It’s more than food servers being courteous to the seniors in your community dining room. It’s more than pulling out a chair or finding the best table for a particular senior to sit. It’s also about being civil, courteous to all your coworkers. It’s about lending a helping hand without anyone asking for help. When a food server notices her teammate has her hands full or needs an inside hint on how to better handle a situation and stepping in, it’s about that. It’s about being kind to the manager, the dishwasher and your food serving teammate, not just another person getting a job done.

It’s about these things and more at Kind Dining® training sessions. It’s about kindness. It’s about civility. Studies show that extending kindness reduces anxiety, creates a feeling of happiness and social connection. These are choices, along with food serving skills that can be learned with practice every day.  The mood of the giver of kindness elates as well as the mood of the person receiving the kind gesture. It’s a wonderful moment when you help lift someone out of a mournful mood.

Recently, the media has brought attention to incivility in workplaces and the effects it has on employees and the company itself. They state that employees are more likely to leave a job they actually love because of rudeness and incivility from a coworker or administrator. Uncivil behavior creates toxic situations that can cause serious unrest in any community dining room. If your senior residents aren’t happy in their dining room, they will be looking elsewhere to live. Vacancies in a residence are time-consuming and costly to refill. The community will also lose its best food servers that encourage the homey feeling you want your seniors to enjoy when they appear at mealtimes. Poor relationships between employees are also linked to a lower quality of care.

It’s time to introduce education for collaboration and relationship-building to have a retirement community that is safe and filled with kind food servers that you would want in your own home.

Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Kind Dining helps to heal broken relationships and supports harmony, communication, and team building!