CindyHeilman
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Feb 22, 2010, 8:36 AM
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The Secret to Success with Best Dining Practices
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By Cindy Heilman - CEO of Higher Standards
The first symposium on Dining and Culture Change presented by CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid) and the Pioneer Network, (www.pioneernetwork.org), a national coalition for culture change, was scheduled and then cancelled due to the February snowstorm in Baltimore. In spite of the cold weather sweeping the country, the phrase “culture change in dining” has become a hot topic lately. The symposium signaled a focus on the measurable connection between dining satisfaction of residents and their quality of life while living in a senior care community (IL, AL, CCRC, skilled, etc.). Staying on the cutting edge of culture change in dining is important. And tackling the improvements you want to make in dining service levels is easier than you might think.
In previous newsletters, I asked if your dining environment needed a service makeover and shared the dining fundamentals necessary to enjoy a winning dining environment. Next I want to introduce action items to start the process of service improvement.
Through my graduate research, which included focus group meetings with residents, three service themes emerged. Residents expect servers to exhibit:
. courtesy and a positive attitude at mealtime
. good social skills
. proper serving techniques
In order to deliver on these service expectations and prepare for your next generation of clients, I suggest communities incorporate five best practices to guide them toward a shift in service focus. This shift will generate an ethic of community for both residents and staff, which I am convinced, is the secret to happy residents, confident servers, and operational financial gain…the secret to success!
Intentional Focus on Community: Five Best Practices
In my Kind Dining® Training curriculum, I present this definition of community, “Community” = Belonging to the Group. It is essential your servers understand their roles as part of a community while serving meals.
Here is the first of five best practices to implement. I will present the remaining four in future articles. These five don’t need to be implemented in a particular order as each community may be at a different starting point. The goal is that you plan with an intentional focus to improve the dining service culture within your community.
Number one ... Customer service protocols (or standards) for the dining environment are in place and management emphasizes the importance of following them.
Dust off your training manual for dietary, or your policies and procedure manual for foodservices. Better yet, grab your company’s orientation manual for new hires. Peruse through the pages to the tab for Meal Service and see what protocols are listed. Did you find any detail about the processes or service elements of delivering a meal? Not there? Often times this detail is either absent altogether, covered inadequately, or is left to be guided by “federal or state regulations.”
Our goal in this exercise is to make sure you have the tools and are properly educating your dining servers in each of the service protocols, policies, or standards that your company values when it comes to how servers approach, interact with, or serve a resident or dining quest.
How your company prefers a staff member to approach a resident as a customer or community member might be routinely covered for your housekeepers, or nursing staff, but it is seldom written specifically for the dining environment. How to introduce oneself might be explained or read during the hiring orientation for full-time staff, however part-time serving staff never see this detail. Most part-time dining staff is expected to learn company values by osmosis from watching and observing other servers. Consequently they seldom feel connected to their work.
For CNA servers in particular, there has been a major disconnect about the value of serving a meal. Many CNAs feel it is beneath them to function as a “waitress.” As a result, they often exude an attitude of indifference while serving meals. While this is not with the intention to harm residents, the negative message an attitude of indifference sends at mealtime is destructive to “the common good” for the community.
Let’s look at a few examples of what I call Service Statements around Using Names, Building Community, and Positive Attitudes that set dining standards and, when performed, communicate company values.
Use Names
We call each resident by his/her preferred name at least once during the meal. We do not address residents using generic labels (you guys, honey, grandma).
We wear our name tags at all times so that residents are able to call us by name.
Build Community
We introduce tablemates to one another by sharing their names and something interesting about them.
We utilize all staff available to help serve during mealtimes (to support the common goal of making each meal a special opportunity to engage residents socially)
Show Positive Attitude
We smile and make eye contact with residents throughout our meal service in order to demonstrate pleasure in serving them well and our desire to relate to them as individuals.
Residents are graciously greeted upon entry to dining area, welcomed, and guided to a chair or table.
The above serving protocols guide servers to the specific actions they must accomplish to satisfy both the company’s needs of offering better service and residents’ needs of receiving attention and care that make them feel valued and special at mealtime. We are also teaching new knowledge and skills to servers that, when applied correctly, show they are valued by the company.
I recommend building service statements around several service elements that are critical to exceeding service expectations for senior diners; i.e., Communication, Flow of the Meal, Reading the Table, Giving Guidance, and Accommodation of Choice. Start by creating one service statement under each category. Be sure to incorporate the standard you want to maintain, based on input from your residents and servers. If you begin implementing the above examples, please let me know the reaction you receive.
Till next time…Kind Regards
Cindy Heilman, MS, DTR, is the CEO of Higher Standards, an Oregon-based hospitality company. Born from her vision to transform residential meal priorities and dining for senior residents, Cindy has created her experiential training program Kind Dining ®.
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(This post was edited by CindyHeilman on Feb 22, 2010, 9:02 AM)
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