With increasing occupancy rates and improving staffing results, WellAge Senior Living is taking a slow and calculated growth approach for the coming year.

WellAge’s senior living portfolio currently consists of five senior housing communities offering independent living, assisted living and memory care services for residents. Along with its housing offerings, the company has consulting services that are done on behalf of the state of Colorado, and it recently started offering adult day care services at its Jackson Creek in Monument location.

The Glendale, Colorado-based operator’s communities carry a 94% average occupancy rate, according to Elizabeth Girling, vice president of operations. Like many senior living operators have done in 2024, WellAge has also managed to almost eliminate its use of agency staffers in its daily operations over the last eight months.

To achieve that end goal, the company created focus groups for staff and residents to determine what day-to-day changes in operations it could make. That process led to new benefits such as flexible scheduling practices, help with education and certification and gas stipends rather than sign-on bonuses.

WellAge also established stronger employee appreciation programs, such as offering “Creek Cash” at Jackson Creek in Monument, which employees can trade in and use for a variety of purposes, such as making purchases from the community store or spending them on lunch at a restaurant. The operator also created an incentive wherein new employees receive a check in for their first 30, 60 and 90 days, which has proved beneficial for slowing turnover, Girling said. 

Girling said WellAge wanted to go beyond the typical method of offering workers health insurance and two weeks pay because “everybody has those.”

WellAge’s relatively small size, having just 247 workers on its payroll, aided the company’s efforts.

“The beauty of being a small organization is that the staff knows who our corporate team is, and we take pride in that, so we can fix these problems that most organizations still continue to have each day,” she said.

All of that culminated in a “great year at WellAge” in 2024, Girling said.

“We have strong occupancy, we have had great outcomes for our staffing, as well as just a really good core leadership team,” Girling added. “We have great executive directors at the helm of our communities, and we’re fortunate to be able to really have positive financial outcomes.”

On the consulting side, Girling said WellAge “treats those projects like they are our own.” At any given time, the operator has between one and seven projects with the state of Colorado to standards and strengthen deficiencies that have led to low reports following state inspections. 

“It’s not just a one size fits all package anymore with staff. It truly needs to be a full effort from the top down, and the buy-in has to come from the staff,” she said.

The operator’s focus in the remainder of the year will be to grow occupancy and roll out a new mentorship program for its clinical team, along with planning to finish with a strong financial performance, Girling said.

Looking ahead to the coming years, WellAge is plotting its next growth push.

“We have a team that focuses on that and is always looking at different ways in which we can continue to grow and what makes the most sense so we don’t lose the culture and what we’ve worked so hard to have,” she said.