After Kent’s Exit from Brookdale, Bowman Brings ‘Micro-Focus’ to Ground-Level Ops

Last year, Brookdale Senior Living (NYSE: BKD) President of Senior Living Operations Cindy Kent resigned from the company. Kevin Bowman quickly stepped in to fill the gap as executive vice president of community operations.

Bowman — who joined Brookdale in 2016 as regional vice president of operations — is an industry veteran, with a career that spans about 30 years and includes time spent at Sunrise Senior Living and a handful of other senior care organizations. Bowman came to Brookdale by way of Vista Cove Senior Living in Southern California, where he worked as COO between 2014 and 2016.

As EVP of community operations, Bowman’s task is to take a “micro focus” on the ins and outs of the Brentwood, Tennessee-based operator’s 680 communities throughout the United States. He takes the reins at a particularly crucial time for both Brookdale and for the larger senior living industry, as 2022 shapes up to be a year of occupancy recovery and rate growth.

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Staffing remains a big unknown, and as the nation’s largest senior living operator, Brookdale will need to hire and staff communities at scale, balancing the need to offer attractive jobs with the need to grow revenue and margin amid a higher cost of doing business. Overall, the company faces a defining year in 2022.

Still, Brookdale has in recent months made good progress on its recovery plan, with a fine-tuned portfolio, restructured leases and a stronger liquidity profile than when the pandemic started. And Bowman says he’s “never been more excited about the outlook ahead” for the company in 2022, mirroring the recent optimism of CEO Cindy Baier.

“[We are focusing on] continuing to grow our occupancy amidst the recovery, focusing on rate adherence and maintaining good rates, and working through the challenges with the workforce and continuing to reduce turnover,” Bowman told Senior Housing News.

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Priorities for 2022

As EVP, Bowman underpins the company’s operations and works with the company’s divisional and senior leaders to assist its communities. Compared with his predecessor Kent — who came to Brookdale in 2019 by way of 3M — Bowman said his duties will focus more on ground-level operations.

“With the focus and the necessity of our recovery and so much effort being placed into our communities, picking someone who has ‘been there, done that’ was helpful,” Bowman said. “It was just the right time to … transition that role into one with more of a micro focus on community operations.”

At top of mind for Bowman is occupancy, which is an area the company has made consistent progress on. Brookdale’s recovery efforts have so far culminated in 10 consecutive months of occupancy growth, ending the month of December at 74.5% average occupancy. December also marked the first time since 2012 that Brookdale posted sequential occupancy gains between November and December.

Bowman credits much of that growth to the company’s ongoing “sales transformation” that Senior Vice President of Sales Rick Wigginton has led. Of particular note are the company’s efforts in promoting infection control and leveraging digital marketing. The company has also worked to get more referrals from medical professionals for its communities, most of which offer assisted living and memory care.

As long as occupancy does indeed continue to grow in 2022, Brookdale management feels optimistic that they will maintain and even grow rates across the company’s portfolio.

“We’re very optimistic about what we can achieve in 2022 around revenue and rate growth,” Bowman said. “Many of our communities where we see higher occupancy, we’re seeing greater rate growth, even amidst the headwinds that they may face.”

Although the rising number of Covid-19 cases fueled by the omicron variant is putting pressure on operators at the start of 2022, Bowman feels that vaccines and boosters, plus the company’s infection control practices, will help it navigate through this and any future variants. Additionally, nearly all of Brookdale’s eligible workers and residents have been vaccinated, and the company is nearly done with its booster clinics, he added.

“We’ve developed some very strong policies and practices, and our communities are really living them every day,” he said.

One big area of concern for Brookdale is staffing, as it is for the rest of the senior living industry. To that end, the company is “seeing some improvement,” Bowman said. Though he didn’t share specific numbers, he said associate turnover has trended down since October.

To bring more workers into the company, Bowman believes the answer lies in giving them career paths and being more flexible around scheduling shifts. The company also has raised wages for workers in some markets to stay competitive in hiring.

“Some people may call it a calling, others may call it a purpose — that really where we’re targeting a lot of our efforts right now, attracting the right potential associates,” he added.

Bowman is also keenly aware that technology is now a must-include community budget line item, and he sees a not-too-distant future where artificial intelligence and robotics play a bigger role inside of Brookdale’s communities.

“I think we’ll start seeing that in our communities more in 2022 than ever before,” he said.

Brookdale’s ongoing evolution

In terms of size, Brookdale is largely where it wants to be after years of community sales and lease restructurings, though there is always a possibility of “onesie-twosie” deals, Bowman said.

As of last August, new construction starts within 20 minutes of a Brookdale community were about 44% lower than a year prior. And looking ahead, Bowman sees opportunities to grow the company’s portfolio, or even embark on new development.

“With the way the markets are, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for us in the coming years,” he added. “But I’m very comfortable with our field management and our structure, and it seems to fit the size of the organization.”

Another ongoing evolution is Brookdale’s home-health JV with HCA Healthcare, and the company is looking for more ways to develop that relationship, according to Bowman. Baier has also in the past noted a long-term company goal of forging partnerships with health care providers.

“We’re continuing to build those relationships, working more with the corporate HCA as well as local hospital management [of] HCA in particular markets,” Bowman said. “We strive to … continue to be a partner in our local markets with the HCA hospital base, and certainly as it relates to the home health and hospice components.”

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