"Investing in People"

Recently, I led a tour of one of our care homes. I don’t usually do tours, but the person who normally handles them was out of town.

The tour was with the spouse of a potential resident and his advocate from a local placement agency. The advocate said, “You guys are expensive. How do you explain that?”

My answer: “We are expensive because we invest more in our people.”

I can say this because, with my background in finance, I know that the industry average for staff pay is 33 cents on the dollar — for every dollar a resident pays in rent, staff gets about 33 cents. Our number is almost twice that — 63 cents out of every dollar.

That’s a number that’s indisputable. We’re not just giving lip service to the idea of treating our people well. We’re spending twice the amount of money on personnel. That’s just a fundamental difference that sets us apart. Attracting good people is not just about pay, but this shows that we put our money where our mouth is.

Our company’s mantra is, “We make lives better.” We make the lives better for our clients and their families, as well as our caregivers. We believe that, if we take good care of our caregivers, that enables them to take good care of our clients.