{"id":36324,"date":"2023-07-26T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T09:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=36324"},"modified":"2026-02-22T15:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T23:34:13","slug":"changemaker-jodi-guffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemaker-jodi-guffee\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Jodi Guffee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this year\u2019s Changemakers series<\/a> to date, a series full of inspiring interviews with leaders across the senior living industry. As sponsor for the fifth consecutive year, we\u2019ve enjoyed sharing the interviews and highlighting how each honoree is building a better tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s featured Changemaker is Jodi Guffee, owner and chief operating officer at Radiant Senior Living,<\/a> one of our amazing senior living clients<\/a>! Read on for a preview of Guffee\u2019s interview, then head to the Changemakers site to read her full conversation with SHN<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yardi client Jodi Guffee named 2023 Changemaker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With over 20 years of experience leading Radiant Senior Living, Jodi Guffee has spearheaded initiatives that have changed the organization\u2019s operations for the better. While she\u2019s faced challenges throughout her career, it hasn\u2019t stopped her from pushing boundaries in order to make Radiant \u2014 and the industry as a whole \u2014 a better place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her interview with SHN<\/a>, Guffee shares what her journey has been like over the years \u2014 and reveals more about her initiatives at Radiant and what\u2019s inspired them. She also shares her perspective on the senior living industry today (and her outlook on where it\u2019s headed).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHN: As you look across the rest of the senior living industry, do you think that it\u2019s changing fast enough to keep up with the times?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guffee: No. That\u2019s a short answer, I know. There are several layers to that. Probably one of the biggest ones is funding: funding for staffing and funding for a generation that\u2019s going to have a hard time paying for what we have to charge. We have a huge middle market segment that needs to be served, and we have models that are unaffordable for the most part.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some genius people out there really doing some cutting-edge stuff that I\u2019m really looking into. I think it\u2019s fantastic, but I don\u2019t think that there are enough companies that can pivot quickly enough for us to be able to serve this baby boomer \u201csilver tsunami.\u201d We just don\u2019t have the people to take care of them, and the people who are going to need our services may or may not be able to afford them. Where are we going to see some government subsidies for lower-income, reimbursement rates?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our home offices are in Oregon. We have a very lucrative reimbursement rate for memory care, but not for assisted living. They aren\u2019t very different [residents], but we have an extremely good reimbursement rate for memory care. We\u2019re also pioneers here in Oregon. There are very few states that have good reimbursement for the private sector to be able to take some state or federal funding for residents that are low income because it\u2019s not affordable.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SHN: Can you talk about a time when you tried to execute a change and things didn\u2019t go according to plan? How did you pivot, and what did you learn as a leader?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guffee: Gosh, there are so many. I\u2019ll say that the ability to turn and pivot and see through different lenses is probably the key. [For example], when we were at the beginning of COVID and then in the middle of COVID and then coming out of it, we see the statistics are scary.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We lost 40% of our women in the workforce. In our setting, that\u2019s a lot of the people. They had to either stay home to take care of children who were online schooling, or they couldn\u2019t afford childcare, so it was more affordable for them to stay home.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was and still is a very scary time in that everybody has a staffing shortage. What are we going to do about that? It kept me up at night for a long time. We were trying so many different things and being flexible, and things just weren\u2019t working. We weren\u2019t getting people back into the workforce.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our entire industry, as you well know, took a major dip in our census. How are we going to pay for those good workers, too? Subsequently, we\u2019re starting to rebound now. When I look back at it, there are a few things that I would have done differently \u2014 like real flexible schedules, bringing childcare into the community, and job sharing. Two people might have four kids in total and could have partnered them up for childcare.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s still a challenge. It\u2019s starting to trickle back in. It\u2019s not all the same workers, though, because as I mentioned we\u2019re trying to find that new generation of people and inspire them. Some of the workforce we lost are coming back, but not all of them. It\u2019s been frustrating, but what I think we\u2019ve cracked the code on is that you have to meet people at their need.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We bring a resident into our communities and they have a very detailed care plan \u2014 from the fact that they like their coffee black at 8 AM to they need a shower assist. What we\u2019ve started to do is recognize every single one of our employees or potential employees needs to also have their own \u201ccare plan.\u201d We need to know very individually who these people are and how we meet them at their place of need.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We call this their \u201cFORD,\u201d which stands for their family, occupation, recreation, and their dreams. Once we\u2019ve identified this in the first week, we\u2019ve got this down to a policy and procedure and a QA that we follow implicitly.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of week one, we task our department heads and others to find out at least two things about a new employee\u2019s FORD. Then we get all together around that and we say, \u201cThis is what we really know about Sarah. She has two kids, she\u2019s a single mom. These are her needs. She would love to take her kids to do some thing or other.\u201d Then we come up with a personalized gift around that FORD and we send it to the home.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t just give it to the employee, we send it to the home where their family will see how vested our company is in their mom or dad or whomever. Then it brings their family into our family. Then when mom has to work late or has to work a double shift or can\u2019t make it home for dinner, there\u2019s more grace in understanding why that\u2019s happening and that we do care about her as a person.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read Jodi Guffee\u2019s interview with SHN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more insights from Jodi Guffee, read her entire Changemakers interview<\/a>. Have questions about how we help clients like Radiant succeed with our single-point software<\/a>, designed uniquely for senior living? Reach out to connect with our team<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this year\u2019s Changemakers series to date, a series full of inspiring interviews with leaders across the senior living industry. As sponsor for the fifth consecutive year, we\u2019ve enjoyed sharing the interviews and highlighting how each honoree is building a better tomorrow. Today\u2019s featured Changemaker is Jodi Guffee, owner and chief operating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":782,"featured_media":36325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2952],"tags":[842],"class_list":["post-36324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senior-living","tag-senior-living"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYardi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"See how Changemaker Jodi Guffee is driving positive change in senior living in this 2023 series by Yardi and Senior Housing News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemaker-jodi-guffee\/\" \/>\n<meta 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