Looking to build trust and satisfaction among senior living residents?

Focus on adding value through meaningful, unexpected experiences.

When it comes to attracting and retaining senior living residents, whether you own or operate an active independent living community, an assisted living community, memory care or other type of senior housing, ensuring residents are satisfied and feel a sense of trust is essential. To those of us who understand the industry, this seems obvious. What isn’t quite as obvious is how to get there. How do we gain the trust of the seniors we serve? And what can we do to ensure senior housing residents are satisfied, if not delighted, in the place they call home?

Building trust and satisfaction starts with building for engagement.

When designing and building a senior living community, it’s essential to think not only of the practicalities necessary for the structure to serve the needs of residents best. It’s vital also to consider how your facility can provide for what residents want, particularly how senior living residents want to engage with the facility. We’re talking about value-added experiences. These are opportunities to delight and surprise residents with activities and inclusion that exceed their expectations. It also builds a sense of purpose among residents and relationships between staff and seniors.

If you currently operate a senior living community and are considering renovations or are planning to build a new senior housing facility, taking the extra step now to strategize about how to build in value-added experiences allows you to work with your design and build team early in the process. What that looks like can vary greatly, but understanding the needs and wants of your specific target market is the first step to figuring out how to grow your community’s value-added experiences. If building new, market research may help you clarify options. If renovating, gathering input from current residents can define your directions.

How to create value-added experiences in senior living

Senior housing leaders and other industry insiders approach adding value to the resident experience from various angles. Here are a few examples of how senior living communities are innovating memorable, value-added experiences.

• Cultural events that are part learning opportunity and part celebration can be especially valued. One independent living facility recently hosted a Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead festival, a Mexican tradition of celebrating those who have passed on. The celebration included traditional foods and activities, and residents and staff could learn about the celebration’s history. Later, they held a Japanese-themed party that included sushi-making. The combo of a memorable experience that allows people to learn something new and fun can be especially powerful.
• Consider turning simple everyday activities into something extraordinary.
  • If culinary staff are already keeping an onsite garden, you may want to enlist the help of volunteer residents to help plant, nurture and harvest. Residents and kitchen staff can enjoy time together, forging strong relationships and building community. Best of all, residents’ menus can feature the food grown onsite. One facility hosts a resident farmers market once a week. Residents who keep their own garden plots can sell produce to each other, with proceeds benefitting a special cause.
  • If residents gather for football on Sundays, it’s possible to turn that into an event with prizes, games, staff in jerseys and more.
• Brainstorm ways to incorporate an element of surprise into events and gatherings. When you surprise and delight residents as well as employees, you can achieve better engagement and make a more memorable experience.
• Engage residents and give them a sense of purpose by including them in the planning. Some facilities engage residents by providing cooking or other demonstrations that the residents can even take part in.

The key, of course, is to be certain that the value-added experiences you are providing are what your senior residents want. Some facilities measure senior satisfaction via an app or other technology. The feedback they get helps staff know if they are meeting expectations or how they can improve.

Building satisfaction starts with having the right building in place

Adding value to your residents’ experiences doesn’t necessarily have to cost a lot of money. Yet adding meaning, surprise, and engaging opportunities does require an innovative and creative spirit when planning. Having the right facility in place can make all the difference. When you’re ready to build community spaces to grow trust and satisfaction in your senior living community, our design and build experts can help. Our team has deep expertise in designing flexible, innovative, and multifunctional spaces so you can make the most of your senior living environment. Contact us to get started, and together, we’ll build more than a senior living community; we’ll help you build relationships with your residents.