Having strong leadership in place is key at any senior living company, but one provider’s effort to develop leaders on the front lines netted them industry-wide recognition as well as an improvement in resident care delivery scores.
ALFA 2013 Best of the Best Award Winner
After years of investing in leadership development for executive directors and managers, Benchmark Senior Living has decided to do the same for some of its most exceptional caregivers, the lead aides.
“We said: ‘Listen, if we’re ever going to create the customer experience that we are striving to create, we need to ensure we simultaneously focus on the level of organization that has the greatest impact on that, and that’s the caregiver,’” says Nancy Harper, director of training and education. “Are we truly arming the leads with the right skill set to be the peer influencers? How do you do that? How do you be a coach?”
Benchmark’s response to those questions is a new training program called “Lead Aide: Steps for Success.” Through it, lead aides are brought together for two days of off-site leadership training. During the training, they reflect on their personal leadership style, learn what it means to be a coach, and role play new strategies with an emphasis on being a peer influencer in times of conflict in order to gain the best possible outcome.
Along the way, Harper teaches new habits that every lead aide needs for success, such as how to encourage peers to act from their heart in everything they do; when to step back and enable others to take responsibility their own way; and when to step in to seize a “teachable moment.”
The program has been successful on many levels. Not only has it given lead aides more skills and a better sense of the important role they play, but it also has reinforced their peers’ confidence in them as mentors and go-to leaders in a pinch. The training program also has demonstrated Benchmark’s commitment to professional growth for talented aides. “It sounds so cliché, but when you empower them, on graduation day, on day two, they’re walking on cloud 9. They finally feel as if their work is valued.”
One role of lead aides is to help with quality assurance and regulatory compliance; of 45 Benchmark communities, 23 communities were deficiency free last year, a 50 percent increase over the previous survey period. Benchmark also has seen a 25 percent increase in resident care delivery scores.
The above best practice was recognized as an ALFA 2013 Best of the Best Award winner. Do you have a best practice, product, service or solution at your community or company that is advancing excellence in senior living? The Call for Nominations for the ALFA 2014 Best of the Best Awards will begin in October. Visit ALFA.org/bestofthebest to read more best practices.
Suggested Articles:
