At Seniorsfirst, Our People make the Difference!

There is a proven relationship between the level of job satisfaction by the staff and the level of quality outcomes by the organization. In the senior services field, quality care and service cannot be provided without satisfied employees.

Therefore, as CEO, it is important to me that I ensure and foster an organization that has a high level of staff satisfaction. My philosophy is that if I can keep our family of staff happy and joyful in their work, than Seniorsfirst will always be a happy and joyful place for our residents and clients. Sounds simple enough, but it is a challenge and something we must work at every day!

To monitor our success in this endeavor, we routinely hire an outside, independent consultant to confidentially coordinate, compile and report on an employee satisfaction survey process and its results. We want to know how are employees are doing and how they rate their employment experience at Seniorsfirst.

We recently completed the 2009 Employee Opinion Survey and I'm pleased to say that the results continue to be outstanding. We will be sharing the results with staff at special employee meetings, but all my blog readers can get an advanced peek at the summary results.

At Valley Manor, with 66% of the staff responding:

• 80% are satisfied overall with the organization's leadership
• 88% are satisfied overall with the direct supervision they receive
• 68% are satisfied that they receive a fair wage for the work they do
• 81% are satisfied overall with their benefits package
• 95% are satisfied overall with the work environment & safety conditions
• 82% are satisfied with the communication within the organization
• 95% would recommend Valley Manor as a good place to work
• 91% would recommend Valley Manor to family and friends for service
• 90% are satisfied overall with the job environment
• 86% believe the survey results will be used to make Valley Manor better

These scores far exceed industry standards (our consultant tells us) and have been attained and sustained for the past several years.

At Kirkhaven, with just under 50% of the staff responding:

• 68% are satisfied overall with the organization's leadership (65%)
• 79% are satisfied overall with the direct supervision they receive (69%)
• 57% are satisfied that they receive a fair wage for the work they do (54%)
• 80% are satisfied overall with their benefits package (67%)
• 88% are satisfied overall with the environment & safety conditions (70%)
• 66% are satisfied with communication within the organization (60%)
• 85% would recommend Kirkhaven as a good place to work (73%)
• 82% would recommend Kirkhaven to family and friends for services (71%)
• 86% are satisfied overall with the job environment (69%)
• 80% believe the survey results will be used to make Kirkhaven better

These results represent even greater improvement from the previous year and in all cases are higher than what the national averages are within the nursing home field (shown in parenthesis).

As senior service facilities continually work to develop a comprehensive approach to quality outcomes, assessing employee satisfaction is essential. Providers that monitor and foster staff satisfaction and commitment to their work, position themselves for better success in retaining the best employees and the best quality of service.

I am both thankful and proud of our employee satisfaction results and pledge to continue to support staff in as many ways as we possibly can to ensure continued and improved results. For we all know that, at Seniorsfirst, Our People make the Difference!