by Tom Ratcliff

What makes any corporation sustainable, enviable, and, of course, profitable? In the past, it was the CEO’s duty to match products and services with customers and magically the revenue dollars would flow in. All he or she needed to do was hire bodies to do the menial tasks and a management crew to keep the workers on their toes. With a seemingly inexhaustible number of prospective employees to choose from there should never be any reason not to maximize profits and keep the senior executives and shareholders “fat and happy”.

But, where did it all go wrong for some companies? How can any corporation invest millions of dollars in infrastructure, capital equipment, hire hundreds if not thousands of employees to do the work, and still be failing miserably or fall well behind the competition?

Dwayne Clark founder and CEO of Aegis Living pondered that question years ago – What really can make an organization exceptional? He studied corporations across the globe trying to determine why certain companies were exceedingly successful and others were not? Dwayne noticed that Costco and Starbucks both were exceptionally successful companies. All you had to do was ask one of their employees and they would tell you how happy they were with the company and applauded its management style.

Dwayne decided when he built Aegis Living that his major investment would be in his employees. He developed from the ground up a new and effective Employee Advocacy Model for recruiting, training, retaining and nurturing his employees.

As a measure of Dwayne’s commitment to his employees he created the Potato Soup Foundation. Dwayne drew on his boyhood experiences and started this wonderful foundation to support Aegis Living employees should they ever experience a period of extreme need.  Because there was a time in Dwayne’s childhood when all there was to eat for the week were several potatoes and an onion, his mother encouraged Dwayne to never forget his roots no matter how successful he might become. Those valuable experiences and lessons from his past became the foundation for Dwayne’s incredibly successful journey in the business world.

Some companies hire new employees without concerns for their compatibility with team members or their aptitude to relate to their customers (in Aegis Living’s case senior residents who provide the revenue life blood of the company). Dwayne’s philosophy is to hire ONLY employees who demonstrate wholesomeness towards their co-workers and a high degree of empathy and understanding for their senior residents.

Aegis Living has a very low industry employee turnover rate because the employees love working there. Every Aegis Living manager’s first responsibility is to be an “Advocate” for their employees. Managers get to know their employees on a personal level. If an employee has a problem it is Aegis Living’s philosophy to help the employee resolve the issue and return to a more stress free life.

Every year Aegis Living’s Annual Corporate meeting, EPIC, isn’t about celebrating their financial successes or discussing the latest business strategies. According to Dwayne Clark, “At EPIC, we don’t spend time discussing our business, instead we turn the meeting around to focus on our staff. Through a combination of outstanding speakers and team building exercises we make the three-day event all about them and how they can better fulfill themselves.” Its Dwayne’s belief that first you must take care of yourself before you can properly take care of others.

Happy employees make for a happy environment. Aegis Living senior residents (who make their home in Aegis Living communities) are some of the happiest and most pampered residents in the senior care industry.

Dwayne Clark and his senior executives have to be admired for the revolutionary approach they took to successfully build a sustainable, enviable, and, of course, profitable corporation. What they have accomplished should be a model for any organization that sincerely wants to both value their employees as much if not more than their customers.

For more information on Aegis Living, please visit their website.

by Kristin Sullivan

Two former executives from senior care provider Comfort Keepers have founded a new senior care company that provides professional, non-medical, live-in and hourly care services to seniors.

FirstLight, headed by Jeff Bevis and former Comfort Keepers CEO Allen Riggs, looks to fill a void in home care, a segment of the senior care market that is growing rapidly. Currently, there are 17,000 providers in the $52 billion industry, they say.

“The demand for services continues to increase and franchise systems and independents alike continue to pop up,” says Bevis, the new president and CEO of FirstLight. “However, the field remains wide open with no single company holding even one percent market share.”

The vast majority of home care providers are local independents, Bevis says. According to estimates, however, more than 90 percent offer either skilled care exclusively, or select non-medical care in combination with skilled-care services, creating a fragmented “mom-and-pop” environment in markets across the country. No single brand, company or other organization has emerged as a service leader on a national scale, he says.

“We feel the opportunity for market leadership is a position that no one owns nor has commanding consumer awareness to achieve,” Bevis said. “Our operating model incorporates the strongest traits and benefits from our collective experience both in and out of franchising to create what we believe is a franchise system like no other in senior care.”

FirstLight launched in December, and Bevis expects to be operating at least a dozen franchises open by the end of 2010 and another 60 open within the next three years.

“The experience we bring in leading FirstLight puts us in a different category from all other senior care franchisors,” Bevis says. “We understand the ‘talk’ and understand the ‘walk’ but our success-proven approach is in our ability to execute and build a company we all believe in.”

Large home care companies such as FirstLight are likely the next phase of home care nationwide. Non-medical home care is acknowledged by many as the fastest-growing service across the many spectrums of home care, Bevis says. The U.S. Census bureau projects that by 2030, baby boomers ages 66 to 84 will make up about 20 percent of the U.S. population.

“We are convinced we can make a difference in the lives of our franchisees, and equally as important, in the lives of the seniors, families and local communities we serve,” Bevis says.

For more information on FirstLight, please visit their website.

by Kristin Sullivan

At Hope Meadows, an extraordinary, innovative community that integrates three generations, seniors find new meaning in retirement.

Located in Illinois, Hope Meadows is an intergenerational community for families adopting children out of the foster care system. So what role do seniors play? They’re able to move into the neighborhood at a reduced rental rate in exchange for six hours of volunteer time with the children every week.

“Hope Meadows was originally conceived as a community to support families adopting children out of the foster care system,” explains Brenda Krause Eheart, the founder of the community. “It is located on a decommissioned Air Force base, and the large houses can accommodate families adopting three, four, five or more children. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for harder-to-place older children to find permanent homes, and for sibling groups to be adopted together.

“Senior living was added when we were blessed with more housing than we had originally requested,” she continues. “I did not want to double the number of families with children, because the purpose was to be a small, supportive neighborhood. What started out as almost an afterthought became the key to the community’s success. Our seniors get reduced rent in exchange for six hours per week of volunteer time with the children. They call living at Hope Meadows ‘retirement with a purpose,’ and they are integrally involved in the lives of those children on almost a daily basis. The children call them ‘Grandma Irene,’ ‘Grandpa Earl,’ etc. and all three generations support one another in a loving, extended family.”

Kids benefit from having a large group of supportive adults who care about them, and for seniors, the benefits are tangible too.

“Living at Hope Meadows not only gives seniors a sense of purpose, it gives them peace of mind,” Eheart says. “They feel safe in the neighborhood; they feel loved and needed; they feel a sense of community. Most of them visit with a neighbor at least once a week, and over a third say they visit with someone else at least once a day!

“We’ve surveyed the seniors and almost all say that volunteer work with the children makes them feel as if they are making a difference,” Eheart adds. “It’s the seniors – even the frail elderly – whose support and care make the adoptions work, and that gives them tremendous satisfaction and enjoyment in their last years. Perhaps the most important thing for our seniors is that they know they have people they can call on. Ninety-eight percent reported that they know someone in the neighborhood would help them whenever they needed it. That’s a remarkable number, 98 percent.”

For the kids, many of whom had little to no family support before coming to Hope Meadows, having a neighborhood full of honorary grandparents changes their lives.

“The seniors make all the difference for these kids, all the difference,” Eheart says. “We have wonderful adoptive parents who have opened their hearts wider than anyone you will ever meet, but they are only human. They can only do so much, especially with four or five children, some of whom have special needs or have suffered trauma. It’s the seniors that make the difference – helping with homework, playing games, reinforcing good values and sometimes just listening. The kids do better in school, get along better with their siblings and peers, and have great hope for their future. I am very proud that every child raised at Hope Meadows through their teens year has graduated from high school, and all those still there are on track to graduate.”

Eheart is working to expand the model to other places, but in the meantime, other senior living providers can consider making similar opportunities available to their residents.

“Seniors can provide so much support, love and attention to help vulnerable populations integrate successfully into society,” Eheart says. “From active retirees to the frail elderly, and everyone in between, there are so many seniors who would love the chance to live in a close-knit, multi-generational community and to make a difference in the lives of those facing a difficult challenge.”

For more information on Hope Meadows, please visit their website.