Even through today’s mealtimes that are so different from our usual expected normal mealtimes pre-pandemic, your food servers can still provide memorable experiences for the older adults they serve. Food servers will be remembered with gratefulness when they have shown kindness, consideration compatibility, and caring during the recent unstable year. We have managed to live through it in the best way we knew how, by changing routines and serving styles while still building community. Adapting to new ways of serving meals would have come easier to the staff that has had good training. Part of being able to accept sudden changes and showing empathy to the older adults who have been impacted by these changes is part of the skill of an excellent food serving team. 

Teaching servers to create an ambiance of genuine hospitality when serving meals can impress caring upon your residents. Now that residents are unable to join their friends in the dining room, they especially look forward to seeing their food servers for a connection to internal news. It is an excellent time for them to form bonds with food servers who may be delivering meals to their doorstep. The food servers’ skill of conversing freely and easily is a beneficial asset to practice. Research shows when residents are highly satisfied with their community dining, overall satisfaction scores rise.  Mealtimes are just as important to them during the pandemic though mealtimes have been quite different this past year. Of course, the food itself must be good, but the serving of it is the fancy wrapping of the gift.

Your training program determines your staff’s responses to situations of stress when special skills are called on. Companies set values to direct a clear statement to employees and guide their conduct and attitudes. How food servers treat and respect each other displays how they interact with the residents. Training that does not create excellent performance in your food-serving staff is a waste of time and money. This is the perfect time to add a remote Kind Dining♥ program to your business plan of improving your community’s quality of food service standards. Interactive training builds health and well-being for the staff that inadvertently affects those they serve. Residents that are satisfied do not search for another community, reducing the cost of replacing their empty space. Residents that are content with their community recommend it to others.

B Kind® Tip: Satisfying residents by way of their mealtime experience by utilizing the skills of your servers is achieving the desired goal.