Fortune Recognizes The Arbor Company As One of the Best Workplaces in Aging Services
October 26, 2021
The Arbor Company, a premier senior living operator with 46 locations across the country, is one of the best places to work when it comes to aging services. Today, The Arbor Company is proud to announce its ranking on Fortune’s “25 Best Large Workplaces in Aging Services: Senior Housing and Care” list. The nod demonstrates the senior living operator’s ability to build a positive work environment in an industry that has been historically plagued with recruiting difficulties and high employee attrition.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the current labor crisis has made it even more challenging when it comes to staffing in the senior living industry. Despite these conditions, The Arbor Company has managed to maintain a great company culture through innovative programs and initiatives that allow the company to provide the best care for both its employees and its residents.
“It’s important for residents to live in a place where people are happy to come to work, and where they’re treated fairly and paid well,” said Judd Harper, The Arbor Company President. “If the staff is taken care of, the residents will be taken care of.”
One way The Arbor Company takes care of its staff is by rewarding them for their hard work and loyalty. The company plans to spend close to $500,000 on bonuses for those reaching five-, 10- and 15-year anniversaries as a way of saying thank you to loyal employees. Parties are planned to celebrate those employees receiving the bonuses. The company also has an online reward gateway called “The Grove” that allows employees to earn on-the-spot recognition and “Arbor Bucks” for monetary gifts.
The Arbor Company partnered with Activated Insights for its “Great Places to Work” surveys because the leadership team wanted to hear from employees and gain insight into how they were feeling about their jobs. Fortune tabulated that data in order to determine which companies made it onto the lists.
In the Fortune survey, 87% of employees said the company made them feel like they made a difference. Eighty-eight percent of staff stated that the company made them feel welcome when they joined the team. The majority also said their leadership team members and colleagues were team-oriented, helpful, supportive, caring, friendly and fair and that they respected each other. Great benefits and opportunities to advance made them feel valued.
“It’s really about creating a sense of culture that has a strong foundation in empathy and recognizing the differences in each other, respecting those differences and building upon them,” said Harper.
To maintain a healthy and diverse work culture, employees and department heads across the company are required to participate in unconscious bias training. The Arbor Company partnered with Eagle’s Flight for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training as a direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement. The company was also one of the first to require the COVID-19 vaccine in an effort to keep staff and residents healthy at its facilities during the pandemic.
“We’re listed alongside some wonderful companies in senior living that have succeeded in creating great places to work, and we’re honored to be one of them,” said Harper.
