Partway through the lively mission fair at Fraser Villa in southeast Michigan, administrator Claire Collier paused, looked around and absorbed the scene.
She says, "What I saw was laughter, meaningful conversations; I saw colleagues bouncing ideas off of one another … I saw leaders really taking the feedback from the colleagues on different topics."
Collier, who is administrator of the Trinity Health Senior Communities senior community in Fraser, says the mission fair on Aug. 13 "was such a wonderful sight to see. And as a leader, what more could we want?"
Fraser Villa is among many senior healthcare and senior living campuses within Trinity Health Senior Communities hosting fairs this year to familiarize staff with the organization's mission and values. Trinity Health Senior Communities Mission Leader Michael Prince came up with the mission fair idea. He says the events are "a unique opportunity for us all to come together, celebrate who we are and share deeply about the sacred work we are called to do and the wonderful way in which we are called to do it."
Reinforcing culture
Trinity Health Senior Communities has 24 owned campuses as well as multiple affiliated campuses in Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan and North Carolina. Prince says the organization long has had programming to engage staff in building a mission-based culture at its campuses, but the COVID pandemic put a damper on that programming.
"It is a chance for us to have fun while integrating our culture in the heroic service we provide," he says.
A couple of years ago, Prince began brainstorming new and different ways to engage the 3,000-plus employees across the organization in learning about and being formed in the system's mission. Some challenges he considered were that budgets are tight in senior healthcare and senior living generally, and he has a limited staff of mission leaders to assist him.
So he built off a concept that long has undergirded the mission integration work at Trinity Health Senior Communities: Every leader is responsible for mission. Prince came up with the idea of hosting events at each site where local leadership could use fun activities and interactive learning approaches to talk with staff about mission topics. "One of the ideas behind the mission fair is to empower, form and support members of leadership teams in local THSC communities in becoming the leaders in mission and culture work themselves," Prince explains.
Tailored to the site
Prince worked with system-level and local colleagues to build out the mission fairs concept, developed materials, piloted the idea, refined it, and then began working with the local communities to roll it out.
The current framework is for every campus to host an annual mission fair for a three-year cycle, with year one focusing on the organization's core values, year two on the mission statement and year three on the commitment statement. This year, each fair is made up of six stations, with each focused on one of Trinity Health's core values: reverence, commitment to those experiencing poverty, safety, justice, stewardship and integrity.
Prince supplies materials such as informational poster boards, and he builds up leaders' understanding of the mission and values before the leaders plan the fairs. Each site has leeway in carrying out the local iteration. They can choose the themes, the décor, the room setup and many other details.
Leadership, including C-suite and vice president-level executives, each create their particular station at the fair, with information about the value they're focusing on, activities, takeaway trinkets and other items. All employees are welcome to attend — the fairs often are held at multiple times to allow different shifts to participate.
As of mid-August, seven campuses had held mission fairs.
Fraser Villa
Fraser Villa is a 111-bed skilled nursing and rehabilitative facility.
Collier says its mission fair had 12 leaders staffing six tables.
Leaders shared their perspectives on living out the Trinity Health's values and discussed how the employees perceive those values. Collier says the fair had a "phenomenal" turnout.
At one station, employees received a blessing of hands. At another, they learned different ways to convey reverence in conversation. At another they received a stress ball shaped like a heart. Collier herself painted a tree poster this summer, with a little help from her kids. Employees could write their perspectives on the values onto paper leaves and affix them to the tree.
Wanda Barber is a certified nursing assistant who has worked at Fraser Villa for nine years. She now works in the skilled nursing unit. She says she enjoyed the mission fair and gained more knowledge about the facility's values. She says she liked that leaders were participating so fully. She says she could immediately apply what she'd learned to her daily work.
Purpose and meaning
Stacey Johnson, chief operating officer of Trinity Health Senior Communities, has helped Prince coordinate the fairs and has attended them at multiple sites.
She says the events bring the mission to life for attendees.
She notes that many young people are seeking purpose and meaning, and they can find that in a career in senior care. She says the fairs help crystallize why and how employees can provide the type of mission-based care senior adults need, and how providing that care can be very fulfilling.
Collier says working in senior care can be very "heavy" but also very rewarding. She says ensuring mission and culture align is key, and the fairs help do that.
Prince too concedes that working in senior care facilities can be very demanding, but he says it can offer deep relationships with residents and their families and that is a real benefit for staff. He says the mission fairs help form employees into a culture that supports, bolsters and celebrates the important work they are doing. The fairs are meant to reaffirm a sense of belonging that is key in senior care.
He says many Trinity Health Senior Communities sites have low turnover rates compared to industry averages, in large part because of the strong culture.
Barber agrees, saying, "I am really blessed to be working here at Fraser Villa. It has been nothing but open doors and opportunities for me, and I'm grateful for that."
Prince says the fairs are meant to elevate staff like Barber and each one is a celebration. "Everybody is just smiling, and they just feel great about themselves," he says. "They feel great about the community that they're serving in."
He adds, "Somebody who feels this deep sense of belonging, and purpose, and meaningfulness — this deep sense of reward — they're not going to leave."