Maggie Gerardi understands the impact of investing in her team. Executive Directors, team leaders, Superintendents, and small business owners, this podcast is for you. Director of Whitcomb Terrace Assisted Living in Aspen Colorado, Maggie took CST and was so inspired that she invited her team of 12 to apply, and then supported them as they worked together to cover each other’s shifts so that each person could attend the 3-day class.
Shara Brice, OCL – Colorado Chapter Leader says, “The Whitcomb Terrace team use their CST skills to ensure that each resident knows that they matter, as they extend the gift of listening to all those entrusted to their care. The staff also practice truly human leadership with each other, to ensure that they communicate well. Whether she’s at work, or at the soccer fields, cheering on her sons, Maggie is the message and is a valued, inspirational leader in our community.”
AI-generated dictation of the podcast audio
Please note that this transcription was completed using AI software. Occasionally, unanticipated grammatical, syntax, homophones, and other interpretive errors are inadvertently transcribed by the software. Please excuse any errors that have escaped final proofreading.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the OCL podcast. Our vision is to create people centered leaders at home, at work and in our communities who lead through the powerful lens of empathetic listening. Our podcasts will help refresh your skills and sharpen your tools as we do the important work of truly human leadership together.
Adam Salgat:
Hello and welcome to the Our Community Listens podcast. I’m Adam Salgat and on this podcast, we’re going to shake things up a little bit. We are extremely excited to share our first interview segment with the director of a business that is fully embracing truly human leadership. In the upcoming conversation, you will hear the director talk about how this helped the business, increased employee satisfaction, saved her time and bit by bit, start changing the world. Take it away, Leanne.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Well, I’m Leanne VanBeek and I’m here today with Maggie Gerardi who is the director of Whitcomb Terrace Assisted Living out in Aspen, Colorado. Maggie, I am thrilled to have you with us today.
Maggie Gerardi:
Leanne, thanks so much for having me.
Leanne Vanbeek:
For those of you who are listening, Maggie is on board with us today to share a pretty powerful story about some organizational transformation that she has seen within her staff team since she took the class of OCL in Aspen in the summer of 2015. She has about a 15 member staff team out at Whitcomb And I’ve asked her if she would just share maybe briefly with us a little bit about Whitcomb so the listeners have an understanding of that environment and that team dynamic.
Maggie Gerardi:
Absolutely. So we have a 15 resident assisted living community here in our resort town of Aspen, which in and of itself, is unique. As you said, Leanne, we have 15 different staff members who work here. Now, obviously, they don’t all work here simultaneously, but since we are open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day and caring for our residents, we need somebody here at all times and we have different staff who perform different duties from chefs, to housekeepers, to maintenance staff, to activities planners, and direct care providers and overnight care providers. So we always have several different people here meeting the residents’ needs.
Leanne Vanbeek:
I have to imagine, Maggie, that with a staff team that’s working around the clock in a lot of specialty areas that you probably have a different type of diversity there in terms of the types of employees who comprise your team.
Maggie Gerardi:
Absolutely. We have men and women from different backgrounds, different skillsets, and they work different shifts. So they’re not always here together at the same time. Being able to really establish a culture and set forth an expectation of what our mission and values and vision and communication style are here for our employees can be challenging when everyone doesn’t get to see each other day in and day out.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Maggie, I’m really curious. What inspired you to take OCL yourself and go through that kind of three-day class? Then what was motivating for you about having your entire team go through?
Maggie Gerardi:
Absolutely. So I had heard from various different members throughout our community here, the wonderful things about this program and the things that they had experienced in their departments, in their workplaces and just everyone was raving about this. I said, “I want to be a part of that.” I spoke with Shera Bryce, our local contact here and I said, “I definitely would love to be a part of this program.” I said, “If at all possible, I would really love to have my entire team.” Obviously, they couldn’t participate all at the same time, but if we could have two people at each session, and it could take six plus months, but if we could have everyone do that so that everyone heard and understood the same message, it was from a different expert, from someone other than right here in our workplace, but someone else who is providing this message, and then we continue to talk about it here at our home workplace and all the benefits it’s providing and really say these skills that we’ve learned are part of who we’re going to become.
It was really amazing, Leanne, to see each month as more people attended, more people were experiencing that enthusiasm and energy that I had heard from people in the community that made me want to participate in the first place. So it was really beneficial here because the staff members couldn’t wait to go and participate because they were hearing and they were seeing about this amazing transformation that each person had received. So they couldn’t help, but share with their teammates some of the ideas that they would be provided at the program, but for them to be able to then really go and learn and experience them for themselves was truly amazing and truly a gift that the organization has provided for us.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Well, we are grateful to have people who are so inspired and keep sharing the message. I think it’s beautiful the way that you kind of approach that with your team, letting them go and really kind of start that ripple effect. I’m fascinated that you had such a positive, but just I’m getting the picture of like just waves, right?
Maggie Gerardi:
Yeah.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Every month, a new wave of people coming back and sharing more energy back into the organization and just what a cool dynamic that must’ve been for you, even as the leader to just be able to observe?
Maggie Gerardi:
Absolutely. I think so often, as I said before with different shifts and different people coming from different backgrounds, so often, communicating the message of what new regulations we have to abide by or new policies or this, that, or the other, so often, everything I’m bringing forth is informative. Even when I do bring things to our staff meetings, ideas for growth, it’s still something that’s coming from me. To be able to give them something where they feel that they’re having this gift of career growth for three full days outside of the workplace and from a different team of experts was in and of itself, really amazing. I’ve always said to all of them, “You have to spend a large part of your life at work,” and to not really be fully enjoying that, it’s really not possible for people to go through life that way and not really loving what they’re doing and particularly in our environment where it can be exhausting when you’re spending eight plus hours of your day giving fully of yourself; your empathy, your compassion. Physically, emotionally giving to other people all day every day can be challenging.
Leanne Vanbeek:
I am curious, it’s a significant investment on your part leading the organization to pay people’s time, to let them be gone for three days, to come up with the staff coverage. Can you talk a little bit about what specifically has inspired you to jump that hurdle? Because that’s a real business cost for a lot of organizations.
Maggie Gerardi:
Absolutely. I really just think having that harmony and really having everyone receive the same message and be on the same page and really make almost kind of a rededication to their here and letting everyone know that, “I’ve heard so many great things about this program. I’m going to go attend it first and let you all know what I think,” and of course, I immediately bought in because there are so many gems that were given in this three days. This was coming from a communications major in college and someone who I’ve been in this organization 17 years and with my position, attended many communication courses and how to deal with many different types of behaviors and challenges and how to collaborate with others. This was different. It was on more of a personal level. The thought of yes, three days, especially when we do have a small team and we do have to staff 24 hours a day, it was overwhelming to think, “Oh my goodness. How are we going to do this?”
But I said, “We have to come up with a way, and you all have to trust me that this is worth it. When you attend this banquet on the final evening, you will realize what an amazing benefit you have been given. Then when each of you attend this and you all have that common language, the common skills, so that even though we have someone who’s in maintenance working with someone who’s doing activities or someone who’s in the kitchen working with someone who’s doing direct care, there’s more of a sense of understanding of the differences in personalities and why someone might be doing something from one approach when you do it from another approach and think, ‘Well, I just don’t don’t understand.'”
This allows people to really understand that it’s okay to have different strengths and personalities and for us to do things in different ways as long as we all still have that same mission and vision of providing the best care to our residents and making this the best home for them, as well as the second piece being having this be the best workplace for all of you having this not only feel like home to our residents, but having this feel like home to all of you.
Leanne Vanbeek:
So I guess I’m also curious too, one of the things that I think we hear people ask about is, “Does this content really only work in one kind of culture?” Or, “Is it something that actually can, maybe to a certain extent, transcend and help us to connect?” I’m wondering if you could even speak to how that maybe has played into with the diversity of your team.
Maggie Gerardi:
I think that building upon that commonality, that common language, the common skills, having people really be able to understand the different types of communication skills and coming at things with a level of empathy and compassion and customer service, and that really transcends cultures and classes, if you want to say that. This could apply to anyone. I think for particularly for people coming from different backgrounds and different areas, if everyone could take these communication skills and apply them really, throughout our entire community and having that continue to grow, it would make, perhaps it sounds trite, but it really would make an amazing impact, not just on our small community here as we already know it has, but in our larger Aspen community, in our town being that down Valley.
I’ve even encountered speaking with people in the community and they’ll immediately say, “You attended OCL, didn’t you?” And I’ll say, “How did you know that?” And they said, “I can just tell by the way you communicate.” And I’ll say, “That really is amazing. We share that commonality, don’t we?” As more and more people attend to this, more and more people are understanding and sharing and applying those skills. I think it really makes a positive impact.
Leanne Vanbeek:
I love that story and it actually segues into something else that I’ve been wanting to ask you about, which it’s kind of along the lines of, are you finding any kind of stories of things that are happening within your employee team? I’ll kind of preface this by saying one thing I’ve noticed is that as my team has gotten more comfortable with the skills and really living it out day to day, it’s not uncommon that someone will say, “Hey, Leanne. I need to meet with you on Thursday. We need to have an effective confrontation.”
Maggie Gerardi:
Wow.
Leanne Vanbeek:
It’s actually something that I’ve grown to, I will say, grown to love because I think I know the intentionality that they have probably put into thinking about what they want that conversation to be like and that they’ve taken time to probably stop and assess my tendencies and they’re going to come in with empathy and it actually, it takes all the tension right out of it for me. I actually looked forward to the conversation and figuring out like, “What am I going to find out from them?” But I’m just curious, as you think about kind of how team is starting to interact, do you find that anything has kind of caught hold with them just maybe stories that they share with each other or certain parts of the content that just seemed to have really helped your team as a whole?
Maggie Gerardi:
I think ultimately, they have built a really strong rapport within our workplace and really positive, true relationships with one another and a real desire to understand and connect with each other with that empathy always in mind. As the director and working prior to this program, working with so many different people on different shifts with different backgrounds and they didn’t necessarily have those relationships, when there were conflicts before, they didn’t necessarily feel as comfortable talking to one another directly when they encountered issues. So I was often playing a mediator role and this program really empowered them to be able to problem-solve independently together.
So rather than kind of spending my day with them helping them know how to solve their interpersonal issues, they now will just be able to sit down with one another. Instead of coming to me saying, “Hey, could the three or four of us sit down together and talk this through?” they will actually approach one another directly. That has been an absolutely amazing transformation to see. If you see anyone else who’s in the workplace, in a leadership type role, I’m sure everyone would say, “Yes, a large portion of my time is spent kind of trying to help field these interpersonal situations.” If those same people thought, “What? You can actually not have to do that on a regular basis? People can solve those problems on their own?” that in and of itself should make everyone want to be really running and taking this course.
Leanne Vanbeek:
That is a huge, huge benefit that I think you’re hitting on there, both for a true interpersonal people centered vision, but there’s a very practical business perspective to that too, in terms of how much time can we spend on our actual day-to-day business, as opposed to having to kind of sidebar and step over and do that work? So I love that you’re seeing that kind of environment really spread out throughout the team. I think that will resonate with others who may be in leadership roles listening to the podcast trying to think about, how can this become something that is effective them as well?
Maggie Gerardi:
Absolutely.
Leanne Vanbeek:
So Maggie, I might want to kind of continue on that theme a little bit here of kind of the business perspective of this as well because I think we all sort of intuitively grasp the people benefits to this. We’ve talked a lot about the wholeness and the health that it’s bringing to your employees individually and to the team and to the residents by default getting to be in that environment, but I am curious. Have you done anything to look at what your employee satisfaction has been like since everyone’s been through the training or your turnover rates? Just anything along those lines that you think you’ve noticed a difference with that you think maybe partially attributed to working with this program?
Maggie Gerardi:
Definitely. Our turnover rates are so low. I’ve been here 17 years and the majority of our folks have been here at least 10. Three years ago when we took this program, and we did have a few who might not have continued on, and I really believe that this program gave them the skills they needed to figure out how to become more satisfied in their workplace and with their coworkers. When people come here, Leanne, in this long-term care industry, anyone who’s experienced that with a loved one, and so many people these days have, one of the biggest things that people are fearful of when putting a loved one in an assisted living or a long-term care community is they’ll say, “I felt like it was impersonal. I felt like it was a warehouse. You never see the same people over and over. It’s always someone different. How can they know those unique nuances about my mom.”
People literally will leave here with a, “How do I get my my mom in here tomorrow,” mentality when they see the kindness and compassion and empathy from our staff toward each other, toward the residents and when they really hear about our non-existent turnover rate and the satisfaction of our staff. We did have a survey actually, probably six months ago, and it was 98% satisfaction rates.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Wow.
Maggie Gerardi:
Right. It’s amazing. Many places would have a goal of 70% and if they reached that, then maybe then the following year, maybe they’d say 73%. For us, to basically be starting after this program with a 98%, and we’ve maintained that every year.
Leanne Vanbeek:
So this might be a little difficult for you to actually pinpoint. I know I’m possibly asking you to be intuitive here, but when you look at that 98% satisfaction rate, we obviously know a lot of factors can go into that and probably the skeptics in us are saying, “Well, there’s got to be other things you were doing at the same time,” but intuitively, I guess how much do you think partnering with OCL was really what had the impact on that score?
Maggie Gerardi:
Oh, gosh. The level of growth that it has given us is by and far certainly, 80 plus percent of that, has allowed for that staff retention. Certainly from a business perspective, the amount of dollars saved in hiring and training has been dramatic. I regularly get questions as to, “How do you do this? How do you do this?” particularly in an industry where people do get exhausted.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Yes.
Maggie Gerardi:
My people have learned through OCL, my team has learned how to take care of one another and take care of themselves. That is what makes the difference with employee satisfaction.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Maggie, this is just amazing. I can only imagine how many people may be listening to this and taking notes and how many people may be emailing me asking for your phone number or your email address to be able to reach out to you directly. So I really appreciate that. I’m wondering if there’s anything that you would like to maybe share with kind of the alumni audience at large, but particularly those who may be in leadership roles, leading a team of people, leading an entire organization, just any thoughts or advice that you would have that might be unique to where you sit within your organization.
Maggie Gerardi:
I really think that what has added so much success to our system here and how we’ve continued having the OCL mindset here is the regular conversations about it. Any time, if we do hire on a new employee, that person goes through the program also so that they can be on the same page and really understand our culture here. For everyone to be able to connect on that level and share that mindset, share the importance of the relationships that we have here, we see it. We see it day in and day out in the amazing workplace that we have been able to create and sustain with the skills that we have received from the OCL program.
I would encourage any leader to take this on and continue with the conversation and the training. OCL provides ongoing training to really keep up on those skills and hone those skills and take advantage of that and keep the conversation going and set forth the expectations that, “This is how we communicate in our culture,” and for everyone to have it really streamlined for everyone to know and understand and utilize the skills. You’ll see the difference.
Leanne Vanbeek:
Maggie, is there anything else that you would like to add before we close today?
Maggie Gerardi:
I would really love to take the opportunity, Leanne, to say thank you to the amazingly generous gifts that Bob and Cynthia Chapman have given to my team and to the Aspen community here. It’s beyond any other amazing communication training that anyone could receive. To be able to give that simply from an altruistic vision is unheard of, and for Shera Bryce and the other professors here in Aspen who are leading the way in really transforming our community, I just want to say, thank you. You are making such a difference and such a positive impact in our community. We are so grateful for what you have given us and the life here at work that you have given to my team and to my residents. Thank you for all you do from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker 1:
You’ve just listened to the OCL podcast. Thank you for joining us. For additional resources and engagement opportunities, find us on Facebook at OCL Michigan Alumni, or OurCommunityListens.org.