How HHS Helped CHRISTUS St. Joseph Village Improve Its Dining Services

A dining program that results in a community full of unhappy residents brings daily frustration and makes recruiting new residents a challenge. St. Joseph Village took a stand for its residents and pushed for high-quality dining. With a new partner, St. Joseph Village has not only increased resident satisfaction but has also bolstered its community’s marketability. 

CHRISTUS St. Joseph Village is a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) located in Coppell, Texas.

The not-for-profit retirement community is home to over 180 residents and received the Best Assisted Living award by Senior Advisor in 2017. 

“We are very happy with HHS. They take a lot of burden off of our shoulders. HHS is our answer, they truly are. They have a good strong ownership, management and leadership group. That’s who I want as a partner.” - Administrator, CHRISTUS St. Joseph Village - Coppell

In 2016, CHRISTUS St. Joseph Village began seeking new support services to improve their residents’ dining experience. A decrease in resident satisfaction sparked the search for the right solution.

In September of that year, they partnered with HHS and transitioned from an in-house program to HHS’ full senior living dining services. 

The goals for the new partnership included:

• Improve leadership support
• Create a positive work culture
• Increase resident satisfaction rates
• Enhance the overall resident dining experience

Challenges

Culture 

The in-house team at St. Joseph Village lacked a dedicated manager for dining services. This resulted in insufficient guidance and accountability for kitchen staff and led to:

• A negative culture in the kitchen among staff 
• High food and labor costs because of inconsistent tracking
• Poor culinary performance
• A limited professionally-trained team while being overstaffed

Food Quality

With the lack of professionally trained chefs the food quality suffered, which resulted in decreased resident satisfaction. Additional challenges around food included:

• Limited menu options
• Use of convenience items over fresh food
• Inconsistent meals 

Solutions

HHS took the goals set forth by St. Joseph Village and created a tailored program to meet their needs. The dining service program that HHS designed addressed the two main challenges while also creating a strong foundation for operational success.

HHS focused on three areas of improvement to ensure the program resulted in positive outcomes.

Employee Satisfaction

HHS developed a dining services plan that utilized less staff and created a happier work environment for managers and team members. This included:

• Dedicated culinary training and development program
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• Value-centered daily huddles
• Team member recognition events  

Leadership

To ensure the employee culture was meeting expectations and that the food quality was exceptional, HHS recruited a team of professionals to oversee the dining services in all areas. The organizational structure changes involved:

• Hiring a director to oversee the entire dining services program 
• Bringing in an executive chef, sous chef, and dining room manager
• Promoting an hourly team member to the house management position

Food Quality

Once the right people were in the right places, HHS worked on changing the culture around food in the community. Using a chef-driven approach to culinary, HHS implemented:

• A catalogue of recipes to bring consistency in food quality
• Chef-inspired menu options that offered variety and unique flavors from across the globe
• HHS’ food philosophy of using only fresh, quality ingredients
• Mealtime rounding to gather resident feedback
• Customer surveys to pinpoint areas of improvement 

Results

Improved Culture

Once the new culinary staff was on board, St. Joseph Village began to see the culture in the kitchen make a positive shift. In the most recent anonymous employee survey, the following results were concluded:

100% of employees:

• feel that they are part of a team that works well together
• feel that the work they do is meaningful and contributes to residents’ and families’ overall satisfaction
• feel that their management team is respectful and professional
• feel that they have received the training and tools needed to complete their assigned duties

92.3% of employees:

• feel that their management team creates a positive team environment

Enhanced Resident Experience

As a direct result of HHS’ food philosophy, chef-driven approach to dining services, and strong culinary team, resident satisfaction began to increase steadily. 

“As a resident of St. Joseph Coppell for over 10 years, I’ve experienced several levels of service, but none that compare to the HHS experience that we have had over the course of the last couple of years. My meals have been fresh, seasoned well, and visually pleasing. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.” - St. Joseph Village Resident