Franklin Farrow is CEO and co-founder of Morning Pointe Senior Living.
In his role, he is dedicated to serving the residents and staff at the operator’s more than 41 communities. Farrow started the company with Greg Vital back in 1996. At the time, the duo wanted to create a new senior living model — and it’s clear that they succeeded.
In his Changemakers interview, Farrow discusses how the company’s start still impacts it today, how he considers each employee and resident’s point of view and what his plans are for Morning Pointe in the future.
How have you changed as a leader since starting in this industry?
Our company was co-founded by myself and Greg Vital, who’s the president, 27 years ago in 1996. We each brought attributes and experiences, time, and talent to the table. He’s 15 years older, and so he had a different network of people than I did at the time. We blended our talents and experiences to launch the company. At that time, I was more capable of tasks and completion of thoughts and ideas. He was the more entrepreneurial leader having been in the business world in advance of me.
To answer the question, I’ve transitioned from being more of executing the completion of the ideas that were generated to more of generating ideas and having others follow through on them. It’s been a metamorphosis of me, and I think this is true for any young professional who grows through any industry, that they are advanced because of their capacity to complete projects and they start leading others to help them complete projects, and then, ultimately, they start thinking and leading concepts and philosophies for others to complete and finalize and implement.
I’m playing more of a top senior manager, owner role, setting larger vision, setting larger goals, and then, because I was involved in tasks and details, I’m able to articulate to them what I think the scope and capacity of the project is and make sure they have the resources, but don’t have to physically roll up my sleeves as much, although I enjoy that part. Also I have to caution myself that my time is more valuable being visionary and thought leading than task completion.
Obviously, as someone who’s been chosen for this accolade, we think of you as a changemaker, but do you see yourself as a changemaker, and are you always excited to drive change?
Yes, I think in the last decade, I have predominantly seen myself as a changemaker in our company. We’re not a large company in the size of scope of the senior health care industry. I think we’re in the mid-40 range on the top 100 list that goes out every now and then. There’s much larger players in there, but for our size and regional scope in the southeast quadrant of the United States, we’ve played a leadership role in the way that Tim and I are probably one of the dying breeds where we are the developer, owner, and operator all rolled up in one.
I know there used to be a lot of those guys, but they’ve come and gone and broken down. After 27 years, we’re one of the few standing originals that are out there. We take on probably a more organic view on things in that we change not only the way we operate, but we evolutionize our buildings to adapt to the changing needs and desires of the customer and the operational needs and desires. We’re probably on a third or fourth iteration of our own buildings, much less what we do to change our operational style.
If you could turn the lens back at yourself, what sort of changemaker do you think you are? What area do you think you’re a changemaker in?
I would say if you were to interview my senior management team who hears me pontificate and try to set direction, I think they would tell you that I do try to think through the mind,eyes, and feelings of those who are sitting in various seats, the seat of a regional operator, the seat of a senior manager, or the seat of a business office manager, or even a resident care aide.
I’m constantly trying to shape and form the way we conduct our business, and I often use the word psychology. I’m not a psychologist.
However, I’m constantly thinking, “What motivates a regional vice president or what motivates a nurse on the floor? What environment are they looking to operate in? How do they want to be treated?” I’m also trying to weave in principles of standards of conduct, ethics, and standards of the golden rule of doing to others. Not only are we trying to operate from the viewpoint of those in the seat or hot seat of those various capacities and roles, I’m also trying to say, ” Let’s just do things because we want to be decent, honest, and upright standing people too, not just the pure business robotics of things.”
I host a standing Tuesday morning session, where anyone in the company who can get away for 15 minutes can come and listen to an inspirational devotional thought from the owner andCEO. I know of people who joined our company because of our ethics and values and culture around the fact that we have a missional alignment.
Can you talk about a change that you’ve made in that area and why you made that change? In what you just described, can you be specific and talk about a change that you’ve made there?
In the past 18 months, we’ve really tried to double down on retention of line workers, CNAs, RAs, nurses; where the industry is struggling to attract and retain those workforces. We in the industry hear about people needing their wages raised. Whether it be a nursing wage or we’re going to do a market study of wage raises. We’ve got to keep up when it comes to that.
I’ve tried to introduce an element to where I want to compensate fairly for the market conditions but also incentivize behaviors that benefit me too. One thing that we’ve been piloting is a fulfillment bonus program where we have set target hours for a workday or work period, whether it’s a 24-hour period or a week period.
We have these many nursing hours that need to be fulfilled. We are asking teams to step up and work together to fulfill those target hours within a framework of a variety of different things. We’ve turned over the scheduling,call-offs, and the PTO engagement to them to self-regulate. The goal being if they can meet that fulfillment objective, they will earn several dollars more than the going market rate.
What I’m attempting to do is to have these employees build relationships with each other, so they realize that they’re all in this together. They’re a team.
It’s putting the ownership of the schedule and fulfilling the hours of service back on those who can best control that, not a DON, not a business office manager who’s managing a schedule. It’s putting them in the driver’s seat. We’re seeing some success in this because we’re offering above-market rate bonuses, but it all has to be built around the team dynamic, not just a supervisor-supervisee relationship.
This method helps us have quality workers. They have to bring something to the table, and that is consistency, coming to work on time, and being a fair player with your colleagues.
We’ve not heard of others doing it in our network, and we’re doubling down on it. Ultimately I’m not going to pay any more for the hours of service that I wouldn’t pay, because when you look at the cost of turnover, the cost of recruitment, and the cost of quality, it far exceeds what I’m doing.
As you look across the entire industry, what are some ways that you think senior living needs to change in the next five years?
Senior living, like other industries, is in a very unique position. Over the last decade, there’s just been a tsunami of data opportunities that are coming at us. We’re transitioning to EMR. We’ve got data. Of course, everyone’s had financial data, but now we’re getting data where we’re partnering with our third-party providers, whether it be nurse practitioners or physical therapists that are not under our ownership, but they’re partnered with us to provide services, and we’re getting access to their data in some part.
There’s just a tremendous amount of data. As a 40-building regional operator, we have opportunities to learn from all these buildings operating.
We don’t want to discount operator gut, experience, and talent, but we also want to look at the data to see what else we do. The problem with that amount of data is prioritizing,absorption, and reaction is too much. We’re doing some Ishikawa-type tree diagrams to streamline data and position it in the eyes of those who need it to see it the most.
Our RA and a CNA on the floor needs to be exposed to four or five key things and make sure they can judge and react off of that. Not overwhelmed, but it’s a red light, yellow light, green light situation. In the last year, we are really doubling down on key indicators,dashboards, and other things that are very specific and reactionary around those who need it.
We’re building QIP, QAIP-type stuff where the problem we have in the industry is we write a policy but don’t have evidence that it got done. Now, we’re doing evidence-based QIP. That’s a whole different layer of intensity. The hard part is finding evidence and measuring it and presenting it in a manner that verifies that I did what I said I was going to do.
Changemakers tend to be risk takers. Do you agree with that statement? How do you describe your own appetite for risk?
I would say changemakers are calculated risk takers. I think that’s where the beauty of my business partner and I have been able to blend things. I’m more calculated, but I can take a risky vision and break it down into calculable parts and processes to de-riskify it, bringing more chances of survival to it. I like to think that changemakers are refiners of great ideas that otherwise, if they didn’t have the refinement, it might be a flop.
As you look across the industry, what do you think is the single greatest driver of change right now?
Trying to get into the minds of the baby boomers, which is difficult. They’ve set trends starting from the ’50s about how they want fashion, food, fun, purchasing, retirement, and end of life services. We don’t quite know what yet is coming. We’ve been building buildings, providing care level models, pricing, food selections, and activity selections all around the last 30 years or so since the industry started to evolve.
I think there’s going to be a significant shift over the next 10 years as the real baby boomers start to come in. I think we’re still too early… The key is anticipating what the baby boomers will want when they arrive at our facilities in about 10 years.
It’s a little bit daunting to try to anticipate and think about how much they could end up changing for us. They’re going to demand value. Guessing what they want is difficult. We may need to quickly pivot to meet their expectations.
Can you talk about how you see the need for diversity, equity and inclusion in the industry and what you’re doing to drive change in that regard?
We’re in a fairly tight geography. Tennessee and Kentucky are our primary footprint.. We are in a mostly rural environment. We aren’t going to see too many residents that have that diverse need. It’s going to be the workforce diversity.
To speak to that, last year I was doing an analysis of our workforce, trying to find creative ways to build our workforce and recognize that we didn’t really have too much Latino representation . There’s large populations here in the South for that to have occurred but it hasn’t.
I developed a Latino recruitment and retention and training orientation program. Hired a Latino, recruited a speaking person, translated our materials,, and started setting up training centers located at one of our buildings to help attract and train. We paid for language, English as a Second Language, Rosetta Stone, and have been integrating them into our workforce.
It’s a slow, arduous process, but it’s one that I think speaks to a diversification of workforce, language, and culture because I think once we break into it, the word will get out that senior healthcare is a viable option for these folks who otherwise may have thought that they didn’t have the education or didn’t have the ability to rise to healthcare service work.
Can you talk about a time when you tried to execute a change and things didn’t go according to plan? How did you pivot, and what did you learn?
Where we made a mistake and we had to go back and change it was in the area of benefits. It was about how holidays and PTO are calculated. We thought we had something, we made a change and made it worse. It sounds trivial, but that’s a very meaningful element of how people view the company, how they view their treatment.
We thought we were giving them more value when we gave them flexible days but people didn’t realize that meant they needed PTO for holidays. They could use it whenever they wanted. But people were upset because they thought we were taking away holidays. That’s where we had to back up in time. We lost some value in the eyes of the associates who thought we took away holidays, but in essence we thought we were giving them flexibility. That’s a small example of communication where you thought you read the tea leaves and it turned out you didn’t.
Use a movie, book, or TV show title to describe the year ahead for the senior living industry in 2024.
The movie Imitation Game.
It’s about World War II when the British captured the German code machine called the Enigma. They’re trying to break it. I see the industry is in a similar situation. There’s a bit of a war going on. It’s not with each other as competitors, but it’s with this dynamic that we’ve talked about how to serve this Enigma, this code that’s been thrown at us – the baby boomers, and how we’re trying to crack that code, and the type of people and talents that we have to bring in to address that changing need.
Post-COVID states are rewriting regulations. States have woken up and figured out that they can’t control assisted living facilities like they can nursing homes and hospitals. It’s driving them nuts and they’re trying to figure out how to clamp down on the freewheeling assisted living private pay industry. I think that’s also going to be a code-breaking scenario for us. What we need is to attract the talent to do something that hasn’t been done in a manner that hasn’t been done either. It’s attracting people into our industry to think differently.
Choose one artist, scientist, thinker, engineer, or other person, living or dead, to help change the senior living industry for the better. In only a few words, who are you choosing and why?
Teddy Roosevelt.
I admire him, President Roosevelt, because he helped introduce the National Parks system with John Muir. What got the National Parks started was Rockefeller family money, John Muir’s vision for protecting, and a president with a political clout to say this is a necessary thing for the betterment of the people. Him hunting, fishing, relaxing, and living in that environment caused him to appreciate that environment.I think being in and among, and living with the environment causes you to want to protect it, grow it, and enhance it.
