Brightview, Summit Vista Again Top Best Workplaces in Aging Services List

Brightview Senior Living and Summit Vista have again come out on top in the annual Best Workplaces in Aging Services list.

The list, now in its fourth year, ranks the top aging services workplaces among 25 large senior housing and care providers and 25 small- and medium-sized senior housing and care providers.

The list is published in Fortune and is assembled by Activated Insights, which is based out of the Great Place to Work corporate campus in San Francisco.

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This is Baltimore-based Brightview’s third year at the top of the pile among large senior housing providers, while Summit Vista — a life plan community based in Taylorsville, Utah — is the no. 1 small- and medium-sized senior housing provider for the second year in a row.

Both providers have worked to make employee satisfaction a top priority over the past 18 months. For Brightview, the accolade comes as a “tremendous honor,” according to CEO Marilynn Duker.

“We have always believed we must first be a Great Place to Work if we are also going to be a ‘great place to live,’ but what that looked like changed and evolved over the course of the pandemic,” Duker said in a statement provided by Activated Insights. “We are humbled that our associates felt valued and that they trusted us to do the right things for them and our residents.”

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Summit Vista is “honored to be recognized as one of the top companies in this industry,” said CEO Mark Erickson.

“Over the last 18 months, we have seen a significant increase in the number of residents referring family members and friends to Summit Vista,” Erickson said. “When we ask them why, they universally say that it is because of the experiences and interactions with our employees.”

Here is the top 10 list for both senior housing categories:

Large:

1. Brightview Senior Living

2. Carlton Senior Living

3. Senior Living Properties

4. Holiday Retirement

5. Silverado

6. Trilogy Health Services

7. WesleyLife

8. The Springs Living

9. Vi

10. Sunrise Senior Living

Small/medium:

1. Summit Vista

2. Embrace Living Communities

3. Legacy Healthcare

4. Wesley Enhanced Living

5. Careline Health Group

6. Carol Woods Retirement Community

7. Vicar’s Landing

8. Sun Health

9. Casey’s Pond

10. Mather

This year’s report includes responses from 220,000 senior housing and at-home care workers. They responded to more than 60 survey questions describing the extent to which their organization creates a “Great Place to Work for all.”

Participating companies were required to meet the minimum standards of becoming Great Place to Work-certified.

Repeat success

Brightview CEO Duker credits the company’s repeated successes to several different initiatives.

The past year has been a “year of wellness” for the company’s associates, according to Duker. The company implemented a “roadmap to mental wellness” as a framework for identifying and responding to pandemic stress. Working with its employee assistance partner BHS, Brightview sent counselors onsite to all 42 of its communities so that associates could meet with them or take part in support groups.

“The term ‘it’s ok to not be ok’ is said frequently throughout the company,” Duker said.

Additional wellness initiatives included guided meditation sessions and a spring wellness campaign to promote mental and emotional wellbeing.

Brightview also for the third year in a row waived its associates’ health care premiums during a “premium holiday” in December. And, the company decreased the associate-paid portion of its health care premiums by 6.5% for 2021.

Other ways Brightview promoted employee satisfaction included holding employee appreciation events with raffles, prizes and food; holding frequent check-ins and providing opportunities for feedback through an employee engagement app; and assembling a task force of associate volunteers to promote fairness and diversity in internal promotions and leadership roles.

“We are humbled that our associates felt valued and that they trusted us to do the right things for them and our residents,” Duker added. “We are so deeply grateful to them for the commitment and effort they put forth to keep one another and our residents as safe, healthy and happy as possible during this last difficult year.”

Summit Vista has had a similar focus on employee satisfaction in the past. In particular, the company holds weekly 15-minute all-staff stand-up meetings that serve to celebrate the life plan community’s mission and culture, according to CEO Erickson.

“We always start with ‘mission moments,’ little stories shared by any employee that represent our mission and values,” Erickson said. “People want purpose, and these stories help connect the jobs that we do every day with the bigger picture and impact that we are having on people’s lives.”

Summit Vista has worked throughout the pandemic to boost employee morale through creative ways, such as by hiring a food truck to sling waffles for employees or by changing the community’s scheduling approach to more adequately fit workers’ needs and wants.

“Our culture starts with our leadership … and how we make employees feel,” Summit Vista HR Director Tineka Hardwrick told SHN in 2020. “We’re like a family here.”

This year’s Best Workplaces list comes against a backdrop of labor challenges that have only been exacerbated by the pandemic and its challenges. Senior living companies have attempted to overcome these challenges by instilling purpose in employees — or, more recently, by offering them a stake in the company. Regardless of where the solution lies, these challenges lay bare how important it is for senior living providers to make their workplaces attractive for prospective workers.

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