Senior Lifestyle found themselves facing a huge problem . . . a fantastic problem.

By Steve Moran

I started seeing these postings by Lisa Fordyce, the COO of Senior Lifestyle Corporation, on LinkedIn about something called 100 Days of the Heart of Caring and it had the smell of a great story.

I reached out to Lisa and here is what she had to say:

The Highest Award

Each year at their June management meeting, Senior Lifestyle Corporation gives out 5 “Hearts of Caring” awards as the highest honor they can bestow on a Senior Lifestyle Team member. The way their process works is that someone at a senior community nominates a fellow worker for the award. Those nominations are evaluated and the 5 finalists are named.

The criteria for this award is the team members who best live the mission and core values of Senior Lifestyle Corporation.

Their mission reads like this:

“By engaging a caring team of dedicated professionals, Senior Lifestyle will be at the forefront of creating fulfilling lifestyles that enrich seniors’ lives today, and tomorrow.”

In my view this mission statement is a big win, because it fully recognizes and embraces the idea that taking care of and motivating the team is the only possible way to provide a great resident experience.

They back-up this mission statement with 5 core values (CHART):

            1.  Caring

            2.  Honesty

            3.  Appreciation

            4.  Respect

            5.  Teamwork

The goal is to show appreciation for the dedication to the job and to residents and to serve as a tool to reinforce mission and values. It also serves as a great recruiting tool for all position levels in the organization.

The Big Problem

This year Senior Lifestyle found themselves facing a huge problem . . . a fantastic problem. They were inundated with bushel baskets of nominations, team members who have completely sold out to their mission and core values.

They didn’t want to dilute the value of the Heart of Caring award and increasing the number beyond 5, would in a very real sense dilute the power of the award itself. The solution was 100 days of the Heart of Caring, where each day they are telling the story about one nominee, who in serving residents with vigor and passion, living out their core values.

They will still honor 5 winners at their June meeting but with these hundred stories, they will more broadly say, “Thanks for serving.”

You can see last year’s winners here: HERE

And

The 100 days of the Heart of Caring Nominees HERE