By Steve Moran

Ever since the MeToo Scandal, which was a horrible, inexcusable thing, there have been so many initiatives to help women in the workplace take their rightful place, and to highlight what they are already doing. Senior Living Foresight has been a part of this effort with our Empower initiative.

How We Are Different

Our Empower initiative is very narrowly focused on this one question:

How do we move the needle for women in senior living?

The leadership advisory group, led by Jayne Sallerson, the COO of Charter Senior Living, includes C-level executive, operational, and marketing senior living professionals. We are in the process of figuring out how we can be most effective in making the industry better.

What We Think Right Now

There are three areas we think are most critical:

  1. Mentorship: There is powerful data that suggests that people who have mentors grow their careers faster and have more satisfying personal lives. The problem is that it can be really hard to find a mentor. There are also really good leaders who would be glad to be a mentor, but don’t know where to find someone they can mentor or what mentoring might look like. We have a task force that is actively working on this effort.
  2. Education: We know with 100% certainty that education is the key to advancement in senior living. It can be really tough to access education. Just today I was talking with someone about how hard it is for university-educated individuals to get started in senior living. We have also been talking about how often people who work in senior living get put into positions where they have great technical skills, but they have never received the leadership training they need to be effective. We have another group working on this. 
  3. Awareness: We see awareness as falling into three areas: a) the challenges women face in senior living today; b) making women aware of opportunities for growth; and c) celebrating accomplishments. A third group is working on this.

You Can Help

We have some ideas about the challenges women are facing but we are not sure we have it quite right. We would be so very grateful if you would take our survey and then share it with one more person (or better yet, post it on your social media channels). We want men and women to take it. We are glad to have people who are outside the industry take it. The more data the better.

As a way of saying thanks for being a part of this effort, we are offering three, $100 Visa gift cards that will be awarded randomly. Anyone is welcome to participate (men, women, senior living or not). Here is the link:

TAKE THE SURVEY

And we would love you forever if you shared it with just one other person (or on Facebook or LinkedIn). You have until February 28 to complete the survey and we hope to have results by the end of March, 2020.