community whole.
People retain the right to respect, value, and honor due to every unique individual regardless of age or infirmity. Your food serving team needs to recognize and attend those rights and be willing to give them freely as they perform their duties in a friendly, familiar way. Kind Dining® teaches how your food serving team can include simple, efficient manners that will make residents happy to see them come through the door. The serving team will enjoy their work as a result. Allowing a resident to make choices, offer opinions, suggestions, and build nurturing relationships benefits everyone. It blossoms social friendships, reduces isolation, loneliness, and depression. Often small adjustments in routine can improve the physical and emotional craving with a seemingly little additional responsibility to your food server.
A Kind Dining® training session for your food serving staff will build communication, trust, and supportive partnerships among serving staff, learning how to help each other and how it benefits residents. They will learn about empowerment, input in scheduled meetings, offering ideas, suggestions, and being a progressive part of the organization. Now is a perfect time to restructure your community from the inside out since COVID -19 has forced changes already. It is a time to recognize the diversity, lifestyles, and personal needs of residents going through many personal changes of their own. Each resident must receive the same level of service regardless of their ability to communicate. It is the food server’s responsibility to evaluate and respond in giving the best service possible to the resident if communication is inadequate.
Ongoing education is the answer to changes in the Senior Living and Long Term Care communities of today. Leave behind the old ways of tolerance and incompetence in foodservice. It is more efficient to educate with training sessions than to terminate food servers who don’t stand up to your company’s goals while moving ahead.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, everyone is unique, valuable, and worthy of respect
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
The story came to me about two friends discussing his time in a Long Term Care facility. She came to visit and asked about his experience so far since he had not been there very long. He didn’t mention any medical routines performed each day. He talked about the way everyone went out of their way to care for him, including the food servers. They treated him as if he were special, he wasn’t just another room occupied. He really looked forward to mealtimes as a break in his monotonous routine and for the conviviality of those who brought his meals. “Can you believe, they ask about me, what I’ve done in life, what hobbies I enjoy doing and even want my opinions! One of the servers, Ben, is a soccer fan. What a surprise that was! We really had a good gab session about sports. You can put your mind at rest. I’ve chosen the right place for me.” he told her.
The serving staff brought smiles to his face, made him comfortable emotionally, and feel assured that he had chosen the right place. Fancy décor, expensive furnishings, and attractive landscaping are nice but it is the investment in highly trained staff, including the food serving team that is linked to the quality of life a resident deserves.
Emotions and stress run high when people are entering a new phase of their life. It’s hospitality as health care that makes the impression needed at that time. When asking someone to recount in 30 seconds their experience in a restaurant, a rest home, LTC facility, or even a hospital, they will tell you of how they felt, how connecting to staff comforted and relaxed them in a strange situation. It is what stays with a person. Kind Dining® we focus on the individual nutritional health and well being and the unique care the whole person needs. We teach your food servers to be aware of how important their social skills are when they are serving meals, especially in today’s situation of quarantines and lock-downs. The crossroads of hospitality to healthcare offers the residents a quality of life, keeping your front line workers in touch with your residents’ everyday life, and raising the standard of their quality of care.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Management that trains, empowers, and supports frontline workers, is the foundation of a solid community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Some folks think improving food service in Senior Living Residential and Nursing Homes means making the food tastier or more varied. Training for better dining and food service is so much more. It includes learning and practicing a new brand of hospitality until it comes naturally and linking it to health care. Health care and hospitality go hand in hand with every meal brought to the table by caring for food servers. Kind Dining® teaches how they work together. The important word is teaching. Yes, hospitality and health care are part of every dining experience. These skills can be learned and are central to your Senior Living, Rehabilitation Centers, and Long Term Care community’s success. When your food serving staff grasps the training, they adopt a new sense of purpose resulting in receiving a personal benefit from the daily work they do. They will have focus, energy, and know what matters most when they are serving residents partially by being aware of the resident’s needs that are other than the meal served.
The food server sets the ambiance whether it is in a dining room or in individual rooms. Introducing small talk breaks down barriers that often hold fears a resident may be holding in. The food server can build trust and confidence by encouraging residents to talk freely and release those fears. We believe hospitality is a universal language and crosses all barriers. Remember that mealtimes are still the most important hours of the day for residents. It is the food server who comes in personal contact with each resident and is the company’s most valued employee.
Kind Dining® training guides your food serving staff by bringing out and honing their skills and talents. It is their responsibility to focus on positive events, truly listen, which is the greatest act of generosity they can give to a resident during the brief time they spend together. Inspire practicing random acts of kindness for coworkers and acknowledging those same deeds received. Suggest keeping gratitude journals and open discussions in meetings with coworkers. Discussions during meetings bring about new ideas, work-saving habits shared and ways to keep foodservice fresh and up-to-date.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Specifically trained food servers are the heart of your community.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Alice was one of those women who never lacked for something to say. She wasn’t trying to earn a degree or win an award. She just knew it relaxed the older people when she served their meals, especially newcomers to the community and especially in these days of quarantines. Alice wasn’t always so gifted with her tongue; it was something she learned while listening as she brought dinner when the dining rooms were still places for older people to gather. It caught her attention that many of them told family stories at the table. That sometimes led to family histories and genealogy tales. Others at the table were enrapt and became excited about following through and learning their family histories including writing them down for the younger generations who were too busy to research.
Evidence has shown that this interaction of family stories is beneficial to all people involved. It raises self-esteem, gives a sense of purpose and a new goal. It can also give value to the life an older person has reexamined. Writing down their stories increases their sense of self-worth.
Alice noticed the difference recently while serving a resident in her room. With the restrictions placed by the pandemic the woman who had previously been chatty, had now become too quiet, maybe showing some telltale signs of depression. Alice purposely asked questions about family history she had prepared ahead of time. She softened the query by offering a story of her own family. Then she introduced the idea of genealogy research, explaining ways the woman could begin. It worked! Excitement filled the room and continued day after day. The resident was eager to tell Alice the information she found and the history of the family she had no idea about.
Kind Dining® coaches food servers on the art of making, and the importance of conversation. It is much easier if you know how to open a conversation and are ready with questions to ask in a gentle manner. Making small talk is a talent learned by food servers to engage older people into opening up, encourage them to chat while you are serving their meals. In these days of the coronavirus, every bit a food server can do to help reduce the stress and lessen the anxiety of an older person adds more value to who they are and what they do.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Do you know how to relax a new resident while serving their meal today?
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Some food servers don’t seem like they are trying to give genuine personal care and aid to the comfort of the older people they serve, yet that is what they are doing. If they love their job, love the work they do, and care for the older people they serve, it appears to be a natural part of the day for them. When food servers practice what they learn in structured training, it comes naturally. Food servers are the part of the employee team that instill the warmth of the table and sets the safe, comfortable ambiance older people need most. They use these professional skills three times a day during meals plus at snack times.
Trained food servers understand their role and the importance of the busyness of the community’s day as they hold the delicate position of creating contentment for a resident through their service at mealtimes. Kind Dining® training helps the unskilled worker learn a better way of completing their work while accepting the responsibilities of their job and building relationships of trust and safety with the residents and others on the food serving team. Kind Dining® guides the skilled food servers to seek opportunities to grow and expand their skills. They become proud of their professional appearance, language, and behavior in the service of hospitality given to all residents. Their value to the organization increases as they are the main key to the smooth running of a community by way of the hospitality of their mealtime service.
In these highly emotional and threatening times of coronavirus, it is imperative to have an ample number of trained food servers on your staff. They are the employees who stay through a crisis because they have been trained to handle unexpected situations. They know the precautions to take, yet continue to instill confidence, pleasantry, and comfort in the residents they serve. At Kind Dining®, we have a saying: Mealtime is the most important time to positively impact your residents’ nutritional health, wellbeing, and quality of life. That doesn’t change whether you are serving in the dining room or providing room service. It doesn’t change during the average everyday life in an LTC or retirement community or during the present pandemic times we are living through.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: In present-days of coronavirus find ways to give well-deserved praise to your food servers at every opportunity.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
Many stories of many kindnesses being extended to a customer come to me in many different ways. The stories aren’t always directly related to Long Term Care or Retirement Living, but the idea of kindness stretches from one station to another. For instance, a father checking into the Ritz Carlton for a conference brought his young son along. As they were checking in, the boy, knowing Spiderman was affiliated with the Ritz Carlton from the film, asked his father if there was a chance they may see Spiderman. A nearby janitor performing some light duties overheard the boy’s question that must have contained some high excitement in it. Because the employees of the Ritz Carlton are empowered, he contracted an agency to have Spiderman make a delivery to the hotel room where the boy was. He surely was overwhelmed by meeting his hero at the door! A lifetime memory and a lifetime customer were made!
By the way, each Ritz Carlton hotel has a full-time training director who stresses service value in his coaching. Sound familiar? Kind Dining® has been teaching trainees the same values, beginning equally with the intent of being proud of where you work. Although the venue may differ slightly, both are concerned with comfort and care and pledging personal service. Building strong lifetime relationships that are treasured and long-lasting is fundamental. Aren’t the goals for your LTC and retirement community similar?
The food servers have daily changes each day that they must learn and have ready answers when residents ask. It is vital that they know what foods, plus their descriptions, and drinks are on the menu for three meals a day plus snacks. It’s also important that they know what will not be on the menu or offered as a special on that particular day. Keep in mind always, that to the residents, mealtimes are the most important hours of the day. Even in these times of COVID 19 when meals are delivered to them, food servers need to bring the warmth of the table into the resident’s room.
Kind Dining® training reminds your food servers that knowing their job better makes their job easier and opens their mind to offering new ideas to improve food service. Their input is vital to the success of the organization.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, everyone is unique, valuable, and worthy of respect
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
In these trying times of the COVID 19 crisis, studies reveal Long Term Care communities with ample staff who are well-trained have fewer cases of the Coronavirus. Training is a keyword here that works for your food servers who hold vital positions in the community. Kind Dining® training modules are so much more than bringing a meal to a resident. Having your food serving staff learn about the hospitality that goes hand-in-hand with health care is essential.
Food servers who bond with a resident through the skill of conversation assists in that resident’s healthier attitude toward their daily life. They erase the isolated mood and the common problem with older people, especially those living alone, of feeling forgotten. While being beneficial to the resident it also benefits the food server with the knowledge of being valued. These moments of building a friendship repeated three times a day every day, build the important trust factor notably in LTC residents. Each day the food serving team is in multiple, personal contact with the resident and therefore the company’s most highly-prized asset. It is imperative they receive the most competent training.
Kind Dining® training teaches your food servers how their service tends to a resident’s emotional need in this time of a crisis seemingly without extra effort by the server. Residents have a right to be and feel cared for and comforted. This skill comes from knowledge that is part of knowing what the service of hospitality encompasses. Listening while serving a meal often leads to knowing a resident’s unique story. Allowing them to talk is nurturing, healthy, and caring. Each person is significant and deserves individual attention.
The food serving teams are front line workers. When management invests in skilled training for their front line workers, they empower them. These are critical components of a supportive environment. It is in the organization’s best interest to hire an ample number of food servers so they are not overloaded with working hours. Wearing your staff out with schedules that weakens their ability to perform at their best, defeats the training skills they have learned. The wise administration will take notice and express their gratitude to food servers for coming in to work in these stressful times and for doing the great job they are doing in the face of the adversity we are all experiencing.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Remember, you are crucial to your team’s success and so are your co-workers.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
Open and honest discussion is essential, and for me, an anticipated part of my training session of Kind Dining®. I don’t use a formatted script for this, and I am often pleasantly surprised by the responses that come. I recall a teenage dishwasher/busboy in one of the classes. He needed a job and happened to find one in the community where I was coaching. When he applied for the job, his focus was about just earning money. However, this changed after he noticed how the residents became personal to him. This began with a few comments exchanged with the residents as he cleared tables. The comments grew into conversations, questions, and answers. It didn’t take long for him to realize that showing up for work and just being there made a big difference to them and to him, too. He looked forward to his workday because of the bond that developed with the residents. Being friendly, he mentioned, enriched their life and his day. It impacted him to make a difference.
He continued to tell us that many of the residents no longer had a family. Since his grandparents passed away, his interaction with these older people was a way of returning what his grandparents had given to him. By being aware of life around him and responding to it, this young man developed a new sense of purpose. The new connection motivated him to want to improve his service. He intended to stay with the company regardless of a minimal wage because of his emotional responsibility and the commitment he made to himself. It wouldn’t surprise me if he eventually made a career in the hospitality and health care he displayed.
After the young man spoke in that Kind Dining® coaching session, other employees also expressed an emotional gift exchanged between residents and staff. Ideally, this concept needs to be nurtured. Companies that are committed to a healthy workplace culture improve their balance sheet by 20-30 %. It makes a huge difference in reaching a company’s goals when employees find their work meaningful. Research shows employees with a sense of identity, value, and purpose within the community are vital to an organization. Some senior living communities may not be able to offer employees the same perks of top-ranked companies such as health insurance, family leave, and childcare, etc. and cannot pay more than minimum wage at some levels.
However, workplace culture, which top companies rank as the most influential aspect is 80% of daily operations, which can be created and sustained for little money.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Do your food servers know their role in helping older people overcome loneliness and isolation?
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership
If you are employed in a senior or assisted living community and serve a beverage to a resident, you are a food server. If you only fill in on a day when your dining rooms are short-handed, you are a food server. If you only serve food on an occasional basis, you are a food server and all food servers need to be properly trained.
Every food server needs guidelines and you need to know how to serve as good as your community’s best food server. This includes knowing hospitality, polite manners, how to connect with the resident you are waiting on, and how to make the residents happy to see you, not just for the food you bring but for everything else you bring into the room. This includes those in the administration who may only fill in when food serving staff is short-handed.
Kind Dining® training coaches everyone whoever picks up a plate or a glass and places it on the table whether in the dining room or in the resident’s personal quarters. It is all about meeting the expectations of the diner. Kind Dining® training teaches the science behind serving food in a hospitable manner that enhances the diner’s mealtime experience. When residents are happy with their food server, you are promoting nutrition, better digestion, reducing unintentional weight loss, and curbing dehydration. Food servers extend person-centered hospitality and hospitality is healthcare.
Healthcare is fundamental in senior living communities whether it is assisted living or not. The two go hand in hand together to better the daily life of each resident in your community. Learning about the seniors you serve by socially connecting to them encourages understanding, compassion, and caring. Caring is part of healthcare and hospitality is how you show it. Always keep in mind that when you serve food to a resident’s private rooms, you are entering their home. Your relationship with each resident affects their dining experience. Being happy to see you is the first step in being happy with the meal you bring to them.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Know the goal and know your role.
by Cindy Heilman | Leadership, Resident Centered Dining Service
Personal stories about food service, whether they are restaurant-based, institutions, or more often today, come from residential communities. One story that came to me recently was from a gal who probably was a natural leader in the senior community she worked in because she had a restaurant background.
“My parents owned a small neighborhood restaurant,” she said. “None of us children followed in their footsteps in owning a restaurant but I learned about the psychology that surrounds food, food service, and how hospitality fits in. Customers came to see us as well as to eat. They came to know all about us, including celebrating a new baby in the family or any important life moment. In turn, we learned about them as I served their dinners or they lingered at the register to share their news. I treated them as if I was welcoming them into my personal home, with the same courtesies, the same consideration, and the same warm feelings. Mom and Dad taught us about hospitality and my siblings and I never forgot it. What I learned then guides me in my food serving position in today’s senior community.”
This is a story heard often because it carries so much wisdom about food service. Hospitality is key to good service which can save a disappointing meal yet the opposite is not true. A good meal can never save bad service. Bad service is remembered even longer than the memory of an excellent meal. In a senior community, good food service is even more vital as it aids in digestion, promotes nutrition through appetite, reduces unintentional weight loss for the same reason, and also reduces dehydration. The connection made between food server and resident creates a foundation of goodwill that aids both parties and travels both ways.
Kind Dining® believes another factor for good food servers to keep on their ‘keyring’ is that mealtimes are the time of day residents look forward to the most. Even with social distancing and quarantine, mealtimes are when they connect with a live person, even if the food server is wearing a mask. Residents who are happy at mealtimes are happy in their community and happy people don’t leave. They invite their friends and family to choose the same senior community that offers them hospitality and serves them contentment.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Reflect on what hospitality means to you and how you can serve it today?
by Cindy Heilman | Build Communities of Belonging, Leadership
It seems multicultural and multiracial items are in headline news every day. Retirement living and long term care residents are more multiracial and multicultural than in the recent past. Today’s retiring seniors are widely traveled and exposed to other cultures by the choices they made in how they lived their lives. Travel, communication, and TV have opened the doors for Americans to learn about people from faraway places and in return, many immigrants have become American citizens. In order to accommodate and welcome seniors with different traditions that retirement communities have seen in our parents’ generation, it is time to continue the education of your food serving teams in your community. They hold the keys to the hospitality your community provides. They are the key to the success of your community.
Each Kind Dining® class is unique depending on the mix of age, gender, culture, and work experience of the participants. The curriculum is consistent with expanded avenues but responds in strength where your group needs it most. With the new generation of residents, even previously trained food servers will benefit from retraining and coaching. Educated and trained individuals are about community and community means belonging to a group. It is vital that food servers are aware they are part of that group. Further, teamwork is a goal for food servers to achieve with their coworkers. The food serving team is important to your company’s reputation; how they serve meals matters!
Food servers can encourage residents to talk about their traditions and uniqueness in order to begin conversations and to gain knowledge. The friendlier food servers appear while performing their service, the more at home residents will feel. It’s significant for residents of cultures new to the community, to attain that homey feeling. Empathy from your food serving team tends to boost hospitality and kindness. It is easy to misunderstand culture staff are not familiar with but if they are alert and aware, potential misunderstandings can be avoided. Body language plays a major role in avoiding social disasters. A resident is less likely to react negatively when the food server is obviously appearing in a kind and considerate manner. Remember to smile, make eye contact with the resident you are serving, share a kind word, and call them by name.
Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Food servers help residents overcome feeling isolated, yet still have a sense of belonging.
Even in these hard times of pandemic, we have much to be thankful for in our senior living community. We have been fortunate to learn quickly how to protect our environment, residents, staff, and have learned ways of social distancing in everyday activities. Incorporating virtual technology into our daily lives has kept residents from loneliness, kept all of us in touch with each other, including families and friends who cannot enter our premises. We combat the coronavirus by following safety rules.
“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” — George Bernard Shaw
Being a top-performing food server in a senior care community is complex and challenging at the best of times. During COVID 19 it is so much more. Add being alert to the residents’ emotions, having small chit-chat handy, and being cheerful and making sure they have the resident’s meal correct to the standard usual of being neat, clean, well-spoken, and efficient.
It’s harvest time for your food serving team. During these times of COVID 19, they realize the skills learned have been so critical to their work in the community. To harvest their sense of fulfillment and to acknowledge that they are the heroes of today. Is that not enough to feel joyful in the work they do? 
While trying to stay in touch with family, Dina’s niece emailed her at her retirement community, asking if she had been visiting the kids lately. The kids had kids of their own and often held family celebrations or took Dina out to dinner, shopping, or somewhere special for the day. No, Dina told her, if she went to stay with the kids, she would need to be quarantined from the community for two weeks when she returned. Two weeks totally alone was too high a price to pay for one night out for dinner. Also, she wouldn’t want to be the cause of possibly bringing the coronavirus into the community. At least she had Facetime, Zoom, email, and the staff’s camaraderie to keep her from feeling abandoned. She remarked how appreciative she was that one of her food servers, in particular, was one of those people who could never say ‘hello.’ She always had a funny story or a bit of gossipy news to share. She continued to say, “You have no idea how important this one person is to me. She spreads joy wherever she goes. I know because I asked others in the community who are friends with me. They agree.” 
Supportive staff administration, especially your food serving team, is the keyword in successfully Senior Living (SL), Rehabilitation Centers, and Long Term Care (LTC) communities. Kind Dining® strongly urges that an organized environment creates a comforting sense of a home feeling for residents, eliminating the old institutional appearances and habits. Teaching an adequate food serving team the skills and connections of hospitality to healthcare is imperative to a successfully managed community. Training, along with the empowerment and support for front-line workers, are parts that make a community whole.
The story came to me about two friends discussing his time in a Long Term Care facility. She came to visit and asked about his experience so far since he had not been there very long. He didn’t mention any medical routines performed each day. He talked about the way everyone went out of their way to care for him, including the food servers. They treated him as if he were special, he wasn’t just another room occupied. He really looked forward to mealtimes as a break in his monotonous routine and for the conviviality of those who brought his meals. “Can you believe, they ask about me, what I’ve done in life, what hobbies I enjoy doing and even want my opinions! One of the servers, Ben, is a soccer fan. What a surprise that was! We really had a good gab session about sports. You can put your mind at rest. I’ve chosen the right place for me.” he told her.
Alice was one of those women who never lacked for something to say. She wasn’t trying to earn a degree or win an award. She just knew it relaxed the older people when she served their meals, especially newcomers to the community and especially in these days of quarantines. Alice wasn’t always so gifted with her tongue; it was something she learned while listening as she brought dinner when the dining rooms were still places for older people to gather. It caught her attention that many of them told family stories at the table. That sometimes led to family histories and genealogy tales. Others at the table were enrapt and became excited about following through and learning their family histories including writing them down for the younger generations who were too busy to research.
Many stories of many kindnesses being extended to a customer come to me in many different ways. The stories aren’t always directly related to Long Term Care or Retirement Living, but the idea of kindness stretches from one station to another. For instance, a father checking into the Ritz Carlton for a conference brought his young son along. As they were checking in, the boy, knowing Spiderman was affiliated with the Ritz Carlton from the film, asked his father if there was a chance they may see Spiderman. A nearby janitor performing some light duties overheard the boy’s question that must have contained some high excitement in it. Because the employees of the Ritz Carlton are empowered, he contracted an agency to have Spiderman make a delivery to the hotel room where the boy was. He surely was overwhelmed by meeting his hero at the door! A lifetime memory and a lifetime customer were made!
Open and honest discussion is essential, and for me, an anticipated part of my training session of Kind Dining®. I don’t use a formatted script for this, and I am often pleasantly surprised by the responses that come. I recall a teenage dishwasher/busboy in one of the classes. He needed a job and happened to find one in the community where I was coaching. When he applied for the job, his focus was about just earning money. However, this changed after he noticed how the residents became personal to him. This began with a few comments exchanged with the residents as he cleared tables. The comments grew into conversations, questions, and answers. It didn’t take long for him to realize that showing up for work and just being there made a big difference to them and to him, too. He looked forward to his workday because of the bond that developed with the residents. Being friendly, he mentioned, enriched their life and his day. It impacted him to make a difference.
Personal stories about food service, whether they are restaurant-based, institutions, or more often today, come from residential communities. One story that came to me recently was from a gal who probably was a natural leader in the senior community she worked in because she had a restaurant background.
It seems multicultural and multiracial items are in headline news every day. Retirement living and long term care residents are more multiracial and multicultural than in the recent past. Today’s retiring seniors are widely traveled and exposed to other cultures by the choices they made in how they lived their lives. Travel, communication, and TV have opened the doors for Americans to learn about people from faraway places and in return, many immigrants have become American citizens. In order to accommodate and welcome seniors with different traditions that retirement communities have seen in our parents’ generation, it is time to continue the education of your food serving teams in your community. They hold the keys to the hospitality your community provides. They