November 5, 2025 • 56 mins
Summary
In this episode, Jerry Vinci and Chris Heinz discuss the critical issues facing the senior living industry, particularly the leadership crisis and the need for effective recruitment strategies. They explore the shifts in leadership demand, the importance of succession planning, and the risks associated with reactive hiring practices. Chris shares insights on common mistakes in the hiring process, the value of outside hires, and the role of culture carriers in shaping organizational culture. They also touch on compensation structures, engaging college graduates, and personal stories that highlight the lessons learned in leadership and perseverance.
Learn More:
Connect with Chris Heinz on LinkedIn
Learn more about Westport One
Takeaways
Leadership gaps are a pressing issue in senior living.
The responsibilities of leaders have evolved significantly.
Succession planning is often overlooked in senior living organizations.\
Reactive hiring can lead to cultural deterioration.
Speed is crucial in the hiring process to attract top talent.
Too many interviews can deter strong candidates.
Effective communication is key in recruitment processes.
Outside hires can introduce valuable new perspectives.
Engaging college graduates can help fill future leadership gaps.
Success in leadership often happens behind the scenes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
A staff that really resonates with me is one that revolves
around your living. But 60% of healthcare
organizations lack a succession plan.
And it's not necessarily their fault because there's a couple
factors that come into play. 1 is you have to have the
firefighter mentality. How am I going to put out this
fire? Meaning someone resigned.
I got to put this fire up by getting somebody in the role.
(00:22):
They don't have a builder mentality.
How do we build a bench to be prepared for the next potential
resignation? What?
If senior living's biggest leak isn't in care, it's in
leadership. Today you'll hear why the
pipeline is cracking and what wemust do right now to fix it.
(00:43):
Welcome to From Leads to Leases,ACCR Growth podcast that helps
senior living providers transform their complex
challenges into opportunities. Listen in for stories from
industry leaders, innovative strategies and insights, and
with our expertise, learn how toincrease occupancy faster,
Guaranteed. Welcome back to another episode
(01:04):
of From Lease to Lease is the podcast that dives deep into the
senior living and senior care industries, bringing you
insights, strategies, and stories from the experts at the
forefront of innovation, leadership and care.
I'm your host, Jerry Vinci, CEO,CCR Growth.
For those of you who don't know about us, CCR Growth is a full
service marketing and growth agency exclusive to the senior
living industry. And through this podcast, I'm
(01:25):
here to help guide you through the evolving landscape of senior
care, exploring the innovation, strategies and leadership
insights that are shaping the future of the industry.
So whether you're a provider, a caregiver, or industry leader,
this show is here to help you make informed decisions and
create meaningful impact. So today's guest is Chris Hines,
president and managing director of Westport One.
(01:46):
With nearly 30 years placing senior living leaders from
independent living to memory care.
He's been featured on podcast like Bridge the Gap and Grow
Your Occupancy and many others. He's an endurance athlete who's
completed over 200 races, that's200 more than me and raised more
than 35,000 for charity. Chris brings grit and purpose to
(02:08):
recruiting at all levels. So welcome to the show, Chris.
Hey, Jerry, thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, absolutely. This is such a a vital
conversation. I think right now leadership and
what we're seeing in terms of growth in the senior living
industry is expanding and contracting at the same time in
all areas. So I think, I think recruiting
and it's such a big part of this.
(02:28):
So I wanted to just start off bytalking about the concept of the
pipeline is already cracking. And you know, I, I looked up
some relevant data and I said 11,000 Americans turn 65
everyday. The 80 plus population will
double by 2040. And Nick reports that leadership
turnover across the continuum remains above 25% annually.
(02:50):
So obviously, leadership gaps are no longer theoretical.
They're active senior livings facing rapid demand and aging
leadership without a clear pipeline for continuity.
So what shifts have you seen in leadership demand over the last
decade? Yeah, for all the shifts, a lot
of things have stayed the same are the things that have stayed
the same at a community leadership level.
(03:11):
It's pretty much the big seven that hasn't shifted in 10 years.
Now independent living as obviously at a new wrinkles
active adult have has their own wrinkles, But for the most part
the community leadership numbersand quantity have stayed the
same. But what has changed has been
the responsibilities of those leaders.
Even five years ago pre COVID, Ikind of look at things before
(03:35):
COVID and after COVID, pre COVIDBC the executive director as an
example, they needed a great operator.
They need someone who is great with the residents.
Well, now they need that and they need incredible knowledge
of financials. They need someone who has
operational excellence, not justsomebody with the people, but
(03:56):
everything. So in essence, they really need
a mini CEO at the community. And in fact, some organizations
have shifted to calling their executive director CEO of fill
in the blank community because it really resonates with what
their role actually is. Little deceptive when it comes
to a resume, but actual to what the role is.
(04:18):
So that's one thing that we've seen.
Another is that many of these leaders beyond just the director
of nursing and the various titles within all of the leaders
need to have a better understanding of acuity because
the leaders are asked to run an organization that has more than
just one set of residents. Many of the organizations are
(04:42):
ALE memory Care IL, they may have a bridges community.
So they have to understand both the clinical and the acuity
understanding as well as having hospitality finesse.
That's really shifted over the years.
And then the final thing, and Jerry is kind of funny because I
literally had a conversation about this yesterday, is the
(05:03):
current modern leader has to be tech savvy.
And I know that seems logical, but the aging of the senior
leaders within senior living, there is still a large gap
between those that are tech savvy and those that are not.
Again, pre COVID. Post COVID.
(05:25):
Pre COVID very few meetings weredone via video.
It'd be the rare organization that did it that way.
During COVID, all organizations went to video leadership
meetings. Post COVID, almost all of them
do continue to do it. So something as simple as how
the heck to get on a team's call, you can't call your BOD or
the the recent college grad to come in and show you every
(05:48):
single time. The spreadsheets are so
prevalent with the investment teams and kind of like going
back to that mini CEO, you're dealing directly with investors
many times, not just with your own corporate staff.
They expect things to be done a certain way so that technologies
really turn into a go, no go, and that's really shifted over
(06:10):
the last 10 years. I know one of the things we
often see too, it's unfortunate that when an executive director
or someone else high up on the team leaves, they tend to take
people with them and it creates a lot of chaos and communities
often don't plan for that. There's really no succession
planning. They don't have contingencies,
contingencies in place. Why do you think that is in this
(06:31):
field? Well, a staff that really
resonates with me is one that revolves around the whole
healthcare industry, which obviously senior living as a big
part of. But 60% of healthcare
organizations lack a succession plan.
And it's not necessarily their fault because there's a couple
factors that come into play. 1 is you have to have the
firefighter mentality. How am I going to put out this
(06:52):
fire? Meaning someone resigned.
I got to put this fire up by getting somebody in the role.
They don't have a builder mentality.
How do we build a bench to be prepared for the next potential
resignation? But the real challenge is this
isn't like many organizations because a see, typical senior
living organization does not have their entire footprint in
(07:14):
one geographical space. They may have started that way
that they're going to be the predominant leader in the
Southeast or the Northwest or pick the region.
But then an investment team thatthey work with has a couple
communities in Texas and they'vealways been in Georgia and it's
kind of hard to say no to money.So now they add that extra
(07:35):
footprint. So while they may have a great
succession plan preparation in place in one geography, if the
leader in Texas using this as the example resigns the one you
had on the bench ready to go in Georgia, very rarely he's going
to want to move. So it is a really, it's a real
challenge to have it in multiplemarkets, senior living
(07:58):
organizations, the good ones, they've tried to create a
succession plan, I'll call it more of an Academy like setting,
but that only works within the geography where those leaders
that have been built up is. So it is very challenging to
have one everywhere that they are.
What are the downstream risks ofconstant reactive hiring?
(08:21):
From my vantage point, the biggest risk is a culture debt.
And what I mean by that is the culture is not created from
court. It's not it's not driven by by
corporate. They may create it.
They may put the words on paper,they may talk the words to the
people, They may hand out a wonderful glossy page to be hung
(08:42):
in the community. But the culture is driven
community by community. So when we're talking about the
risks of rehiring, that's a deterioration of culture with
every new person that's brought on board because they weren't
there for the grand kick off of the culture session.
(09:03):
They have to have it instilled by the leaders that are there.
So when you have let's say typical example is 1 community
had three E DS in the last five years and unfortunately Jerry
that might be conservative. Well, the first six months of
the new Ed is literally just rebuilding the trust of the rest
(09:25):
of the team. So that had becomes a real
challenge. And I have had real
conversations with clients aboutthe cost of a bad hire.
It's not just about the the job posting they put out there on
Indeed or LinkedIn or whether they pay a fee to a recruiter
like us. It's the lost productivity.
(09:46):
It's the damage to the reputation when a resident goes
on Google reviews or on Yelp reviews and puts a comment out
there that this is just a revolving door of staff that
hurts you more than anyone good future hire can build.
We see it in real time. We often get the call, usually
(10:08):
two or three weeks after somebody's resigned because
they're going to try to fill it on their own, and then they get
us on board to help them find the right talent.
And it's not an overnight success.
We don't have a magic keyboard to type in a couple keywords and
out pops the perfect candidate. We have to go and do real
recruiting to find people who are really good at what they do
(10:29):
but are in a level of pain or less challenged or bored or
don't have the support to identify them, qualify them,
bring them into an interviewing mix.
So it could be a couple of months from when that person
resigns to when the new person comes on board.
So that down Rd. Spiral of lost talent is just
(10:51):
tremendous to deteriorating the culture build of that
organization and it's not fixed overnight.
One day to point I found that's pretty painful is for mid size
operators. So turnover costs total on
average 1 to 2 million annually,yeah.
Yeah, we, we've run analysis of our own and, and unfortunately
(11:12):
not that many organizations, whether it's senior living or
not, believe what a recruiter says in the cost because they
think it's a sales line. But I've been doing this for 28
years now, literally my 20th anniversary was this month.
So I'm looking at these numbers from real hard facts of my time,
and it could be anywhere from five to seven times the annual
salary of the individual. That's staggering.
(11:35):
And that's just on higher. Put that into the typical,
again, that big seven of community leadership.
If you have two or three of those turn over the course of
the year, now you're you're blowing your $1,000,000 number
out the window. I think one of the big
challenges too is the communities are unknowingly
sabotaging their own recruiting with a slower hiring process
(11:57):
than is necessary. Or, you know, slow follow-ups or
disorganized decision making. What are some of the biggest
mistakes providers make in the hiring process?
Well, unfortunately, we could spend 6 conversations over the
next 19 hours and I still wouldn't be done.
So I'll just talk about a coupleof the big ones.
(12:17):
I wish it weren't the truth, butit is.
The biggest is lack of speed. If a company's looking to fill a
role with a body, somebody that fills the seat, then speed's not
as important. If they truly need a top level
talent, someone that's going to be a difference maker, that's
going to be a culture shifter, speed kills because a good
(12:41):
candidate, whether they are found on Indeed, on LinkedIn
jobs, through in an internal referral or through a recruiter
like me, a good candidate statistically has two to four
opportunities that they're considering at any given time.
Now, if we're in a, we're in a downturn in the market from a
single living standpoint, that downturn is different than a
downturn in the traditional economy because they have to
(13:04):
have those roles filled. It's not like they can go, oh,
well, we don't need an Ed in this building.
We're going to have John 2 states away handle this building
as well. It doesn't work that way.
So the market is only getting tighter.
So when they have a lackadaisical process or even
worse is I'm too busy to interview this week, this week
(13:28):
turns into next week. And now that three-step process
has gone on, gone on over 4 weeks almost time and time
again, they are going to lose that top talent.
They're going to find a body, but they are not going to find
that difference maker. That's only one issue.
Another issue is too many interviews.
(13:49):
It's good to have the critical decision makers be involved in
the interview process, but when I challenge a whether it's a
VPSVP or the president of an organization and ask them
through all of the processes you've done, what's your average
tenure? Fill in the blank of the role.
(14:10):
And if they give me a true honest answer, them getting
everybody and their brother involved in the interview
process did not make a difference in the longevity of
their staff. So when they fall down that
rabbit hole of continuing down what's always, what they've
always done does not mean it's always worked.
(14:31):
So we had a fantastic candidate last month, true a player top
10% or forget 20% or a top 10% or a true difference maker.
After three interviews, the company said, well, we wanted to
talk to a couple more people. I'll get back to you on Monday,
this year on Friday. I'll get back to you on Monday
and see when we can make that happen.
(14:52):
Sometime this week we let the candidate know.
The candidate goes, no, I'm not waiting anymore.
If they can't get their act together right and tell me how
many steps are going to be evolved upfront, what are they
going to be like when I'm on thejob?
I don't need that indecisiveness.
By Monday, they let us know theyaccept another offer.
So literally too many interviewsor changing of course, can
(15:13):
really alter that. Another element is ghosting and
ghosting happens in a myriad of ways.
It could happen in the simplest way of let's just remove us from
the equation. They post a job, a candidate
applies. That candidate who applies is 1
of 277 candidates who've appliedand others 200 and 77240 of them
(15:38):
are qualified for the job. But they clicked apply.
Or they use one of the multiple AI features out there that auto
apply for them. So now, through no fault of the
internal Tally acquisitions teamcapabilities, they're screening
through all those resumes and bythe time they find those 20 or
30 that are even worth looking at to find the one or two that
(15:59):
are worth actually sending a a we're interested e-mail, 4-5
days have gone by. By that time again, top talent
is already involved in one or two of the processes utilizing
the recruiter. When we recruit somebody for a
company, 9 out of 10 times they are truly a passive candidate.
(16:19):
They were not on the job boards looking for a job.
We proactively called, emailed in mail, texted, whatever mode
we use to engage in a conversation with them and learn
about them, about what they're doing well, what they wish would
change, what they've tried to change but couldn't get changed,
and what level pain are they in That may be a new opportunity to
(16:41):
solve. So it's truly a passive
candidate. We recruit them, we gain all
their information. Many times we have them complete
an assessment and that candidatesubmitted and no matter what was
told up front of their cooperation to have quick
feedback. And I'm not unrealist.
I don't need feedback an hour after I sent a resume.
I know they have a job to do. But 24 hours, 36 hours is
(17:04):
completely reasonable. Three and four days have gone by
from a candidate just submitted.Follow that down the trail that
they've gone through the interview and they've done the
theoretical final interview, andnow three or four days have gone
by before they've made a decision.
How exciting would you be if that were you?
They tell you how excited they are about you, but they don't
(17:26):
show it right. So that ghosting can really slow
down a process. The final thing is a lack of
internal alignment. And what I mean by that is
different leaders are looking for different things.
Yes, they all need the title. They all need the executive
(17:46):
director of the Don, the director of sales.
You choose the the community leader or the regional or VP.
All the leaders above them, theyall know they need the title.
But when they interview, they godown different paths. 1 focuses
all their energy on occupancy. The next focuses all their
energy on on a staffing issues. Another focus is all their
(18:11):
issues on clinical deficiencies.Again, put yourself in the shoes
if that were you, you were the candidate and you asked what the
greatest challenge was and you now have gotten 3.
Do you want that job? When even the leaders can't be
concise in their in their alignment of what they're
actually looking for. And it doesn't mean that all
(18:32):
three of those things aren't truly issues.
But when there's not a concertedfocus from the top, someone
who's really, I'll call him a taskmaster, but really a process
master that makes sure that everything is running quickly
and smoothly and that the focal points are all being covered.
Without that, that alignment canreally be thrown off a whack.
(18:54):
So that's really 3 or 4 just of the litany of things we could
cover that can slow down a process.
When you identify something likethat, how do you help your
clients rethink their process and and get them thinking
differently about recruitment? Yeah.
The first is to understand what their process is.
I mean, we don't need to change something if it's actually
(19:16):
working. So if they have a process that
is two or three interview steps,which is pretty typical and they
can get that done within a 8 to 10 day time frame, including
weekends on that because those are days of the week.
So we're talking two business weeks, that is a reasonable time
frame. So if we start getting feedback
(19:39):
on their process, it's going to take longer than that.
Or one of the typical lines we get is, hey Chris, we're going
to do everything we can to wait till we find the right person,
no matter how long that takes. Then it comes down to education.
It comes down to questioning of how important is this role, what
type of coverage do you have? If it's a, if it's an Ed role,
(20:04):
as an example, if they have an operation specialist who's just
coming off another community andthey could put them in that seat
for four to six weeks, OK, they can spend a little more time.
But if they have to pay for an op specialist to go in there,
that's not in that geography. Even if they're an internal
employee, they're still paying travel.
Because they're sending them home each week, they're still
(20:25):
paying it per diem and all that goes to cutting into costs
that's affecting the NOI. So we'll ask questions about
things like that. We'll under try to understand
the real importance of when thisrole really needs to be filled
by. And the answer cannot be
yesterday because that's not possible in our senior living
(20:47):
world. The typical notice is 30 days.
In almost every other industry, it's two weeks.
So we have double the time framefor a professional resignation.
That causes a challenge of itself.
So we try to work with them to map out a process, understanding
what they do and trying to figure out where can we possibly
(21:08):
combine a step. Where could somebody that needs
to be in the process? Theoretically, where could they
be added as a bridge between offer acceptance and start date
because of that same candidate has 30 day notice to give
themselves And the worst thing we want to have happen is a
vacuum of silence from when theyaccept the job to when they
(21:31):
start the job. So could the team members be
involved in a lunch get together?
Is it interim step between hire and start date?
So trying to figure out what canbe compressed to make that
process, whether it is 3 or 4, two or three or four steps to
(21:51):
figure out how is there no way that they cannot be done in
eight to 10 days. Then, as I just kind of alluded
to, of a process master, someonewho's really a champion of that
process. That might be talent
acquisition, but many times it'sthe RDO or the VPO for that
community where they are the ones that are like a better way
of saying it, herding caps. They can get everyone who's busy
(22:16):
to pick up the phone, pick up the e-mail, return the text to
schedule the interview, and theydon't take the busy card.
It's one thing for me to ask. It's another thing for that
leader that they report directlyto, to ask for those times.
So when we have that process master, that really leads to
success. But the biggest thing of all of
(22:37):
these possibilities is communication.
And communication is not the words.
I'm sorry, sorry. Are you busy?
Sorry I couldn't get you. Communication is, hey, I'm busy
right now. I'll get back to you in two
hours. Communication with the timeline.
That is the way that this moves forward.
(22:59):
And then every now and then, when maybe all of this is not
sinking in, we'll tell them a story of an unfortunate soul
that they lost the candidate that they really needed, whether
they lost him to a competitor inthe same geography or whether
they lost them all together. And then it took another four to
(23:19):
six weeks to find another person.
Because you'll be a very either tight market or very small
geography. Lot of senior living companies
are not in major metropolitan markets.
They're where the families are. So there may only be 10 or 12
people in that market and maybe only one or two of them are open
to making a move. So when they lose that week,
(23:42):
unfortunately can share a story of another unfortunate soul that
lost the person that they neededand the ramifications that that
had on that organization. And those stories usually
resonate pretty well to help them understand the critical
nature of all this. What about outside hires from
other industries? How do they fit in?
(24:03):
Yeah, outside hires can be really powerful additions to our
industry. The outside hire can come in and
bring in a brush breath of fresh, fresh air, a new culture
perspective, new creative ideas.But when you bring in someone
from the from an outside industry, you have to make sure
(24:24):
that you're setting them up the right way.
You have to make sure that you're interviewing the right
way too, because directors of sales is a perfect example.
Over COVID or during COVID, organizations that were so tight
on talent and geographies, they may look at the hospitality
sector that had such a a depression in hires and such a a
(24:46):
drop in rolls. Well, the wrong director of
sales for a hotel has different focus points than the right
director of sales from a hotel. And what I mean by that is some
are very hospitality driven, meaning they're willing and able
to give away what needs to be given away to make the customer
(25:09):
happy. Hey, we'll comp that room.
I'll get concierge to work to get to you those tickets to
solve that problem. Well, in single living, we don't
have comp tickets to give away. They can't comp a room for the
month because it's not just a one night stay, it's a perpetual
stay. So you have to make sure that
they understand the economic side of this, of the situation.
(25:30):
And if you could dig in deep andunderstand their why, if you
could understand what makes themtick, you could interlace
stories about seeing your livingin the real impact that we could
have on a non transient environment.
Hotel guests, they come and go one to five to seven nights.
(25:51):
They're out the door. Well, our residents are
hopefully there for a long time.Sometimes they leave, sometimes
there's unfortunate, unfortunatedeath.
But when they are there, the impact that they could have on
the lives can be greater mentally and emotionally and
(26:12):
that can really impact them. So if you bring in that outside
talent from outside seeing your living versus recycling through
the same batch of people that have been there over and over
again, it can do some really cool things for that
organization. I want to talk about culture a
little bit. I know culture isn't pushed from
the top. It's kind of lives and dies at
(26:33):
the community level. What a great culture carriers
look like on the ground. Yep.
And I'm, I'm a reiterate something I said earlier,
culture is not driven by the corporate team.
It it started by them, but it isdriven from the community,
employee by employee, community leader by community leader.
(26:55):
That is such a critical thing toremember when it comes to
driving culture. So as you call a culture
carrier, they can come in and they can shift an organization
in less than six weeks. There have been people in our
industry that have been burnt out and some of them left the
industry because of that burnout.
(27:18):
But guess what one of The Dirty little secrets is?
Some were burnt out but they didn't leave, so they're still
there. So they are still fighting the
the emotional and mental struggles that impacted them
over the last two to four years.So they may not be the breath of
fresh air. They're there, they're doing a
job, they're probably good at their job, but they are not
(27:41):
helping. They are not mentoring.
They are doing their job and nothing else.
So if you could find a true culture carrier and bring them
into the organization, they could impact that community.
One of the things that we'll do when I hear the stories about
culture being such a a critical factor, we have a search right
now where that is a a critical factor.
(28:04):
They have unfortunately gone through a couple of executive
directors and the team is kind of shell shocked.
So they know what's going to be important to bring somebody on
board that is going to empower the team and going to listen to
what the team needs versus just coming in and telling them what
they need to do and being like adictator or an elitist hear
(28:25):
those types of things. When we're taking an intake call
on a, on a specific opening, we will really focus on that when
we're having conversations with candidates and even when we're
down the the line in the interview process, when we're
doing reference checks, I'll find out and ask about things
beyond just the skill. And what I'm looking for is
(28:48):
traits from the supervisor that they worked for.
A line that I'll hear is if theyleft, their entire team would go
with them. Well, that's a culture driver.
Or a different example is when agood leader is not being
boastful, but they're being factual and they can show a
(29:09):
Google review or a Yelp review where they were named by name in
that review of what residents thought of their interactions.
That's a culture driver too. So they the right person that
comes on board can really shift thinking in a quick fashion.
Something else we talked about last time too was the
compensation disconnect. That some of the best leaders
(29:32):
they get punished when they do their job too well because they
hit their census targets and lose income.
Why is tying bonuses only to move in short sighted?
It's short sighted because it works great if you were in a
build up mode, if you're in a lease up mode.
But once you get the community, I'm I'm talking it if it's a new
right, If it's a new community after 12 months, if it's an
(29:54):
established community, whenever that sucker is leased up to at
least 90%. Doesn't matter how old the
community is, but once you startgetting beyond those numbers,
the driver of that hard charger,that director of sales or that
sales centric Ed or that sales centric Don because it really,
those are the, really the big 3 when it comes to the, the tours
(30:18):
and engagement with the residents.
Many times dining because they care about the food.
If it's a higher end community, obviously, but really those are
the big three. So when you take the, the bonus
structure, the, the and take it beyond just the occupancy
numbers, you're actually hurtingyourself because your retention
(30:39):
factor is going to be hurt. If someone became accustomed to
making let's say 5000 a quarter,10,000 a quarter and now they've
built up the occupancy to a stabilized level and now they're
getting 1200 a quarter, hard to live on that because you change
your lifestyle based upon your earnings shouldn't do that.
(31:00):
I mean, I, I, whether whoever you may follow from a financial
standpoint, you shouldn't live on whatever you bring in.
But let's be real, people do. So what happens to them?
They start looking for the next opportunity that's in a lease up
mode. So your retention really gets
deteriorated. So a much more sound approach is
to have a, a tiered program, have it heavy bonuses and
(31:25):
incentives when you are in a lease mode and then have a high
occupancy function that once youget above a certain threshold,
many organizations that number is 95%.
And I challenge that number a little bit because depending
upon the size of the organization, I mean the, the
size of the community, I should say, I mean the, the typical AL
(31:48):
memory care communities, 80 to 100 units.
So that may be 100 to 100 and 507 residents.
So you get to 95%. You may only have 5 units to, to
lease out. I really see as a, as a divide
of over 100 units versus under 100 units of where that number,
(32:09):
that high occupancy number needsto be.
But you need to have bonuses tied to, to keeping the
occupancy high. You need to have retention
bonuses for the team. If you're the executive
director, you can tie it to the retention of your community
leadership. It's not just about NOI because
(32:30):
while NOI does take things into effect like the job, both the
job postings or a recruitment fee if they, if they utilize a
resource like us, yes that does impact NOI.
But go go back to the numbers that we talked about 5 to 7
times earnings more than $1,000,000.
That doesn't just talk about youknow why.
(32:50):
So really make it tiered betweenoccupancy and once it's to a
higher level, create a structurethat she creates a a tie to
retention that gives them a motivation and an incentive to
stay with that community. One of our best clients that
we've done many, many placementsover hundreds of placements with
them over the last five years. They have worked tirelessly with
(33:15):
their investment partners and some have listened, some have
not. But those that have listened,
they have kept their their community leaders significantly
longer than those that don't have it tied to a high
occupancy. Even in our space as a the
marketing and growth agency within senior living, we have a
similar structure to what you'redescribing where if we work with
(33:37):
a lot of smaller communities that may not have that upfront
budget as they're trying to lease up, you know, so we'll
work with them where our fee becomes a percentage of the move
in that they get that we get forthem.
And then once we hit that 100% or 95% occupancy, we, we go into
kind of a maintenance mode wherewe're just, we're managing the
wait list. We're now in a retainer space
(33:59):
where we can work with them for a lesser amount, you know, So
that, yeah, that makes total sense to me.
I mean, I think, you know, if you're, if you're holding a 95%
occupancy or above, you should certainly be rewarded for that.
That's right. They they shouldn't get rid of
you. Oh, we don't need you right now
because when do you need somebody after you needed them?
So you don't want to wait too long.
(34:20):
So dude, that's a great program that you guys do because it's a
shared risk, shared reward program.
And sometimes we'll do somethingsimilar if we may have an
organization, particularly a smaller one that may not have
the budget to afford our feet. We aren't the cheapest, we're
never going to be the cheapest, but we aren't the most
expensive. But if there is a situation
where they may not be able to afford it, we may be able to
(34:43):
create a retention shared risk, shared reward fee structure
where we get a, a decent portionof the upfront.
But then after they've been there for six months or nine
months, then we earn the remainder.
So we're vested in the success of finding the right person for
them, which we're always, but now we're financially tied to it
(35:06):
as well. So we'll we'll do something like
that when we need to get creative.
Yeah, I yeah, I think it's foolish for communities not to
do that because occupancy can change overnight.
We've had communities that have gone from 95% and within in less
than a month they've dropped below 80%.
Especially those smaller ones like you're talking about the
hundred hundred unit buildings. There could just be able people
(35:28):
transition out or pass away or move from assisted living to
memory care or independent living to something else.
It really just, yeah. We'll see that a lot,
particularly in some of the moreaffluent markets that the more
fluent residents, they like the shiny penny.
So they're either an establishedcommunity, but a new one opens
(35:50):
up within a couple miles. They like what's new.
So you're exactly right. You can go from feeling that
everything is going good to within 60 days now you got 20
units you got to rent out. Another interesting group we
talked about was college talent.Underemployment among recent
college grads hit I think 13% nationally, so they're often
written off as too green for senior living.
(36:12):
Obviously I think you have a different opinion on that.
What do you think makes this group so promising?
Yeah, are are. They're absolutely too green to
walk in the door as an executivedirector or a director of
anything. But really where the opportunity
lies. And there are some organizations
within single living that are tremendous at doing this.
And I wish that the associationswould spend a lot of their time
(36:36):
and energy into creating this for the industry.
There's a tremendous opportunityto educate the not just the
current grads, but the soon to be grads, those that are beyond
their freshman year, the sophomores, the juniors, the
seniors, the Super singers, because they need jobs.
(36:57):
And they could go to a fast foodor to a restaurant and that will
serve them for a short period oftime.
But they could get a job in single living while they were in
college. And they can learn about the
industry. They can learn about the heart
side of the business and that will just open up their eyes to
(37:17):
the possibilities of senior living as an industry.
There are roles that could be tailor made for flexible
environment, which is what a college kid needs.
I got two of them myself. When they're in college, they
need a flexible environment. Senior living is great for that.
So if we can tap into that, thattalent pool of, of college kids,
(37:40):
they first need to understand that this is not your grandma's
senior living organization. If they don't have a relative
that's, that's been in a, a community in the last, let's say
5 or 10 years, their perception is either what they see in the
vast majority of, of the TV shows that show it or the
stories they've heard that it, it is a hospital like setting
(38:05):
that smells worse than a hospital.
That's what I heck, before I started work in this industry,
that was the perception I had. So we have to educate them on
what it's really like. And the only way you can do that
is by getting them into one. So a couple ideas that that I've
had for this is to go to where they are and it's not just going
(38:27):
to a career fair, but get involved.
Whether you have a community relations director that's always
focused on bringing in residence.
Well, they can bring in staff, too.
Get involved with the fraternities and sororities and
the service organizations at theuniversities near you.
They all need community service projects.
(38:48):
And yes, they've all done the typical Christmas caroling
during the holidays, but what about the rest of the year?
Get them involved. Come up with a couple activities
where you need a a group of eight or ten kids to come in
there. I'm calling them kids
facetiously because they're younger than me and college kids
(39:09):
fit them in there so they could see the fun that these residents
have. And heck, give them a tour.
It doesn't have to be the tour you would give them if you're
trying to get a potential resident, but walk them through
so they could see some of the fun stuff.
Let them see how nice this placeis.
Let them realize that this is kind of like a four-star resort.
In many instances, that can change the perception.
(39:32):
And if you could do that with one small pod of students,
they're going to tell their friends and then you invite them
back and they start inviting them back.
And we can really change the perception in just a couple
short years. Because the reality jury is we
are in a world of hurt in the next 5 or 10 years in senior
(39:54):
living if we do not create a newpopulation of talent that is
interested in this. That is, it is not just the
person who had their grandma or grandpa that had to go into a
community and that's how they learned about it.
Those stories are not going to cut it and filling the gaps that
we have from a leadership standpoint.
(40:14):
But the college population, not just the near term with like you
said, 13% unemployment. And anecdotally, those that I
know, and these are some pretty smart kids that have gone into
all kinds of different degrees that had all kinds of accolades
in schools, they can't find jobswell, find roles where you can
(40:35):
get them in on a flexible basis,bring them in on a part time
basis where they still have the ability to go interview and you
might be able to keep them. So it is such a ripe environment
to bring in new talent, but first we have to change the
perception, then get them involved and then the magic
might happen. I love that.
(40:56):
That's great insight. I was going to ask you if there
was anything else that you thinkaside from the community's
actually going to the colleges to recruit, if there was
anything else within within the community itself, do you think
actually needs to change to retain this generation?
To retain the generation we currently have or the generation
coming, The generation coming. I truly believe the biggest
(41:18):
thing is perception. I think the financial models, if
you can get, get a college degree grad to come on board,
you have to be able to show thema career path.
You can't just bring them into one role, let's say activities
director, because that's that's a pretty common thing of you
bring someone with light experience in.
You can't just tell them, hey, this is your job.
(41:38):
You have to be able to show thema path of advancement because in
their mind or what they were told by their parents was if you
aren't advancing, you're dying. So you have to be able to show
them the career path. And many organizations are
pretty good at doing that. But for a college kid, they have
to be able to see it in the big picture.
They have to be able to see whata three or five year path looks
(42:01):
like, because without that, they're going to follow the norm
and they're going to be out the door within 18 months.
So if they have that path, they may stick a little bit longer.
If they know that they need to do XY and Z in order to get the
next move, they'll work harder towards that.
The fallacy is that the Gen. X, Gen.
(42:23):
Z, the Gen. A, that they're lazy.
No, you know, I know some prettylazy baby boomers.
I know a lot of lazy Gen. Xers.
So it's not the generation that's lazy, it's the human.
You show someone the right path,you give them the right tools,
you provide them the right resources, you give them a
(42:43):
mentor. You can actually keep them and
you can help them grow within your in your organization.
So beyond tapping into it, beyond changing the perception,
you got to show them that path. Want to talk a little bit about
you and get into some things here just about you and what
motivates you and purpose. I know I mentioned in the intro
(43:04):
about your 24 hour race and how you raised 35,000 for dementia
care, children's hospitals and Crohn's research.
What's the story behind the 24 hour challenge?
Yeah, I mean, so I love running and I know it's hard for some
people to believe, but I, I do, I, I run every single day and
I've loved challenging myself. I'm a big believer and I want to
(43:25):
give back more than I receive. So while I had done a couple
phone fundraiser half marathons for the Crocin Colitis
Foundation, I wanted to figure away where I could impact all
three of the organizations that I care greatly about and that is
the Crohn's and Coles current Foundation.
Because my wife has Crohn's disease and many of our friends
in our circle have it and we want to find a cure.
(43:47):
I might, I, I believe greatly inwhat the Shriners Hospital for
Children does and the impact that they have on kids with so
many different ailments. And obviously in our world of
senior living, I care about about the quality of life of
those living with dementia. I used to say suffering from
dementia and I was corrected by somebody ironically when I did
(44:09):
my 24 hour run that they aren't suffering, they're living.
So you see you sometimes suffer you all the time to live.
So I wanted to try to find a wayof how I could with my
capabilities, how could I do something to raise funds to help
those organizations? And doing a half marathon in my,
my eyes wasn't going to cut it at that time.
(44:31):
I'd already done 5 marathons. So I wasn't going to raise the
needle by anyone of doing that. So I'm like, well, people live
with these diseases 24/7. What if I ran for 24 hours, had
a conversation with my wife whenwe were walking one day and she
goes, that sounds about as crazyas you are.
(44:53):
So I put it to a test to see if I could train myself, talk to
people who had done 24 hour runs, because trust me, I'm not
the first one to do a 24 hour run.
But this body, it was going to be the first time.
And they, they talked to me about the ways to train myself
so that I could successfully do it.
And then it was about sharing mystory, knowing that these
(45:15):
people, whomever they are, are living with the diseases,
whether it is dementia, whether it's Crohn's, whether it's a, a,
a child with a, a cleft lip or a, their left foot is 6 inches
shorter than their right foot. And the sometimes 57 surgeries
they have to go through before they're 18 to get it to normal.
(45:36):
They live with that every day, so if they can do that for one
day, I can suffer a way I know how to suffer.
And that was running. So that story resonated with
people and I not only did it once, but I had so much fun with
it that I did it twice. I did in 2020 and 2022 and
(45:56):
between those two days I was able to raise $35,000 that was
split between those charities. But the the best example of, of
battling through and where my mind really resonated with those
that live with their diseases every day was the second time
that I did the 24 hour run. I started at 8 AMI was going to
(46:19):
finish the next day at 8:00 AM and it was about 3:00 AM.
So I'm, I'm 19 hours and still with five hours to go and I have
excruciating pain in my calf. Well, the reality is this wasn't
a race. This was myself created wild
idea. So I could have stopped and said
(46:40):
that I did enough. But at that time I thought about
those living with dementia. I thought about our friends and
family that that live with Crohn's.
I thought about those kids and I'm like, I need to find a way
where I can continue what I saidI was going to do.
So going back to the old MacGyver show, I MacGyver in my
(47:00):
leg, I put on some sweatpants. I grabbed A roll of duct tape
and I duct taped my ankle from pretty much in my ankle all the
way up through my upper calf tighten up where they could
still breathe, but that I could still move and continue those
those remaining five hours because I was not going to give
up on them because no one was giving up on me.
The people who had donated theirmoney many times when they
(47:23):
didn't have it, but they were inspired by my story.
There is no way I can give up onthem.
So they gave to me. I gave I try to give back more
to them than they. Gave is there plans to do
another? One, according to my wife, no,
because she is my crew chief. So if I'm up for 24 hours, she's
up for 24 hours. But you never know what crazy
(47:44):
idea I might come up with where I can cut through the clutter to
to continue in my crazy way of giving back.
What has that experience taught you about business and
leadership, really? Just so many things.
I really believe being an endurance athlete, whether it's
a half marathon, a 5K, or a marathon or a crazy 24 hour run,
(48:04):
it's made me a better leader. It's made me a better recruiter
because it showed me a variety of things about perseverance,
about consistency. But the biggest thing that I've
learned is that success does notcome when people are watching.
Success comes when no one's watching.
(48:26):
So from a endurance running standpoint, the hundreds of
hours that I put into preparing my body to be ready to complete
the task, very few people see that my family does, but very
few people outside of that do. And recruiting, the many time,
countless hours that we spend inresearch that never gets seen by
(48:50):
our team because if we're in a result oriented business, if we
find them the talent, then they hire them, then they reward us
with where they fee. They don't see everything that
takes to get there. So doing those types of events
have really resonated and reminded me that success comes
from the things that nobody sees.
(49:12):
And how true is that within our industry?
Which leader has to do things that a resident never knows
about? South?
It just it really comes full circle to me.
Yeah, tip of the iceberg, right?You know, you think about all
the hard work and everything that that no one else sees.
Even in my industry, I see it a lot too, because we've been in
business for 2022 years. People, they'll definitely be
(49:35):
envious of the of the path that we've been on and the growth
trajectory we're on. But everybody just sees where
we're at now and they forget that it took 21 years to where
we are now. Yeah, that that that policy of a
of an overnight success, boys that far from the truth for
almost anybody. It's all the years it took, all
the failures that it took to getto the successes that you have.
(49:58):
Exactly. I think my last question for you
is how can leaders show up for their values beyond just a job
description? There's a couple things.
The job description and for thatmatter the resume.
They're pieces of paper. The more that a a senior leader
or a recruiter in our world can understand the why behind a
(50:21):
candidate and as a candidate understand the why behind the
company. Again, not just the worst words
said, but the actions performed.The more they understand that
and the more that they can sharethat between the two, the better
chance for a match. One of the the simplest examples
I could give is a resume is if you're going to create a resume.
(50:45):
Unfortunately, too many companies now are using some
form of automation. I mean, the generic term now is
AI. OK, so they're using some form
of AI, but some form of automation really to screen
resumes out. So you got to make sure that you
were doing things on your resumeto ensure that you actually
don't get screened out, but you get screened in something as
simple as a title. Well, if your title is going
(51:08):
back to one of the our earlier conversations points is CEO and
they're looking for an executivedirector, AI may screen you out.
A talent acquisition person who has 300 resumes to review is
looking for any reason to screenyou out.
They see the title, they think you're overqualified.
So don't use the title your company gave you.
Use the title the industry gives.
(51:30):
That's 1/2 is do not just list duties and responsibilities and
please do not copy and paste thejob description and put that as
your duties and responsibilitiesof your resume.
People. Actually, my goodness gracious,
yes, if you want to be effective, if you want to have a
chance to cut through the clutter beyond what AI will
(51:53):
screen out, you want to give a leader a reason to want to talk
to you. So show your accomplishments in
your achievements. And usually this comes in one of
three forms. How did you make them money?
How do you save them money, or how did you significantly
improve, improve efficiencies? If your resume first describes
(52:14):
what you did in one line and therest of your bullet points were
one of those three things, made a money, save a money, or
approved efficiencies, they're going to want to talk to you.
So show your value beyond what the job description says by what
you've contributed to your previous organization, because
if you've if you've achieved it elsewhere, you might be able to
(52:37):
achieve it for them. And on the flip side to that,
for the company, do not please, again, back to the triple
prayer. Do not just put a job
description on your job posting.And just even more companies do
that than those the resumes thathave job descriptions on the
resume. Yes, it's important that they
(52:58):
understand all the features, butcan't you send that to them, to
the person who who you actually are interested in after the
fact? Give them the why.
Give them the reason why your organization is who they are.
Let them know the opportunities that they have.
Let them know the impact they'regoing to have.
Let them know what they're goingto be doing and a job
(53:20):
description does not tell them what they're doing.
It tells them what you're legally protecting yourself
from. So if a company could do that
and a candidate could do that, there's a greater chance for a
match to happen. That's probably the best tips I
can give on both sides of the coin.
That's. Great, I love that.
That's such good insight, Chris.Thank you so much for such a
great conversation. I really appreciate it.
(53:40):
Hey. Thank you so much, Jerry.
You're a great, great interviewer.
Thank you, thank you. Where can our audience go to
learn more about Westport One orconnect with you directly?
Sure. In terms of our organization, I,
I am the the order of the owner of the organization and we have
3 disciplines. I have recruiters and a couple
others beyond senior living. So our website
simplywestport1withthe1spelledout.comin terms of, of connecting with
(54:02):
me more, the greatest resource for that is LinkedIn.
So it's Chris Hines, HEI and Z like the ketchup.
I'm one of the few out there, the only one out there that's a
recruiter. So I'm pretty easy to find and I
try to share content on a regular basis, either stories
like we've we've had here, some thought provoking questions or
some insight that I've gained inindustry and beyond.
(54:23):
I don't believe in just talking about what we do from an
industry standpoint as a recruiter because we're human
beings. So I try to share, Andy, some of
my thoughts beyond just the wonderful world of recruiting or
the wonderful senior living world.
OK, great. Yeah, We'll make sure we put all
that in the show. All right, So as we wrap up
(54:44):
today's episode, I want to extend a huge thank you to you,
Chris Hines, for joining us and sharing your perspective on
building stronger, more intentional leadership across
the senior living space. From building talent pipelines
and fixing broken comp structures to rethinking who we
recruit and why, this conversation highlights what's
possible when we prioritize leadership development the way
we prioritize care. So if you want to connect with
(55:06):
Chris or learn more about Westport One and their work in
executive recruitment, we've included his LinkedIn and the
company's links in the show notes.
As always, we hope you found this episode insightful and
inspiring. And don't forget to subscribe to
our podcast on your favorite platform.
And stay tuned for more episodeswhere we continue to explore the
evolving world of senior care, covering everything from
innovative care models and leadership strategies to family
(55:29):
support technology in the futureof aging.
And also remember that From Leads to Leases isn't just an
audio experience. We're also a video podcast.
So if you want to see the video versions of our episodes like
the one here with Chris, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube
or Spotify channels. I'm Jerry Vinci, CEO of CCR
growth. Thank you for joining us on From
Leads to Leases. Please like, subscribe and share
(55:49):
this episode with anyone who might find it useful.
I'm truly grateful for your timeand attention.
And until next time, lead with strategy and with heart.
Chat with you again soon. Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. Thanks for listening to From
Leads to Leases. Are you ready to fill your rooms
faster and increase occupancy? Visit ccrgrowth.com to learn
(56:09):
about our Senior Growth Innovation Suite, a proven
system to generate highly qualified tour ready leads,
accelerate sales and reduce acquisition costs.
Let's connect and turn your challenges into opportunities.
See you next time.
A staff that really resonates with me is one that revolves
around your living. But 60% of healthcare
organizations lack a succession plan.
And it's not necessarily their fault because there's a couple
factors that come into play. 1 is you have to have the
firefighter mentality. How am I going to put out this
fire? Meaning someone resigned.
I got to put this fire up by getting somebody in the role.
(00:22):
They don't have a builder mentality.
How do we build a bench to be prepared for the next potential
resignation? What?
If senior living's biggest leak isn't in care, it's in
leadership. Today you'll hear why the
pipeline is cracking and what wemust do right now to fix it.
(00:43):
Welcome to From Leads to Leases,ACCR Growth podcast that helps
senior living providers transform their complex
challenges into opportunities. Listen in for stories from
industry leaders, innovative strategies and insights, and
with our expertise, learn how toincrease occupancy faster,
Guaranteed. Welcome back to another episode
(01:04):
of From Lease to Lease is the podcast that dives deep into the
senior living and senior care industries, bringing you
insights, strategies, and stories from the experts at the
forefront of innovation, leadership and care.
I'm your host, Jerry Vinci, CEO,CCR Growth.
For those of you who don't know about us, CCR Growth is a full
service marketing and growth agency exclusive to the senior
living industry. And through this podcast, I'm
(01:25):
here to help guide you through the evolving landscape of senior
care, exploring the innovation, strategies and leadership
insights that are shaping the future of the industry.
So whether you're a provider, a caregiver, or industry leader,
this show is here to help you make informed decisions and
create meaningful impact. So today's guest is Chris Hines,
president and managing director of Westport One.
(01:46):
With nearly 30 years placing senior living leaders from
independent living to memory care.
He's been featured on podcast like Bridge the Gap and Grow
Your Occupancy and many others. He's an endurance athlete who's
completed over 200 races, that's200 more than me and raised more
than 35,000 for charity. Chris brings grit and purpose to
(02:08):
recruiting at all levels. So welcome to the show, Chris.
Hey, Jerry, thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, absolutely. This is such a a vital
conversation. I think right now leadership and
what we're seeing in terms of growth in the senior living
industry is expanding and contracting at the same time in
all areas. So I think, I think recruiting
and it's such a big part of this.
(02:28):
So I wanted to just start off bytalking about the concept of the
pipeline is already cracking. And you know, I, I looked up
some relevant data and I said 11,000 Americans turn 65
everyday. The 80 plus population will
double by 2040. And Nick reports that leadership
turnover across the continuum remains above 25% annually.
(02:50):
So obviously, leadership gaps are no longer theoretical.
They're active senior livings facing rapid demand and aging
leadership without a clear pipeline for continuity.
So what shifts have you seen in leadership demand over the last
decade? Yeah, for all the shifts, a lot
of things have stayed the same are the things that have stayed
the same at a community leadership level.
(03:11):
It's pretty much the big seven that hasn't shifted in 10 years.
Now independent living as obviously at a new wrinkles
active adult have has their own wrinkles, But for the most part
the community leadership numbersand quantity have stayed the
same. But what has changed has been
the responsibilities of those leaders.
Even five years ago pre COVID, Ikind of look at things before
(03:35):
COVID and after COVID, pre COVIDBC the executive director as an
example, they needed a great operator.
They need someone who is great with the residents.
Well, now they need that and they need incredible knowledge
of financials. They need someone who has
operational excellence, not justsomebody with the people, but
(03:56):
everything. So in essence, they really need
a mini CEO at the community. And in fact, some organizations
have shifted to calling their executive director CEO of fill
in the blank community because it really resonates with what
their role actually is. Little deceptive when it comes
to a resume, but actual to what the role is.
(04:18):
So that's one thing that we've seen.
Another is that many of these leaders beyond just the director
of nursing and the various titles within all of the leaders
need to have a better understanding of acuity because
the leaders are asked to run an organization that has more than
just one set of residents. Many of the organizations are
(04:42):
ALE memory Care IL, they may have a bridges community.
So they have to understand both the clinical and the acuity
understanding as well as having hospitality finesse.
That's really shifted over the years.
And then the final thing, and Jerry is kind of funny because I
literally had a conversation about this yesterday, is the
(05:03):
current modern leader has to be tech savvy.
And I know that seems logical, but the aging of the senior
leaders within senior living, there is still a large gap
between those that are tech savvy and those that are not.
Again, pre COVID. Post COVID.
(05:25):
Pre COVID very few meetings weredone via video.
It'd be the rare organization that did it that way.
During COVID, all organizations went to video leadership
meetings. Post COVID, almost all of them
do continue to do it. So something as simple as how
the heck to get on a team's call, you can't call your BOD or
the the recent college grad to come in and show you every
(05:48):
single time. The spreadsheets are so
prevalent with the investment teams and kind of like going
back to that mini CEO, you're dealing directly with investors
many times, not just with your own corporate staff.
They expect things to be done a certain way so that technologies
really turn into a go, no go, and that's really shifted over
(06:10):
the last 10 years. I know one of the things we
often see too, it's unfortunate that when an executive director
or someone else high up on the team leaves, they tend to take
people with them and it creates a lot of chaos and communities
often don't plan for that. There's really no succession
planning. They don't have contingencies,
contingencies in place. Why do you think that is in this
(06:31):
field? Well, a staff that really
resonates with me is one that revolves around the whole
healthcare industry, which obviously senior living as a big
part of. But 60% of healthcare
organizations lack a succession plan.
And it's not necessarily their fault because there's a couple
factors that come into play. 1 is you have to have the
firefighter mentality. How am I going to put out this
(06:52):
fire? Meaning someone resigned.
I got to put this fire up by getting somebody in the role.
They don't have a builder mentality.
How do we build a bench to be prepared for the next potential
resignation? But the real challenge is this
isn't like many organizations because a see, typical senior
living organization does not have their entire footprint in
(07:14):
one geographical space. They may have started that way
that they're going to be the predominant leader in the
Southeast or the Northwest or pick the region.
But then an investment team thatthey work with has a couple
communities in Texas and they'vealways been in Georgia and it's
kind of hard to say no to money.So now they add that extra
(07:35):
footprint. So while they may have a great
succession plan preparation in place in one geography, if the
leader in Texas using this as the example resigns the one you
had on the bench ready to go in Georgia, very rarely he's going
to want to move. So it is a really, it's a real
challenge to have it in multiplemarkets, senior living
(07:58):
organizations, the good ones, they've tried to create a
succession plan, I'll call it more of an Academy like setting,
but that only works within the geography where those leaders
that have been built up is. So it is very challenging to
have one everywhere that they are.
What are the downstream risks ofconstant reactive hiring?
(08:21):
From my vantage point, the biggest risk is a culture debt.
And what I mean by that is the culture is not created from
court. It's not it's not driven by by
corporate. They may create it.
They may put the words on paper,they may talk the words to the
people, They may hand out a wonderful glossy page to be hung
(08:42):
in the community. But the culture is driven
community by community. So when we're talking about the
risks of rehiring, that's a deterioration of culture with
every new person that's brought on board because they weren't
there for the grand kick off of the culture session.
(09:03):
They have to have it instilled by the leaders that are there.
So when you have let's say typical example is 1 community
had three E DS in the last five years and unfortunately Jerry
that might be conservative. Well, the first six months of
the new Ed is literally just rebuilding the trust of the rest
(09:25):
of the team. So that had becomes a real
challenge. And I have had real
conversations with clients aboutthe cost of a bad hire.
It's not just about the the job posting they put out there on
Indeed or LinkedIn or whether they pay a fee to a recruiter
like us. It's the lost productivity.
(09:46):
It's the damage to the reputation when a resident goes
on Google reviews or on Yelp reviews and puts a comment out
there that this is just a revolving door of staff that
hurts you more than anyone good future hire can build.
We see it in real time. We often get the call, usually
(10:08):
two or three weeks after somebody's resigned because
they're going to try to fill it on their own, and then they get
us on board to help them find the right talent.
And it's not an overnight success.
We don't have a magic keyboard to type in a couple keywords and
out pops the perfect candidate. We have to go and do real
recruiting to find people who are really good at what they do
(10:29):
but are in a level of pain or less challenged or bored or
don't have the support to identify them, qualify them,
bring them into an interviewing mix.
So it could be a couple of months from when that person
resigns to when the new person comes on board.
So that down Rd. Spiral of lost talent is just
(10:51):
tremendous to deteriorating the culture build of that
organization and it's not fixed overnight.
One day to point I found that's pretty painful is for mid size
operators. So turnover costs total on
average 1 to 2 million annually,yeah.
Yeah, we, we've run analysis of our own and, and unfortunately
(11:12):
not that many organizations, whether it's senior living or
not, believe what a recruiter says in the cost because they
think it's a sales line. But I've been doing this for 28
years now, literally my 20th anniversary was this month.
So I'm looking at these numbers from real hard facts of my time,
and it could be anywhere from five to seven times the annual
salary of the individual. That's staggering.
(11:35):
And that's just on higher. Put that into the typical,
again, that big seven of community leadership.
If you have two or three of those turn over the course of
the year, now you're you're blowing your $1,000,000 number
out the window. I think one of the big
challenges too is the communities are unknowingly
sabotaging their own recruiting with a slower hiring process
(11:57):
than is necessary. Or, you know, slow follow-ups or
disorganized decision making. What are some of the biggest
mistakes providers make in the hiring process?
Well, unfortunately, we could spend 6 conversations over the
next 19 hours and I still wouldn't be done.
So I'll just talk about a coupleof the big ones.
(12:17):
I wish it weren't the truth, butit is.
The biggest is lack of speed. If a company's looking to fill a
role with a body, somebody that fills the seat, then speed's not
as important. If they truly need a top level
talent, someone that's going to be a difference maker, that's
going to be a culture shifter, speed kills because a good
(12:41):
candidate, whether they are found on Indeed, on LinkedIn
jobs, through in an internal referral or through a recruiter
like me, a good candidate statistically has two to four
opportunities that they're considering at any given time.
Now, if we're in a, we're in a downturn in the market from a
single living standpoint, that downturn is different than a
downturn in the traditional economy because they have to
(13:04):
have those roles filled. It's not like they can go, oh,
well, we don't need an Ed in this building.
We're going to have John 2 states away handle this building
as well. It doesn't work that way.
So the market is only getting tighter.
So when they have a lackadaisical process or even
worse is I'm too busy to interview this week, this week
(13:28):
turns into next week. And now that three-step process
has gone on, gone on over 4 weeks almost time and time
again, they are going to lose that top talent.
They're going to find a body, but they are not going to find
that difference maker. That's only one issue.
Another issue is too many interviews.
(13:49):
It's good to have the critical decision makers be involved in
the interview process, but when I challenge a whether it's a
VPSVP or the president of an organization and ask them
through all of the processes you've done, what's your average
tenure? Fill in the blank of the role.
(14:10):
And if they give me a true honest answer, them getting
everybody and their brother involved in the interview
process did not make a difference in the longevity of
their staff. So when they fall down that
rabbit hole of continuing down what's always, what they've
always done does not mean it's always worked.
(14:31):
So we had a fantastic candidate last month, true a player top
10% or forget 20% or a top 10% or a true difference maker.
After three interviews, the company said, well, we wanted to
talk to a couple more people. I'll get back to you on Monday,
this year on Friday. I'll get back to you on Monday
and see when we can make that happen.
(14:52):
Sometime this week we let the candidate know.
The candidate goes, no, I'm not waiting anymore.
If they can't get their act together right and tell me how
many steps are going to be evolved upfront, what are they
going to be like when I'm on thejob?
I don't need that indecisiveness.
By Monday, they let us know theyaccept another offer.
So literally too many interviewsor changing of course, can
(15:13):
really alter that. Another element is ghosting and
ghosting happens in a myriad of ways.
It could happen in the simplest way of let's just remove us from
the equation. They post a job, a candidate
applies. That candidate who applies is 1
of 277 candidates who've appliedand others 200 and 77240 of them
(15:38):
are qualified for the job. But they clicked apply.
Or they use one of the multiple AI features out there that auto
apply for them. So now, through no fault of the
internal Tally acquisitions teamcapabilities, they're screening
through all those resumes and bythe time they find those 20 or
30 that are even worth looking at to find the one or two that
(15:59):
are worth actually sending a a we're interested e-mail, 4-5
days have gone by. By that time again, top talent
is already involved in one or two of the processes utilizing
the recruiter. When we recruit somebody for a
company, 9 out of 10 times they are truly a passive candidate.
(16:19):
They were not on the job boards looking for a job.
We proactively called, emailed in mail, texted, whatever mode
we use to engage in a conversation with them and learn
about them, about what they're doing well, what they wish would
change, what they've tried to change but couldn't get changed,
and what level pain are they in That may be a new opportunity to
(16:41):
solve. So it's truly a passive
candidate. We recruit them, we gain all
their information. Many times we have them complete
an assessment and that candidatesubmitted and no matter what was
told up front of their cooperation to have quick
feedback. And I'm not unrealist.
I don't need feedback an hour after I sent a resume.
I know they have a job to do. But 24 hours, 36 hours is
(17:04):
completely reasonable. Three and four days have gone by
from a candidate just submitted.Follow that down the trail that
they've gone through the interview and they've done the
theoretical final interview, andnow three or four days have gone
by before they've made a decision.
How exciting would you be if that were you?
They tell you how excited they are about you, but they don't
(17:26):
show it right. So that ghosting can really slow
down a process. The final thing is a lack of
internal alignment. And what I mean by that is
different leaders are looking for different things.
Yes, they all need the title. They all need the executive
(17:46):
director of the Don, the director of sales.
You choose the the community leader or the regional or VP.
All the leaders above them, theyall know they need the title.
But when they interview, they godown different paths. 1 focuses
all their energy on occupancy. The next focuses all their
energy on on a staffing issues. Another focus is all their
(18:11):
issues on clinical deficiencies.Again, put yourself in the shoes
if that were you, you were the candidate and you asked what the
greatest challenge was and you now have gotten 3.
Do you want that job? When even the leaders can't be
concise in their in their alignment of what they're
actually looking for. And it doesn't mean that all
(18:32):
three of those things aren't truly issues.
But when there's not a concertedfocus from the top, someone
who's really, I'll call him a taskmaster, but really a process
master that makes sure that everything is running quickly
and smoothly and that the focal points are all being covered.
Without that, that alignment canreally be thrown off a whack.
(18:54):
So that's really 3 or 4 just of the litany of things we could
cover that can slow down a process.
When you identify something likethat, how do you help your
clients rethink their process and and get them thinking
differently about recruitment? Yeah.
The first is to understand what their process is.
I mean, we don't need to change something if it's actually
(19:16):
working. So if they have a process that
is two or three interview steps,which is pretty typical and they
can get that done within a 8 to 10 day time frame, including
weekends on that because those are days of the week.
So we're talking two business weeks, that is a reasonable time
frame. So if we start getting feedback
(19:39):
on their process, it's going to take longer than that.
Or one of the typical lines we get is, hey Chris, we're going
to do everything we can to wait till we find the right person,
no matter how long that takes. Then it comes down to education.
It comes down to questioning of how important is this role, what
type of coverage do you have? If it's a, if it's an Ed role,
(20:04):
as an example, if they have an operation specialist who's just
coming off another community andthey could put them in that seat
for four to six weeks, OK, they can spend a little more time.
But if they have to pay for an op specialist to go in there,
that's not in that geography. Even if they're an internal
employee, they're still paying travel.
Because they're sending them home each week, they're still
(20:25):
paying it per diem and all that goes to cutting into costs
that's affecting the NOI. So we'll ask questions about
things like that. We'll under try to understand
the real importance of when thisrole really needs to be filled
by. And the answer cannot be
yesterday because that's not possible in our senior living
(20:47):
world. The typical notice is 30 days.
In almost every other industry, it's two weeks.
So we have double the time framefor a professional resignation.
That causes a challenge of itself.
So we try to work with them to map out a process, understanding
what they do and trying to figure out where can we possibly
(21:08):
combine a step. Where could somebody that needs
to be in the process? Theoretically, where could they
be added as a bridge between offer acceptance and start date
because of that same candidate has 30 day notice to give
themselves And the worst thing we want to have happen is a
vacuum of silence from when theyaccept the job to when they
(21:31):
start the job. So could the team members be
involved in a lunch get together?
Is it interim step between hire and start date?
So trying to figure out what canbe compressed to make that
process, whether it is 3 or 4, two or three or four steps to
(21:51):
figure out how is there no way that they cannot be done in
eight to 10 days. Then, as I just kind of alluded
to, of a process master, someonewho's really a champion of that
process. That might be talent
acquisition, but many times it'sthe RDO or the VPO for that
community where they are the ones that are like a better way
of saying it, herding caps. They can get everyone who's busy
(22:16):
to pick up the phone, pick up the e-mail, return the text to
schedule the interview, and theydon't take the busy card.
It's one thing for me to ask. It's another thing for that
leader that they report directlyto, to ask for those times.
So when we have that process master, that really leads to
success. But the biggest thing of all of
(22:37):
these possibilities is communication.
And communication is not the words.
I'm sorry, sorry. Are you busy?
Sorry I couldn't get you. Communication is, hey, I'm busy
right now. I'll get back to you in two
hours. Communication with the timeline.
That is the way that this moves forward.
(22:59):
And then every now and then, when maybe all of this is not
sinking in, we'll tell them a story of an unfortunate soul
that they lost the candidate that they really needed, whether
they lost him to a competitor inthe same geography or whether
they lost them all together. And then it took another four to
(23:19):
six weeks to find another person.
Because you'll be a very either tight market or very small
geography. Lot of senior living companies
are not in major metropolitan markets.
They're where the families are. So there may only be 10 or 12
people in that market and maybe only one or two of them are open
to making a move. So when they lose that week,
(23:42):
unfortunately can share a story of another unfortunate soul that
lost the person that they neededand the ramifications that that
had on that organization. And those stories usually
resonate pretty well to help them understand the critical
nature of all this. What about outside hires from
other industries? How do they fit in?
(24:03):
Yeah, outside hires can be really powerful additions to our
industry. The outside hire can come in and
bring in a brush breath of fresh, fresh air, a new culture
perspective, new creative ideas.But when you bring in someone
from the from an outside industry, you have to make sure
(24:24):
that you're setting them up the right way.
You have to make sure that you're interviewing the right
way too, because directors of sales is a perfect example.
Over COVID or during COVID, organizations that were so tight
on talent and geographies, they may look at the hospitality
sector that had such a a depression in hires and such a a
(24:46):
drop in rolls. Well, the wrong director of
sales for a hotel has different focus points than the right
director of sales from a hotel. And what I mean by that is some
are very hospitality driven, meaning they're willing and able
to give away what needs to be given away to make the customer
(25:09):
happy. Hey, we'll comp that room.
I'll get concierge to work to get to you those tickets to
solve that problem. Well, in single living, we don't
have comp tickets to give away. They can't comp a room for the
month because it's not just a one night stay, it's a perpetual
stay. So you have to make sure that
they understand the economic side of this, of the situation.
(25:30):
And if you could dig in deep andunderstand their why, if you
could understand what makes themtick, you could interlace
stories about seeing your livingin the real impact that we could
have on a non transient environment.
Hotel guests, they come and go one to five to seven nights.
(25:51):
They're out the door. Well, our residents are
hopefully there for a long time.Sometimes they leave, sometimes
there's unfortunate, unfortunatedeath.
But when they are there, the impact that they could have on
the lives can be greater mentally and emotionally and
(26:12):
that can really impact them. So if you bring in that outside
talent from outside seeing your living versus recycling through
the same batch of people that have been there over and over
again, it can do some really cool things for that
organization. I want to talk about culture a
little bit. I know culture isn't pushed from
the top. It's kind of lives and dies at
(26:33):
the community level. What a great culture carriers
look like on the ground. Yep.
And I'm, I'm a reiterate something I said earlier,
culture is not driven by the corporate team.
It it started by them, but it isdriven from the community,
employee by employee, community leader by community leader.
(26:55):
That is such a critical thing toremember when it comes to
driving culture. So as you call a culture
carrier, they can come in and they can shift an organization
in less than six weeks. There have been people in our
industry that have been burnt out and some of them left the
industry because of that burnout.
(27:18):
But guess what one of The Dirty little secrets is?
Some were burnt out but they didn't leave, so they're still
there. So they are still fighting the
the emotional and mental struggles that impacted them
over the last two to four years.So they may not be the breath of
fresh air. They're there, they're doing a
job, they're probably good at their job, but they are not
(27:41):
helping. They are not mentoring.
They are doing their job and nothing else.
So if you could find a true culture carrier and bring them
into the organization, they could impact that community.
One of the things that we'll do when I hear the stories about
culture being such a a critical factor, we have a search right
now where that is a a critical factor.
(28:04):
They have unfortunately gone through a couple of executive
directors and the team is kind of shell shocked.
So they know what's going to be important to bring somebody on
board that is going to empower the team and going to listen to
what the team needs versus just coming in and telling them what
they need to do and being like adictator or an elitist hear
(28:25):
those types of things. When we're taking an intake call
on a, on a specific opening, we will really focus on that when
we're having conversations with candidates and even when we're
down the the line in the interview process, when we're
doing reference checks, I'll find out and ask about things
beyond just the skill. And what I'm looking for is
(28:48):
traits from the supervisor that they worked for.
A line that I'll hear is if theyleft, their entire team would go
with them. Well, that's a culture driver.
Or a different example is when agood leader is not being
boastful, but they're being factual and they can show a
(29:09):
Google review or a Yelp review where they were named by name in
that review of what residents thought of their interactions.
That's a culture driver too. So they the right person that
comes on board can really shift thinking in a quick fashion.
Something else we talked about last time too was the
compensation disconnect. That some of the best leaders
(29:32):
they get punished when they do their job too well because they
hit their census targets and lose income.
Why is tying bonuses only to move in short sighted?
It's short sighted because it works great if you were in a
build up mode, if you're in a lease up mode.
But once you get the community, I'm I'm talking it if it's a new
right, If it's a new community after 12 months, if it's an
(29:54):
established community, whenever that sucker is leased up to at
least 90%. Doesn't matter how old the
community is, but once you startgetting beyond those numbers,
the driver of that hard charger,that director of sales or that
sales centric Ed or that sales centric Don because it really,
those are the, really the big 3 when it comes to the, the tours
(30:18):
and engagement with the residents.
Many times dining because they care about the food.
If it's a higher end community, obviously, but really those are
the big three. So when you take the, the bonus
structure, the, the and take it beyond just the occupancy
numbers, you're actually hurtingyourself because your retention
(30:39):
factor is going to be hurt. If someone became accustomed to
making let's say 5000 a quarter,10,000 a quarter and now they've
built up the occupancy to a stabilized level and now they're
getting 1200 a quarter, hard to live on that because you change
your lifestyle based upon your earnings shouldn't do that.
(31:00):
I mean, I, I, whether whoever you may follow from a financial
standpoint, you shouldn't live on whatever you bring in.
But let's be real, people do. So what happens to them?
They start looking for the next opportunity that's in a lease up
mode. So your retention really gets
deteriorated. So a much more sound approach is
to have a, a tiered program, have it heavy bonuses and
(31:25):
incentives when you are in a lease mode and then have a high
occupancy function that once youget above a certain threshold,
many organizations that number is 95%.
And I challenge that number a little bit because depending
upon the size of the organization, I mean the, the
size of the community, I should say, I mean the, the typical AL
(31:48):
memory care communities, 80 to 100 units.
So that may be 100 to 100 and 507 residents.
So you get to 95%. You may only have 5 units to, to
lease out. I really see as a, as a divide
of over 100 units versus under 100 units of where that number,
(32:09):
that high occupancy number needsto be.
But you need to have bonuses tied to, to keeping the
occupancy high. You need to have retention
bonuses for the team. If you're the executive
director, you can tie it to the retention of your community
leadership. It's not just about NOI because
(32:30):
while NOI does take things into effect like the job, both the
job postings or a recruitment fee if they, if they utilize a
resource like us, yes that does impact NOI.
But go go back to the numbers that we talked about 5 to 7
times earnings more than $1,000,000.
That doesn't just talk about youknow why.
(32:50):
So really make it tiered betweenoccupancy and once it's to a
higher level, create a structurethat she creates a a tie to
retention that gives them a motivation and an incentive to
stay with that community. One of our best clients that
we've done many, many placementsover hundreds of placements with
them over the last five years. They have worked tirelessly with
(33:15):
their investment partners and some have listened, some have
not. But those that have listened,
they have kept their their community leaders significantly
longer than those that don't have it tied to a high
occupancy. Even in our space as a the
marketing and growth agency within senior living, we have a
similar structure to what you'redescribing where if we work with
(33:37):
a lot of smaller communities that may not have that upfront
budget as they're trying to lease up, you know, so we'll
work with them where our fee becomes a percentage of the move
in that they get that we get forthem.
And then once we hit that 100% or 95% occupancy, we, we go into
kind of a maintenance mode wherewe're just, we're managing the
wait list. We're now in a retainer space
(33:59):
where we can work with them for a lesser amount, you know, So
that, yeah, that makes total sense to me.
I mean, I think, you know, if you're, if you're holding a 95%
occupancy or above, you should certainly be rewarded for that.
That's right. They they shouldn't get rid of
you. Oh, we don't need you right now
because when do you need somebody after you needed them?
So you don't want to wait too long.
(34:20):
So dude, that's a great program that you guys do because it's a
shared risk, shared reward program.
And sometimes we'll do somethingsimilar if we may have an
organization, particularly a smaller one that may not have
the budget to afford our feet. We aren't the cheapest, we're
never going to be the cheapest, but we aren't the most
expensive. But if there is a situation
where they may not be able to afford it, we may be able to
(34:43):
create a retention shared risk, shared reward fee structure
where we get a, a decent portionof the upfront.
But then after they've been there for six months or nine
months, then we earn the remainder.
So we're vested in the success of finding the right person for
them, which we're always, but now we're financially tied to it
(35:06):
as well. So we'll we'll do something like
that when we need to get creative.
Yeah, I yeah, I think it's foolish for communities not to
do that because occupancy can change overnight.
We've had communities that have gone from 95% and within in less
than a month they've dropped below 80%.
Especially those smaller ones like you're talking about the
hundred hundred unit buildings. There could just be able people
(35:28):
transition out or pass away or move from assisted living to
memory care or independent living to something else.
It really just, yeah. We'll see that a lot,
particularly in some of the moreaffluent markets that the more
fluent residents, they like the shiny penny.
So they're either an establishedcommunity, but a new one opens
(35:50):
up within a couple miles. They like what's new.
So you're exactly right. You can go from feeling that
everything is going good to within 60 days now you got 20
units you got to rent out. Another interesting group we
talked about was college talent.Underemployment among recent
college grads hit I think 13% nationally, so they're often
written off as too green for senior living.
(36:12):
Obviously I think you have a different opinion on that.
What do you think makes this group so promising?
Yeah, are are. They're absolutely too green to
walk in the door as an executivedirector or a director of
anything. But really where the opportunity
lies. And there are some organizations
within single living that are tremendous at doing this.
And I wish that the associationswould spend a lot of their time
(36:36):
and energy into creating this for the industry.
There's a tremendous opportunityto educate the not just the
current grads, but the soon to be grads, those that are beyond
their freshman year, the sophomores, the juniors, the
seniors, the Super singers, because they need jobs.
(36:57):
And they could go to a fast foodor to a restaurant and that will
serve them for a short period oftime.
But they could get a job in single living while they were in
college. And they can learn about the
industry. They can learn about the heart
side of the business and that will just open up their eyes to
(37:17):
the possibilities of senior living as an industry.
There are roles that could be tailor made for flexible
environment, which is what a college kid needs.
I got two of them myself. When they're in college, they
need a flexible environment. Senior living is great for that.
So if we can tap into that, thattalent pool of, of college kids,
(37:40):
they first need to understand that this is not your grandma's
senior living organization. If they don't have a relative
that's, that's been in a, a community in the last, let's say
5 or 10 years, their perception is either what they see in the
vast majority of, of the TV shows that show it or the
stories they've heard that it, it is a hospital like setting
(38:05):
that smells worse than a hospital.
That's what I heck, before I started work in this industry,
that was the perception I had. So we have to educate them on
what it's really like. And the only way you can do that
is by getting them into one. So a couple ideas that that I've
had for this is to go to where they are and it's not just going
(38:27):
to a career fair, but get involved.
Whether you have a community relations director that's always
focused on bringing in residence.
Well, they can bring in staff, too.
Get involved with the fraternities and sororities and
the service organizations at theuniversities near you.
They all need community service projects.
(38:48):
And yes, they've all done the typical Christmas caroling
during the holidays, but what about the rest of the year?
Get them involved. Come up with a couple activities
where you need a a group of eight or ten kids to come in
there. I'm calling them kids
facetiously because they're younger than me and college kids
(39:09):
fit them in there so they could see the fun that these residents
have. And heck, give them a tour.
It doesn't have to be the tour you would give them if you're
trying to get a potential resident, but walk them through
so they could see some of the fun stuff.
Let them see how nice this placeis.
Let them realize that this is kind of like a four-star resort.
In many instances, that can change the perception.
(39:32):
And if you could do that with one small pod of students,
they're going to tell their friends and then you invite them
back and they start inviting them back.
And we can really change the perception in just a couple
short years. Because the reality jury is we
are in a world of hurt in the next 5 or 10 years in senior
(39:54):
living if we do not create a newpopulation of talent that is
interested in this. That is, it is not just the
person who had their grandma or grandpa that had to go into a
community and that's how they learned about it.
Those stories are not going to cut it and filling the gaps that
we have from a leadership standpoint.
(40:14):
But the college population, not just the near term with like you
said, 13% unemployment. And anecdotally, those that I
know, and these are some pretty smart kids that have gone into
all kinds of different degrees that had all kinds of accolades
in schools, they can't find jobswell, find roles where you can
(40:35):
get them in on a flexible basis,bring them in on a part time
basis where they still have the ability to go interview and you
might be able to keep them. So it is such a ripe environment
to bring in new talent, but first we have to change the
perception, then get them involved and then the magic
might happen. I love that.
(40:56):
That's great insight. I was going to ask you if there
was anything else that you thinkaside from the community's
actually going to the colleges to recruit, if there was
anything else within within the community itself, do you think
actually needs to change to retain this generation?
To retain the generation we currently have or the generation
coming, The generation coming. I truly believe the biggest
(41:18):
thing is perception. I think the financial models, if
you can get, get a college degree grad to come on board,
you have to be able to show thema career path.
You can't just bring them into one role, let's say activities
director, because that's that's a pretty common thing of you
bring someone with light experience in.
You can't just tell them, hey, this is your job.
(41:38):
You have to be able to show thema path of advancement because in
their mind or what they were told by their parents was if you
aren't advancing, you're dying. So you have to be able to show
them the career path. And many organizations are
pretty good at doing that. But for a college kid, they have
to be able to see it in the big picture.
They have to be able to see whata three or five year path looks
(42:01):
like, because without that, they're going to follow the norm
and they're going to be out the door within 18 months.
So if they have that path, they may stick a little bit longer.
If they know that they need to do XY and Z in order to get the
next move, they'll work harder towards that.
The fallacy is that the Gen. X, Gen.
(42:23):
Z, the Gen. A, that they're lazy.
No, you know, I know some prettylazy baby boomers.
I know a lot of lazy Gen. Xers.
So it's not the generation that's lazy, it's the human.
You show someone the right path,you give them the right tools,
you provide them the right resources, you give them a
(42:43):
mentor. You can actually keep them and
you can help them grow within your in your organization.
So beyond tapping into it, beyond changing the perception,
you got to show them that path. Want to talk a little bit about
you and get into some things here just about you and what
motivates you and purpose. I know I mentioned in the intro
(43:04):
about your 24 hour race and how you raised 35,000 for dementia
care, children's hospitals and Crohn's research.
What's the story behind the 24 hour challenge?
Yeah, I mean, so I love running and I know it's hard for some
people to believe, but I, I do, I, I run every single day and
I've loved challenging myself. I'm a big believer and I want to
(43:25):
give back more than I receive. So while I had done a couple
phone fundraiser half marathons for the Crocin Colitis
Foundation, I wanted to figure away where I could impact all
three of the organizations that I care greatly about and that is
the Crohn's and Coles current Foundation.
Because my wife has Crohn's disease and many of our friends
in our circle have it and we want to find a cure.
(43:47):
I might, I, I believe greatly inwhat the Shriners Hospital for
Children does and the impact that they have on kids with so
many different ailments. And obviously in our world of
senior living, I care about about the quality of life of
those living with dementia. I used to say suffering from
dementia and I was corrected by somebody ironically when I did
(44:09):
my 24 hour run that they aren't suffering, they're living.
So you see you sometimes suffer you all the time to live.
So I wanted to try to find a wayof how I could with my
capabilities, how could I do something to raise funds to help
those organizations? And doing a half marathon in my,
my eyes wasn't going to cut it at that time.
(44:31):
I'd already done 5 marathons. So I wasn't going to raise the
needle by anyone of doing that. So I'm like, well, people live
with these diseases 24/7. What if I ran for 24 hours, had
a conversation with my wife whenwe were walking one day and she
goes, that sounds about as crazyas you are.
(44:53):
So I put it to a test to see if I could train myself, talk to
people who had done 24 hour runs, because trust me, I'm not
the first one to do a 24 hour run.
But this body, it was going to be the first time.
And they, they talked to me about the ways to train myself
so that I could successfully do it.
And then it was about sharing mystory, knowing that these
(45:15):
people, whomever they are, are living with the diseases,
whether it is dementia, whether it's Crohn's, whether it's a, a,
a child with a, a cleft lip or a, their left foot is 6 inches
shorter than their right foot. And the sometimes 57 surgeries
they have to go through before they're 18 to get it to normal.
(45:36):
They live with that every day, so if they can do that for one
day, I can suffer a way I know how to suffer.
And that was running. So that story resonated with
people and I not only did it once, but I had so much fun with
it that I did it twice. I did in 2020 and 2022 and
(45:56):
between those two days I was able to raise $35,000 that was
split between those charities. But the the best example of, of
battling through and where my mind really resonated with those
that live with their diseases every day was the second time
that I did the 24 hour run. I started at 8 AMI was going to
(46:19):
finish the next day at 8:00 AM and it was about 3:00 AM.
So I'm, I'm 19 hours and still with five hours to go and I have
excruciating pain in my calf. Well, the reality is this wasn't
a race. This was myself created wild
idea. So I could have stopped and said
(46:40):
that I did enough. But at that time I thought about
those living with dementia. I thought about our friends and
family that that live with Crohn's.
I thought about those kids and I'm like, I need to find a way
where I can continue what I saidI was going to do.
So going back to the old MacGyver show, I MacGyver in my
(47:00):
leg, I put on some sweatpants. I grabbed A roll of duct tape
and I duct taped my ankle from pretty much in my ankle all the
way up through my upper calf tighten up where they could
still breathe, but that I could still move and continue those
those remaining five hours because I was not going to give
up on them because no one was giving up on me.
The people who had donated theirmoney many times when they
(47:23):
didn't have it, but they were inspired by my story.
There is no way I can give up onthem.
So they gave to me. I gave I try to give back more
to them than they. Gave is there plans to do
another? One, according to my wife, no,
because she is my crew chief. So if I'm up for 24 hours, she's
up for 24 hours. But you never know what crazy
(47:44):
idea I might come up with where I can cut through the clutter to
to continue in my crazy way of giving back.
What has that experience taught you about business and
leadership, really? Just so many things.
I really believe being an endurance athlete, whether it's
a half marathon, a 5K, or a marathon or a crazy 24 hour run,
(48:04):
it's made me a better leader. It's made me a better recruiter
because it showed me a variety of things about perseverance,
about consistency. But the biggest thing that I've
learned is that success does notcome when people are watching.
Success comes when no one's watching.
(48:26):
So from a endurance running standpoint, the hundreds of
hours that I put into preparing my body to be ready to complete
the task, very few people see that my family does, but very
few people outside of that do. And recruiting, the many time,
countless hours that we spend inresearch that never gets seen by
(48:50):
our team because if we're in a result oriented business, if we
find them the talent, then they hire them, then they reward us
with where they fee. They don't see everything that
takes to get there. So doing those types of events
have really resonated and reminded me that success comes
from the things that nobody sees.
(49:12):
And how true is that within our industry?
Which leader has to do things that a resident never knows
about? South?
It just it really comes full circle to me.
Yeah, tip of the iceberg, right?You know, you think about all
the hard work and everything that that no one else sees.
Even in my industry, I see it a lot too, because we've been in
business for 2022 years. People, they'll definitely be
(49:35):
envious of the of the path that we've been on and the growth
trajectory we're on. But everybody just sees where
we're at now and they forget that it took 21 years to where
we are now. Yeah, that that that policy of a
of an overnight success, boys that far from the truth for
almost anybody. It's all the years it took, all
the failures that it took to getto the successes that you have.
(49:58):
Exactly. I think my last question for you
is how can leaders show up for their values beyond just a job
description? There's a couple things.
The job description and for thatmatter the resume.
They're pieces of paper. The more that a a senior leader
or a recruiter in our world can understand the why behind a
(50:21):
candidate and as a candidate understand the why behind the
company. Again, not just the worst words
said, but the actions performed.The more they understand that
and the more that they can sharethat between the two, the better
chance for a match. One of the the simplest examples
I could give is a resume is if you're going to create a resume.
(50:45):
Unfortunately, too many companies now are using some
form of automation. I mean, the generic term now is
AI. OK, so they're using some form
of AI, but some form of automation really to screen
resumes out. So you got to make sure that you
were doing things on your resumeto ensure that you actually
don't get screened out, but you get screened in something as
simple as a title. Well, if your title is going
(51:08):
back to one of the our earlier conversations points is CEO and
they're looking for an executivedirector, AI may screen you out.
A talent acquisition person who has 300 resumes to review is
looking for any reason to screenyou out.
They see the title, they think you're overqualified.
So don't use the title your company gave you.
Use the title the industry gives.
(51:30):
That's 1/2 is do not just list duties and responsibilities and
please do not copy and paste thejob description and put that as
your duties and responsibilitiesof your resume.
People. Actually, my goodness gracious,
yes, if you want to be effective, if you want to have a
chance to cut through the clutter beyond what AI will
(51:53):
screen out, you want to give a leader a reason to want to talk
to you. So show your accomplishments in
your achievements. And usually this comes in one of
three forms. How did you make them money?
How do you save them money, or how did you significantly
improve, improve efficiencies? If your resume first describes
(52:14):
what you did in one line and therest of your bullet points were
one of those three things, made a money, save a money, or
approved efficiencies, they're going to want to talk to you.
So show your value beyond what the job description says by what
you've contributed to your previous organization, because
if you've if you've achieved it elsewhere, you might be able to
(52:37):
achieve it for them. And on the flip side to that,
for the company, do not please, again, back to the triple
prayer. Do not just put a job
description on your job posting.And just even more companies do
that than those the resumes thathave job descriptions on the
resume. Yes, it's important that they
(52:58):
understand all the features, butcan't you send that to them, to
the person who who you actually are interested in after the
fact? Give them the why.
Give them the reason why your organization is who they are.
Let them know the opportunities that they have.
Let them know the impact they'regoing to have.
Let them know what they're goingto be doing and a job
(53:20):
description does not tell them what they're doing.
It tells them what you're legally protecting yourself
from. So if a company could do that
and a candidate could do that, there's a greater chance for a
match to happen. That's probably the best tips I
can give on both sides of the coin.
That's. Great, I love that.
That's such good insight, Chris.Thank you so much for such a
great conversation. I really appreciate it.
(53:40):
Hey. Thank you so much, Jerry.
You're a great, great interviewer.
Thank you, thank you. Where can our audience go to
learn more about Westport One orconnect with you directly?
Sure. In terms of our organization, I,
I am the the order of the owner of the organization and we have
3 disciplines. I have recruiters and a couple
others beyond senior living. So our website
simplywestport1withthe1spelledout.comin terms of, of connecting with
(54:02):
me more, the greatest resource for that is LinkedIn.
So it's Chris Hines, HEI and Z like the ketchup.
I'm one of the few out there, the only one out there that's a
recruiter. So I'm pretty easy to find and I
try to share content on a regular basis, either stories
like we've we've had here, some thought provoking questions or
some insight that I've gained inindustry and beyond.
(54:23):
I don't believe in just talking about what we do from an
industry standpoint as a recruiter because we're human
beings. So I try to share, Andy, some of
my thoughts beyond just the wonderful world of recruiting or
the wonderful senior living world.
OK, great. Yeah, We'll make sure we put all
that in the show. All right, So as we wrap up
(54:44):
today's episode, I want to extend a huge thank you to you,
Chris Hines, for joining us and sharing your perspective on
building stronger, more intentional leadership across
the senior living space. From building talent pipelines
and fixing broken comp structures to rethinking who we
recruit and why, this conversation highlights what's
possible when we prioritize leadership development the way
we prioritize care. So if you want to connect with
(55:06):
Chris or learn more about Westport One and their work in
executive recruitment, we've included his LinkedIn and the
company's links in the show notes.
As always, we hope you found this episode insightful and
inspiring. And don't forget to subscribe to
our podcast on your favorite platform.
And stay tuned for more episodeswhere we continue to explore the
evolving world of senior care, covering everything from
innovative care models and leadership strategies to family
(55:29):
support technology in the futureof aging.
And also remember that From Leads to Leases isn't just an
audio experience. We're also a video podcast.
So if you want to see the video versions of our episodes like
the one here with Chris, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube
or Spotify channels. I'm Jerry Vinci, CEO of CCR
growth. Thank you for joining us on From
Leads to Leases. Please like, subscribe and share
(55:49):
this episode with anyone who might find it useful.
I'm truly grateful for your timeand attention.
And until next time, lead with strategy and with heart.
Chat with you again soon. Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. Thanks for listening to From
Leads to Leases. Are you ready to fill your rooms
faster and increase occupancy? Visit ccrgrowth.com to learn
(56:09):
about our Senior Growth Innovation Suite, a proven
system to generate highly qualified tour ready leads,
accelerate sales and reduce acquisition costs.
Let's connect and turn your challenges into opportunities.
See you next time.
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