Senior Care Academy
Senior Care Academy is a podcast dedicated to providing valuable information and expert advice on navigating the world of senior care for both senior care providers, and families with aging parents. Hosted by industry professionals, each episode covers a wide range of topics including healthcare options, legal considerations, financial planning, and emotional support for caregivers. If you are a healthcare provider, have aging parents, or are a senior adult, this podcast is for you! Tune in to gain valuable insights and resources to help you make informed decisions and provide the best care for your loved ones.
Senior Care Academy
Creating Respectful and Engaged Senior Communities with Robert Spielman
Ever wondered how a youth pastor's skills translate to elder care leadership? In this episode, we sit down with Robert Spielman, the Vice President of Culture at Foundations Health and Solutions, to uncover this intriguing journey. Discover how Robert's background in guiding youth seamlessly transitioned into a pivotal role in elder care, where he has implemented transformative programs like the Music and Memory Program and the Dementia Care Specialist Certification. These initiatives not only enhance the lives of residents but also foster a positive work environment for staff. Robert's insights into creating a culture of respect, gratitude, and engagement offer invaluable lessons for anyone in the caregiving field.
Join us as we explore the revitalization of a former hospital-run nursing facility under new management and the critical role that culture plays in this transformation. Robert shares the strategies that led to high occupancy rates and a zero-reliance on agency staff, emphasizing the importance of core values, leadership, and team respect. Through personal anecdotes, he illustrates the impact of cultural understanding and sensitivity on improving care quality. This episode concludes with a powerful call to action for caregivers to embrace these principles, fostering meaningful connections and elevating care standards for seniors. This is a must-listen for anyone passionate about elder care and leadership.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Senior Care Academy podcast, a podcast focused on innovation, insights and industry leaders. Today, we're joined by Robert Spielman. Robert is a dedicated leader in elder care with over 22 years of experience as vice president of culture at Foundations, health and Solutions. He has been instrumental in developing and implementing a culture of excellence and compassion across more than 60 nursing homes in Ohio. Robert's mission is to ensure that residents receive the highest level of care and that the staff members feel empowered and valued. He has led numerous initiatives, such as the Music and Memory Program and the Dementia Care Specialist Certification, which have significantly enhanced the quality of life for the residents that he and his company take care of. Robert, thank you so much for being on the show today. It's a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 2:It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell us a little bit about your background, how you got involved and how you kind of, how that led into the position that you have now. I'd love to learn a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I was actually a youth pastor for my first part of my career and I loved it, but as I got older I was like this is, I don't have any desire to be a senior pastor. I don't have any desire to be a senior pastor, so I was looking for a change. Then I was visiting my mom, who was a beautician at a nursing home. Actually, when I was up home, the administrator and me got to talking while I was visiting and she asked me if I ever thought about doing an AIT. I said I don't even know what an AIT is. It stands for Administ, administrator in training and I so ended up doing my AIT with her at that facility and just fell in love with it and just, you know, got with Foundations, health Solutions and just absolutely love it, just wouldn't want to work for anybody else and wouldn't want to do anything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But and as I was with the company, I was administrator and then was able to turn around a building pretty quickly we building we had we only had two buildings at the time. It was in both in Columbus and the building was like 48 out of 100 occupancy and it was a pretty bad reputation facilities and so we got in there and hired a team of people that really wanted to do something great and ended up in a year it was completely full and the building we still have the building today and it stays full all the time.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing. I didn't know that you were a youth pastor.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love people that engage in encouraging, I guess, careers or encouraging jobs, where they're put in a position to help lead and engage with others. When you were a youth pastor, what about? Like culture and environment and people, did you take away the most that really has helped you now?
Speaker 2:That's actually a really good question. I've never been asked it's. It's, I guess, to me this is kind of a ministry to that. There's a lot of similarities between the teenagers and the elderly. Uh, um, they're just, they're a lot of uh, a lot of fun to be around and uh, I think the culture piece with uh, with uh youth pastor was, you know, you just always wanted to create an environment where people, uh, teenagers, wanted to come to church. You know what I mean. And it had fun and and and experienced something uh, uh, life-changing and uh, not the typical, just church stuff. So, uh, even the first place I was at I mean actually each place I went to we started basketball leagues with the community kids and and, uh, uh, they. We ended up growing the youth group pretty big, just having fun and having a good time and then, when it, you know, when it got time to get down and serious, you develop that relationship with the teenagers and presenting the gospel to them was pretty easy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk to me about your role now, like, as I understand, you're the vice president of is it just culture, specifically, or do you like manage operations? What's that like now?
Speaker 2:Well, that's yeah, so it's titles vice president of culture, but I am in operations. But it's with culture. We found if you, if you get the culture right at a building, everything else takes care of itself. The revenue is great, the residents are happy, the staff love it, they love coming to work, they don't call off and so creating that environment, it just helps everything. And we've done that for quite a while now, but we weren't calling it culture back then. But about when I was promoted to vice president, Brian said well, our owner said what would your, what's your title to be? And I said, well, what about vice president of culture? Because I said I've been reading a lot of stuff Simon Sinek's things and Tony Hsieh with Zappos, just a lot of culture and culture, culture. And really, really resonated with me and once I heard about that as, like you know, that's, that's what we're doing, we're just we're calling it culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would you guys call it then back in the day? Would you just call like environment, general feelings, what was it? What did you? How did you approach it back then?
Speaker 2:Well, that's the thing. We didn't really know what it was, but we just knew. You know, we, we treated our employees with respect, we we. You know, thank you doesn't cost you anything. So I mean just thanking people and then you would see their eyes light up and it was like hey, nobody has ever said that.
Speaker 2:Or we always encourage our administrators to not be in their office, to be out on the floor, and you hear this uh term of management by walking around. I don't, I don't really like that, because a lot of times administrators walk around but they just look for things to point out and say you should have done this, you should have done that, that shouldn't be this way or that way. And more. We, more want to management by helping your employees, or management by doing, you know, get out there and help pass the trays, help the staff If they're short in housekeeping you know, I can run a floor sweeper too Just doing those little extra things that show the staff you appreciate and respect them. We weren't calling it anything, I guess, just I guess leadership by example. But so we've purposely limit the number of meetings we have each day, because too many times, you know, you sit in a conference room. You have meetings all the time.
Speaker 2:I remember one of my first, like my second or third building I was at, I came into morning meeting and everybody brought all this food and all this stuff and they were going to make a, you know, a couple hour meeting out of this and it was. It was what we call standup meeting. I said it's called standup meeting for a reason. You know you get in there, you're supposed to stand and make it short and get out there and back to work. So I said I don't want you to bring in all this food and stuff anymore and that you know it was a little. They were a little surprised, but I think they quickly got the point that guys were here for the residents and we're here for the staff and leadership needs to set the example.
Speaker 2:Always hated when I was at a facility and state was there and everybody was out on the floor helping and doing all this stuff. Well, you should be doing that every day, don't just do it when state's in. And I was at a building one time and one of the residents was an admissions lady come out, was helping to pass trays and stuff because State was in the building and the resident. The surveyor was right there and the resident said well, who the hell is she? Because they don't even know. You know, because she never does that. But so, anyhow, I think you do it every day and lead by example, and so you know, we come to realize, you know, that's our culture, it's what we call it, a culture of care.
Speaker 1:So yeah, when you go and work with the facility or maybe work with the team of administrators, when you see them doing you know something. When you see them doing X, like what is the one big thing you see them doing, that you guys focus on that. You tend to change immediately what's that big thing for you?
Speaker 2:At a building where we just acquired it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you just acquired it, you're coming in, you're assessing it, you're realizing that this is the most common problem that we need to address immediately. What tends to be, what's the pattern there?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you a perfect example. We're taking over a facility October 1st and so we've been having meetings. That's why, here a little while, I got to go back to the facility because they're allowing us to have access ahead of October 1st so we can come in and meet with the employees, meet with the residents, meet with the families and things and kind of let them know a little bit about us. But one of the things that we noticed right away is you know how does the building feel when you walk in? Do you feel warm? I mean, do you do people welcoming and how does the building look? Is it clean? Are they just there for the paycheck or are they? They love what they're doing? And you know some people.
Speaker 2:It's like the building right now, everybody's just super nice. But you get the feeling too, like you know there's managers there that just they don't have that passion there. They see their job. As you know, I'm doing payroll or I'm doing this and that and not being out on the floor. And I think everybody can be out on the floor helping and doing things or just encouraging the employees and things. So I think that's one of the things. It starts with the administrator. If we get the administrator hire right at a building, everything else is super easy because the administrator leads it and they have to feel the way we do about it, and so we try to hire people that have the same core values that we have as a company, and when we do that, it's it's, it's exciting.
Speaker 1:Wow, does that mean you guys kind of clean house when it comes to administrators, or do you like focus on the ones that are already there?
Speaker 2:If well, we have to assess it right up front. Usually it depends on the situation, like the one we're going into now. The building's got a great reputation. It just needs it was a hospital that was running it. We bought a facility probably 15 years ago that the hospital ran to, and the hospital does really good at running a hospital. They're not as good at running a nursing home because it's just a different skill set and so they realized that and out of 400 people that expressed interest in this facility, they narrowed it down to 70. And then they narrowed it down to four, and then they chose us, and so I felt really good about that. And they narrowed it down to 70, and then they narrowed it down to four, and then they chose us, and so I felt really good about that and they said the reason they chose us was because of our emphasis on culture.
Speaker 2:So there's things there that we have to tweak. The administrator's great so, and she actually worked for us in the past, so we already knew her. But if it's a turnaround facility that the census is really down, the reputation's bad, then we usually it just depends. Sometimes the administrator just wasn't given the authority to even run it If it was an owner that just really made all the decisions, if it was a small facility and not a chain or or so this the situations are a lot of times different, but I would say probably 75% of the time we keep the administrator. It just depends.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, you guys try and do what's best for the facility, for the residents. You know, assisting someone and getting retrained or uh, like getting them a refresher course on their responsibilities or cleaning house, like it's really what's best for the residents. I mean I wouldn't want a hospital led team helping me if I were a senior. You know, I don't want someone who was a professional. So if there was a change in personnel, I mean I wouldn't. I don't think I'd bat a night, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the other thing too is that we found us having actually we've got three under construction.
Speaker 2:Now we just purchased three. We're rapidly approaching 70 facilities and we've got a great infrastructure and support team. Infrastructure and support team and we've realized some of these buildings, like we've got a great MDS consulting team that's ours that goes in and assists with the MDS. We've got an incredible clinical team that goes in and supports the director of nursing and the clinical care. We've got great regionals throughout the state that go in and help support the administrator throughout the state that go in and help support the administrator, and so we've got a lot of resources that some of these facilities that we've bought they didn't have that kind of support and it's as much as you want or as little as you want, I mean, but as long as you know, once they're ready to go, we just kind of stay out of their way and let them do their thing because they're passionate about it. We've got probably across the board as a company, our occupancy, I think we're at 94, a little over 94% occupancy, wow.
Speaker 1:That's an incredible statistic, that's an amazing number Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What is it about? What is it about the culture that makes these facilities shine, that keep the that number so high? Like, is there a, you know? Is there a Goldilocks? Um, I guess three things that kind of they all do or have in common you guys institute in these buildings to make them so welcoming and so inviting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I honestly I go back to the culture piece and I'll tell you a little bit about I mean, of the we have, of all of our buildings. We have zero agency in any of them, I mean, and with how hard it is to get nurses and aides, I mean I'm just super proud of that and I think that speaks to the situation we're in. The situation we're in the building we just purchased, they've got a lot of nursing agency and the quality of care goes down because the agency just comes in and they're just passing pills and doing their job and going home. They don't know the residents. And so I think, with that, when you've got the right leadership, the administrator at the building, and then they respect and treat their staff well, the staff treat the residents well.
Speaker 2:We, probably eight years ago, we pulled a team of administrators together and said why do we do what we're doing? And we said let's talk about core values. And we came up with the mission statement, where we want to go, and we talked about culture of care and we just that's what we want to be known for. How are we going to get there? And then we came up with the core values and we wrote them out and voted on them, and so our core values. I think a lot of them exemplify what we believe and what we hold, you know, to be strong. And then we try to ask questions in the interview for the administrator that can help us see do they have the same core values as we have, and would it be a good fit?
Speaker 2:I went as I started moving up in the company, I got further and further from the facility and I missed being around the staff and being around the residents and so I went back to training to become a nursing assistant and I got my nursing assistant license for Ohio and so I was going to the facilities. I was originally doing it two times a week but it got too much. But I got my love back for why I got into this business to begin with, spending time with the residents and spending time with the staff and met some of the most incredible nursing assistants I've ever met in my life. One of the buildings. I worked with Mary Francis at McNaughton here in Columbus and she told me after we were done working. She said both of my kids are nurses and I said, well, do you never wanted to be a nurse? And she says no.
Speaker 2:She said I love the hands-on with the residents and I said I never wanted to be a nurse. She said I tell you what I do, though when I leave the facility I drive home and I ask myself in the car did I do the very best today that I could have done for my residents? And she said if I ever say to answer that question, no, I didn't. She said I could turn around, come back to the facility and make it right. And she says I've turned around a couple of times. So I, that's the kind of people that we have the privilege of employing and being on our team, and I think if we can highlight those incredible people and it just, it just makes, I think, everybody a little bit more proud.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really insightful. I think the big thing I learned from that is understanding your why really places you in a position to, I guess, radiate goodness. I know my why as to why I do this podcast and why I work in a senior care company and when I go in, I used to be a caretaker for this company and then they asked me to work in the office. When I go in, I used to be a caretaker for this company and then they asked me to work in the office. But I'd go to work every day just thinking like OK, I'm going to visit my grandma, I love my grandma, and like why wouldn't I talk to my client? I hate that word because it feels like they're more than that to me, but just the best way to describe them is a client.
Speaker 1:And why would I treat my client any different than my grandmother Like? Why would I talk to them any different? Why wouldn't I express my my ups and my downs with them any different? Like they, they love to hear from me. As much as I heard from them, and it was really easy to to. I'd always go into their house with just such positive energy. I could feel it on myself, I could feel it in the home, even if they were down, like I knew that I was going to be a source of positivity for them.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting that you focused so much on the why in developing a good culture in a facility. And I think personally in my experience, when people understand their why, what they're given to do or their tasks don't seem like work, it's more of a pleasure and being around those types of individuals is very fun and very exciting. And you also feel like, oh, this is a great place to work because this person I know X, y and Z person on my team who's just as involved as I am, and they love doing what they do and I love being around people that do what they do and love doing it.
Speaker 2:Oh, and it becomes contagious. I think if you've got a few people in the building, cultural catalysts or whatever, it just becomes contagious. Cultural catalysts or whatever, it just becomes contagious. And you know, even housekeepers don't get so focused on the tasks that you have to do. We obviously need to clean the rooms and do that, but be there present with the resident and they do. They have conversations. They know about the residents, know about their kids and about how they're doing in school, and it just becomes a family. And if you're, if you're there just to perform a task, there's, there's so much more to it and so much more fulfillment out of it when you realize that it's not just about what you're doing but why you're doing it on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's an excellent place to kind of leave off. If the understanding why you're doing something really makes culture pop or shine, I think that's a great place to kind of leave off Everybody. This has been the Senior Care Academy a bit condensed today, but I hope you enjoyed today's episode on culture. I hope you find your reason why today Everybody's been Robert Spielman. Thank you so much for having, for being on the show today. Robert Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I absolutely enjoyed it. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.