When people talk about the coming surge in aging Americans, they usually talk about buildings. The conversation is almost always about capacity, and capacity matters. But buildings do not staff themselves, and the workforce conversation has been narrowed to a single role.
We talk about caregivers, and we should. But we rarely talk about the chefs, dining teams, accountants, HR professionals, activities directors and frontline leaders who make a community function. That is the gap I want to name.
Senior living does not only have a caregiving crisis. It has a much broader workforce crisis, and the industry is still preparing for only part of it. Ziegler, a specialty investment bank and advisory firm serving the senior living and healthcare sectors, reports an average annual workforce turnover rate of 35.4 percent.
Dining staff turnover sits at 40 percent, while registered nurse turnover is at 40.8 percent. Those numbers tell a story most industry conversations miss. The roles people leave fastest are not only the clinical ones.
They are the hospitality roles, the entry-level roles, and the roles that too many organizations treat as replaceable rather than developmental. I believe the industry cannot hire its way out of this. Job postings, signing bonuses, recruitment events.
Those tactics move individuals, not systems. What changes outcomes is whether people see a future here. Whether a dishwasher can see a path to line cook, a line cook to sous chef, a certified nursing assistant (CNA) to licensed practical nurse (LPN) to registered nurse (RN), or an administrative assistant to a role in payroll or HR with the right training and qualifications.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
