Keep in mind that if you have residents in your senior living community, you need a food serving team to serve them. While this sounds elementary, consider that you want skilled, knowledgeable, talented, considerate, food servers that exude a pleasant attitude. Do you wonder where to find them? Do you wonder how to keep those in your employ from searching elsewhere? There are proven ways that keep your food servers wanting to stay with your community and enjoy working in your dining room. 

It’s time for Kind Dining® training. Now is the time to set ambitious culture change goals.

Transformation depends firstly on executives, managers, and team leaders learning and following a curriculum proven to work. Food servers were not born with the skills they need for top-notch service but they can be taught person-centered skills that fit your particular community dining room. They will learn to understand your company goals and how to become a valued part of it. Importantly they will learn how to handle the emotions of working with senior service. Train your food servers to know their responsibilities and how to do their job in the best possible way.  They will take on a pride in what they do, feel the sense of belonging, of being a part of their community’s and company’s success. Your food servers will adopt a better self-image, new behaviors, reinforce new attitudes and appreciate new standards.

Every time one of your food servers leaves your employ, it costs the company money that could be invested elsewhere in the community. A new employee must be found, hired and trained. Losing even one food server creates a burden of work for the rest of the food serving team, often causes distress especially if she was a favorite of your resident diners. 

Research has proven key leadership practices in person-centered care, comes from food servers empowerment to make decisions immediately in their own area of service when it is needed. Growth comes from self-responsibility. Kind Dining® training teaches these basic cultural changes. Even the youth who come to work between their college terms will benefit your community. The training will bring them back each season already knowledgeable and that encouragement may bring them to enter the field of senior living community service when they graduate.

Overcome your food serving team’s resistance to change. Teach them a better way to build a stronger food serving team relationship and your community will have less turn over in your nursing and dining room employment. 

Our B♥ Kind® Tip: Take a leadership role by setting a good example today.