There is this belief that immigration will solve the senior living staffing problem that is growing bigger every day. DON’T COUNT ON IT!

This more than anything would transform senior living, because there are enough residents for every senior living apartment in this country.

There are enough people who would love to work in senior living in your communities. The fix will start when you tackle these questions. 

1. The first complaint already.

Do you have an idea what’s inside the mind of your team members while you’re in a company meeting? Here are the top things …

Senior living companies, like all companies, have job standards. And if you deviate from those job standards significantly you lose your job.

People want great work experiences, and when you provide them with great work experiences, they reward you by treating customers as special people.

Workforce recruitment and retention was top of mind at this year’s AHCA/NCAL conference. And the people had a spirit of “might as well try it!”

Here’s a lightly edited manifesto of sorts from a team member. Don’t you want to work here? Don’t you want to be this kind of leader?

At places where people truly cared, those teams “understood the assignment,” as the meme goes. More accurately: They understood the mission.

There is nearly always a lot of talk about pay for frontline workers, but almost no talk about executive directors’ pay.

Underpinning Deming’s philosophy is the “empowerment of the individual.” In his view, businesses that don’t do this are doomed to mediocrity or failure.

Ideally, tech innovations lead to better care, more efficiency, and more middle-market affordability. And yet … we also have to consider other factors.

The thing I hear over and over again from team members to regional directors is that they feel like their leaders don’t care about them as people.

At the end of the day, there needs to be a hybrid system in employee reviews that accomplishes both goals, and there is likely some art in figuring this all out.

It makes me annoyed that we don’t hear and talk enough about them. If residents are the heart of senior living, then CNAs are the backbone of our industry.

Senior living, too, will have to adapt or become fodder in the new economic experiment with the freedom economy.

There is generally more talent and corporate potential in the teams that managers and executives lead than is evident on the surface.

When there is a performance review that is scheduled weeks or days in advance, that time period is, for most team members, filled with anxiety.

You have complete control over the message your quitters are sending you. And if you get this right, your occupancy problems will be much smaller.

They failed these frontline team members by not giving them the skills, knowledge, and discretion they needed to handle this well.