For decades, the senior living dining experience was marked by capacious formal dining rooms with banquet-style seating, white tablecloths, and little palpable difference in atmosphere from one meal to the next. The result was something consistent and pleasant but static, limited, and predictable. Then came the baby boomers. The arrival of a new generation of…

A nutritious, flavorful diet is fundamental to health and quality of life for senior living residents. However, older adults may face physical and cognitive challenges that make it difficult for them to gain adequate nutrition and satisfaction from their meals. How can providers meet these challenges to ensure optimum nutrition among a resident population with a…

Food service operations in senior living communities are increasingly getting attention as a source of competitive advantage. David Koelling, president of Strategic Dining Services, a dining service and hospitality management provider, knows the strategic importance of the dining operation. “For many operators, dining is the number one controllable expense, and the biggest driver of resident…

Twenty years ago, senior living sales and marketing training would have included discussions about reading body language, tracking the time between the first phone call and a community visit, and developing talking points to combat rejections. Today, while some of those discussions are still relevant, sales and marketing managers are more likely to discuss changing…

When Ann Tardy was a young employee of a large accounting firm, she wrote a memo to a senior executive identifying shortcomings she identified in the firm’s workplace culture and offering ideas for how to address them. In response, the executive established standing, one-on-one meetings with Tardy to pick her brain and discuss her ideas.…

It’s no surprise that the world’s aging population is creating a greater demand for increased staffing in senior living communities. To meet that need, it’s imperative that industry professionals start addressing the issue locally and educate potential employees about the many job and career opportunities that exist across the senior living spectrum. What can senior…

You never know what you’re going to get. It’s the blessing and the curse of being an executive director. The best laid plans may change when you walk in the door and find out an emerging situation needs your attention, or your staff needs help resolving a crisis. Executive directors have a lot of demands…

It’s hard to overstate the value of a solid onboarding process. Industry watchers say the high turnover rate in senior living tracks directly back to the hiring process, especially those early days in which a new worker gets familiar with the senior living environment. Those who fail to click with the culture tend to jump…

Presenting the 2018 Argentum Hero and Senior Living Community Leadership Award Winners The annual Argentum Hero Awards and Senior Living Community Leadership Award recognize individuals who are ideal representatives of the hundreds of thousands of people serving across senior living and who showcase the highest levels of excellence, caring, and dedication. They are recognized each…

Keeping residents and staff fully engaged can be an ongoing challenge in any senior living community. The best providers create initiatives to foster this key component of individual and community well-being. Four outstanding programs to increase resident and employee engagement have been selected as Argentum’s 2018 Best of the Best Award winners. A filmmaking activity…