If you asked Pegasus Senior Living CEO Chris Hollister what keeps him up at night, he might tell you it’s the ongoing challenges in staffing.That is especially challenging in memory care.
But thanks to predictive analytics and quantitative data analysis, improvements are already playing out for the company.
Since the launch of Pegasus’ staffing model, inspired by the film “Moneyball,” Hollister and the company’s leaders are continuing to deepen the model supporting recruitment and identifying staff for future community leadership roles. The new staffing model, now known as Pegasus Green, is still under development even as hiring begins of the process’s first candidates.
Hollister describes the staffing model as a “three ply cord” that integrates hiring software Predictive Index, mixed with a quantitative data model crafted by Paul Green, a University of Texas at Austin Assistant Professor of Management at the McCombs School of Business. The third component pairs an emotional intelligence assessment in identifying future executive director candidates.
“We know where we need to go, and we recently hired our first ED through this new process with a second candidate that we will hire,” Hollister told Memory Care Business. “It should get better as we go.”
With hiring from the new staffing model underway, Hollister expects it to take a year before discerning any material improvements in hiring executive directors. As the year progresses, Pegasus looks to finalize a five-community acquisition in Texas, Hollister added.
Faced with lingering staffing challenges, Pegasus Senior Living aims to improve operations, evolve its memory care program and continue acquisitive growth in the months and years ahead.
Pegasus Senior Living operates over 37 communities in 12 states
Improvements on staffing relies on recruitment
Senior living operators have faced myriad staffing challenges in the last four years, and a lingering problem among health care workers remains burnout on-the-job.
Memory care operators have faced greater staffing challenges given the delicate nature of providing high quality, higher-acuity care. With higher care needs comes needing more staff at communities with assisted living and memory care components. Licensed care positions have remained a challenge to fill for operators across the industry.
Care staff within the Pegasus system and elsewhere are “still traumatized” from the tough times of the Covid-19 pandemic, Hollister noted. That led Pegasus to put more effort in recruitment, and one of the many reasons for Hollister’s ‘Moneyball’ staffing approach coming together.
“The biggest challenge we have is finding talented, passionate and committed executive directors,” Hollister said. “The whole industry needs to think ahead about getting people internally or externally—from hospitality to health care—attracted to the industry and train them to be leaders.”
Alongside a new recruitment model, Pegasus will emphasize onboarding of new executive directors, convening new executive directors at its Grapevine, Texas headquarters for an orientation process, Hollister said.
“We need to do a better job of making our orientation process like a selling proposition from bringing people on,” Hollister said.
In a year’s time, Hollister aims to have the staffing model vetted to the point of being able to be monetized and shared with other organizations.
“If it works, it’s something that could help the whole industry,” Hollister said. “It’s about developing a tool that could help the whole industry and it’s going to take a little bit of time.”
Pegasus’ Connections memory care program is informed by Dr. Sandi Petersen, senior vice president of health and wellness at Pegasus Senior Living. Since joining Pegasus in 2020, Petersen has infused the program with research-based practices and techniques.
Within memory care, Hollister said Pegasus is elevating the company’s life enrichment director role to a department-level position to “do the basics better,” in regard to high-acuity care activities and resident lifestyle. For the future of care at its memory care communities, Hollister said Pegauss is testing several new technologies, including a tech-enabled wearable hip pad for mitigating falls.
Going forward, Hollister said, based on demographic and rental rate progression, affordability must be top of mind for operators. In referencing a hypothetical situation in which a memory care unit ran for $9,000 to $10,000 per month in 2027, Hollister said middle market senior living could become a “societal-level crisis.”
‘Year of the work-out’
Senior living operators that remain well capitalized have had a plethora of options in terms of acquisitions of distressed senior living communities, especially among assisted living and memory care communities.
Pegasus is currently in the process of completing a five-community acquisition of what Hollister termed as “a big capture” with purchase and sale agreements being signed. The community is mostly assisted living and memory care with some independent living, Hollister added.
“I think 2024 is a ‘Year of the Work-Out’ because it’s a strange and interesting time,” Hollister said. “There’s a whole lot of broken stuff and banks are saying, ‘I’m done.’ and there are operators waving a white flag to get out.”
With demand for senior living strong, Hollister said he expects investors to continue to return to the space, or operators make acquisitions.
“I do think we’ll start seeing some relief and people who are looking around the corner see that demand, so that will hopefully put a floor on it and have new buyers coming in, resetting the basis,” Hollister said.
