It’s all about money for the company and it reflects top down.
General Managers are mainly trained on marketing tools and finances. They receive no support on employee management such as conflict resolution and general HR processes. This results in unsafe and illegal HR practices such as firing employees without documentation and favoring employees for promotion without merit.
Marketing Directors, although generally well-meaning, oversell and don’t set clear expectations with line staff. For instance, they provide a 1-week notice to the kitchen staff on a catering event which doesn’t provide ample time for the Culinary Services Director to properly staff. Another example is adding on additional care points such as extra physical check ins for fall risk residents but with high turnover and lack of staffing, this is not feasibly possible. The result of this is overworked and under appreciated staff.
No one in a leadership position is set up for success because there is no training in place. They are given the job responsibilities and shown the day-to-day responsibilities but no one knows how to look at the overall picture of providing well-rounded care for a resident. No one understands that if you’re hoping to provide the best possible care, then you should look at doing the same for all the employees. Instead, there is added pressure from the corporate office to deliver results without additional resources. For instance, general managers need to manage census but don’t know how to manage their managers to then be able to manage the line staff who are actually responsible for the care of the resident. With the disconnect apparent, residents leave because of the inconsistency in care (housekeeping, care, nursing and/or kitchen). The result of this is either micromanagement or lack of management.
Finally, the corporate HR team is overwhelmingly understaffed. There are Business Office Managers in each community but they are also not taught about employee management. When line staff have a problem, they’re asked to reach out to their GM or escalated to the corresponding VP or CPO. There is no separate HR representative to handle employee conflicts impartially and confidentially. Another example is that with high turnover in the HR department, employees are asked to take on additional responsibilities with no pay increases and then the executive teams become frustrated when processes are not properly or efficiently implemented.
