New Culture Elevates Hospitality

Lifespace Communities wants residents to feel like they are living in a five-star hotel.

That’s why the company is learning hospitality from famed hotelier Ritz-Carlton.

“The Ritz-Carlton is known for its superior guest service, and we wanted to learn from the best,” says Joey Leonhardt, Lifespace’s vice president of human resources, who sent several team members to a Ritz-Carlton training program last year.

With this inspiration and instruction, Lifespace leaders designed a training program to transform the experience of living in a retirement community. Called Living Lifespace, the program focuses on delivering exceptional customer service, a challenge that is ultimately up to team members, who now must complete a rigorous training before they start serving residents.

“We now take two full days to teach team members coming into Lifespace about the standards, attitudes and behavior that we expect in our culture,” Leonhardt explains.

Lifespace CEO Sloan Bentley is a national leader in the push for improved customer service in senior living communities. The days when seniors were simply “cared for” are over, Bentley wrote in her book “Believing in Senior Living.” The new culture is about creating memorable experiences in which residents flourish.

Toward that end, Lifespace team members can spend up to $250 without prior approval to ensure resident satisfaction. The policy helps not only residents; it promotes team-member engagement because Lifespace trusts and empowers them.

On only the second day after Living Lifespace was launched last February at Beacon Hill in Lombard, Illinois, Culinary Manager Juli Giannini faced a complaint from a relative that a resident had been overcharged for extra food in the dining room.

“I just said ‘No problem, no issues whatsoever, I will go ahead and credit the account,’” Giannini says. “In the big picture, we made somebody happy and it became so much more positive. Not to be the hero, just to make somebody happy is it what it amounts to.”

For Giannini, the Living Lifespace training “put a new perspective on the job, with everybody working on the same page.”

As part of the new culture, team members hold Daily Huddles to get the latest on community happenings, foster collaboration and encourage personalized service. In the huddles, team members remind each other about resident birthdays and anniversaries and their personal preferences. Personal preferences are now tracked in the communities so that team members can tailor services.

Team members are trained in “lateral service” so that complaints are not ignored or passed on to other departments. “I own every problem” is one of 12 commitments team members make as part of the program. As in the finest hotels, team members are trained to anticipate needs instead of waiting for residents to request services.

Delighting Residents

And residents are noticing, Giannini says.

“Wow, how did you know it was my birthday?” she recalls a surprised resident saying. “Not only knowing someone’s name but also a little bit about them makes it personalized.”

“Our aim is to delight,” Leonhardt says. “We want to consistently exceed the expectations of residents and their families.”

A team member at one of Lifespace’s Chicago-area communities noticed that a visiting relative preferred to stay at one particular guest suite on his overnight visits. That suite was already booked, so the team member shifted the rooms for other guests to ensure that the visiting relative could stay in his favorite suite.

A resident was gazing out of the window at beautiful clouds. A team member noticed, took a picture and had it framed for the resident, complete with a poem.

When a resident without family faced celebrating her birthday alone, a team member who commutes to work on a bicycle stopped by a local grocery store, bought a cake and balloons and somehow juggled them on the bike, to the delight of the resident. Another team member went shopping for a resident, bringing her back a brand-new Easter dress.

In each instance, the team members took the initiative, Leonhardt notes, which is why the Living Lifespace motto starts with the value of team members: “We are exceptional people providing exceptional care and services.”

Attending to the Small Things

Whether a hotel or a Lifespace community, the goal is the same, says David Miller, a former hotel manager who now serves as executive director of Lifespace’s Friendship Village in Bloomington, Minnesota.

“There are many more similarities than differences between the two,” Miller says, comparing his previous jobs and his new one at Lifespace. “It’s all about hospitality, regardless of whether they are staying with you one or two nights or two years.”

In fact, there is greater opportunity for customer service in a Lifespace community than a hotel because team members have more time to get to know residents, Miller adds.

Taking tips from his background as a hotelier, Miller encourages team members to serve ladies first at meals and to refrain from using overly familiar phrases such as “you guys” when addressing residents.

(In the cover photo: Team members at Friendship Village of Bloomington use the Daily Huddle to educate, inspire and celebrate each other)

(In the inset photo: Jill Mask, fitness instructor and personal trainer, gives resident Herb Telshaw some tips for his weightlifting regimen at Friendship Village of Bloomington)

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