Do you allow residents to say thanks for a job well done to your staff using gifts of things or money?
I recently wrote an article asking if a โpay what you think itโs worthโ strategy would work in senior living. Jennifer a regular reader and active commenter posted a thoughtful response where she suggested senior communities should perhaps make allowance for some form of tipping.
The Downside of Tipping
I know there are some risks in tipping. It can be an uneven process that creates a โluck of the drawโ situation for team members where one care giver might get a resident who is inclined to tip and another a resident who is not for the same level of service. I also appreciate that it has the potential for care givers to either subtlety or explicitly demand tips or favors for basic or even good service that should be part of the package. The problem is further complicated by the reality that there are some great hard working, dedicated line staff that residents never see and would be left out of a tipping system.
The Upside of Tipping
I know many communities have some type of employee appreciation fund that tends to be specifically for line staff and allows residents and families to contribute to that fund which is then divided evenly among all line staff. This is a nice gesture that puts extra cash in the hands of staff, usually during the holidays. The problem is that it also rewards mediocre staff (come on . . . you all have some who are not as good as you wish they were) at the same rate as those team members who go above and beyond. It seems to me that allowing residents and families to tip specific staff members for exceptional service if done carefully and thoughtfully could be a powerful thing for the entire community in at least two ways:
- Residents are typically more generous with tipping/employee gifts when the money goes to a specific individual.
- Talking about and even celebrating tips given to care givers has the potential to motivate other team members to go the extra mile.
What It Might Look Like
I am not sure I would allow it, but if I did it would look something like this:
- All tipping, cash or otherwise, would have to go through local management.
- Particularly with cash gifts, I would have a policy to share a portion of those gifts with the behind the scenes team members such as laundry staff and dish washers, similar to how many restaurants require servers to share a portion of their tips with support staff.
- There would be severe penalties for taking undisclosed gifts.
- There would be severe penalties for doing anything to coerce residents into paying tips.
- I would openly celebrate the receipt of tips/gifts in staff meetings as a motivator.
- The policy would be provided to residents and families so they understand it is optional.
Your Turn
I have put together a short 4 question survey about how you handle this issue in your communities. I will provide the results in about 4 weeks.
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Steve Moran
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I loved this article on tipping and I feel that it would be a great way to motivate staff. I think that it would work well if you are able to track by the rules that you stated. Some staff do go over and above and I feel that they should be rewarded.
Steve, I hope that you are a member of the National Continuing Care Residents Association (NaCCRA). NaCCRA has two articles on just this topic in its most recent issue which can be accessed at http://www.naccra.com/newsletter/2014/2014%20marApr%20Lifeline%20FINAL.pdf#page=7.
My own experience is that providers can be too rigid with no tipping enforcement creating a sense that there are two tiers of employees, managers who have the privileges that aristocrats had in feudal society, and lower level staff who are expendable in the same way that peasants once were. When an employee is summarily fired for taking something that resident had put out in the trash because the provider decided that was a violation of the no tipping policy, things have gone too far.
When my mother was in a nursing home, we wanted to have her 90th birthday at a nearby hotel, but that was too daunting for her to contemplate. She had become dependent in her own mind on the nursing home environment. So, instead I went to the kitchen staff and asked if they could produce a suitable brunch in house with the $1,500 that the hotel would have charged.
The staff rose to the occasion and put on a grand meal and performance in a conference room at the facility. The staff enjoyed doing it and they also made a little extra for their effort which enhanced their minimum wage jobs. When we came back a year later for a repeat occasion, they had trouble finding a place for us to have our family gathering. The idea of staff produced events had become very popular in the interim and moral was way, way up with turnover down accordingly.
Of course, this all violated all kinds of corporate directives, so the Executive Director simply looked the other way since the practice was benefitting everyone and made the care experience much better than it had been. Fortunately, as far as I can tell the Holding Company major domos never got wind of this undermining of their prerogatives to micro manage. Eventually my mother passed away, so I’ve lost touch, but I hope that this positive practice — which is contrary to “tipping” policies — is still helping to ameliorate the lives of those unfortunate residents and is continuing to gladden the hearts and lighten the economic burdens of the dedicated workers who serve them.
Great articles and a great story. Those kinds of things make a big difference in the lives of the community.