As senior living operators continue to grow by taking on distressed properties, demand is growing for operational excellence teams.
Recently referred to as “SWAT” teams, operators assemble these groups to cover a variety of roles within community leadership or sales and marketing as needed.
Some turnaround-focused operators, such as Dallas, Texas-based 12 Oaks Senior Living, have had such a team in place for years. The company in 2016 created a special eight-employee group meant to find solutions in troubled communities. 12 Oaks is growing its solutions team as it expands its footprint to new communities, according to President Greg Puklicz.
“We don’t have siloed responsibilities at the home office. We don’t have regional sales directors. We don’t have regional compliance directors. Our regional vice presidents only have five or so communities,” Puklicz said. “We want to make sure they have appropriate resources from the home office to help fill in gaps where there’s need.”
Dallas-based Sonida Senior Living, splits its ops teams into various specializations. Some members of the team help onboard new communities and bring them up to speed on the company’s standards, while others help increase occupancy, address regulatory concerns or fix clinical issues, according to CEO Brandon Ribar.
Meanwhile, Capri Communities’ small team consists of individuals who are keenly aware of the company’s culture and processes, allowing them to focus on introducing systems and expectations to newly opened communities. The team’s efforts have led to increasing occupancy across its entire portfolio, and has allowed the company to work alongside the State of Wisconsin to save several communities from shuttering.
Inside 12 Oaks’ strategic deployment team
12 Oaks’ solutions team consists of former executive directors or regional vice presidents who can lead a community in the event of a staff vacancy. 12 Oaks has grown this year, and it is expanding the team by hiring at least two more staffers for it in the coming month.
12 Oaks deploys its solutions team to communities for varying lengths of time depending on a community’s need. Staffers spend an average between four to six weeks leading communities when leadership is vacant, according to Puklicz. Turning around a community’s marketing strategy can take between eight to 12 weeks.
“We use them quite a bit in deploying them from community to community as needed,” he said. “That way, we don’t have to make permanent hires and swell the payroll of a community. We can kind of strategically deploy these resources.”
The company’s solutions team aims to improve a community’s performance based on what they need most. Each time a team member is sent out, they aim for specific benchmarks such as increasing occupancy needle by five percentage points.
Upon arriving in a community, team members immediately “roll up their sleeves and are doing the work,” depending on the role they’re helping with. Aside from the specific goals they are initially tasked with, Puklicz said the team’s success is measured through the installation of new programming, such as 12 Oaks’ “Symphony of Life” memory care program in a new community, or through improved resident and family engagement.
While in a community, solutions team members also help train permanent staff working there so they can pick up where the team leaves off.
“If they’re able to work shoulder-to-shoulder with somebody for an extended period of time, then that training really takes hold and it becomes second nature,” Puklicz said.
Once the solutions team members hit their marks, 12 Oaks calls them back to the home office before redeploying them to another one of the company’s 37 communities. After a team has left a community, 12 Oaks holds quarterly impact sessions to ensure the full-time employees there aren’t falling to “church camp syndrome” and forgetting all that they just learned.
The team is proving effective so far for the company, with an average 90% occupancy rate across the 12 Oaks portfolio. The company also notched as many move-ins within the first five months of 2025 as it did in all of 2024, which Puklicz attributed to strong demand and dedicated marketing.
“I think this helps to continue to define us as the best in class regional operator in Texas,” Puklicz said. “Our ownership groups are very pleased with our operating results and how we’ve been able to push occupancy, achieve margin and marketing metrics above industry standards.”
Sonida’s SWAT team approach
Sonida has grown its operational SWAT team over the past year to a total of 16 members consisting of former executive directors, clinical directors, sales directors and program developers. But not all of them take a reactive SWAT approach to operations, according to Ribar. Some focus specifically on new communities brought into the company’s portfolio and fixing regulatory issues or addressing low occupancy with sales drives.
Rather than assigning teams tasks based on divisions or regions, Sonida deploys them across its 96-community portfolio to avoid a “fiefdom” approach by not sharing resources. Heading up Sonida’s SWAT team efforts is Sonida Chief Clinical Officer Tabitha Obenour.
“Having Tabitha really running the show on that front and working with her two partners on the ops side has been really useful for us, especially as we have the combination of new communities that are coming on board in scale, and then communities in our existing portfolio that need some help,” Ribar said.
Not only must team members show prospects the “Sonida way,” they also must be charismatic enough to win over new customers.
Sonida has focused its SWAT team efforts on acquired communities over the past year. The company sends out team members based on a particular community’s need, whether that is kickstarting occupancy or teaching corporate practices. In one instance, the team was dispatched to a newly acquired community in Minnesota to essentially rebuild its staffing model and revamp sales.
Sonida also deploys its SWAT team to help open new communities, such as a newly built but so-far unopened community set to open in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sonida deployed four members of its team to work in the community on a consistent basis and prepare for its opening, with two working through the startup process while other subject matter experts are involved in the remaining aspects such as design, marketing and dining experiences.
The team also trains newly onboarded employees to Sonida’s standards over the span of 60 days. The training helps staff to learn the processes and systems while still running the day-to-day operations, Obeneour said. While team members tend to be on site for two to four weeks for new acquisitions, they maintain some form of presence for the first 90 days after opening.
Obenour said after hitting their operational goals, the SWAT team checks in on the communities to make sure they are staying the course.
“That’s where building that relationship in the front end is so important, where they do have that confidence and it’s so stable that they feel good to reach out to the operational excellence team ongoing to ask for guidance,” she said.
Sonida also culls its SWAT team for future leaders, according to Ribar.
“We expect that these folks are going to be future or are already senior leaders in the company,” he said. “We want folks on that SWAT team to be able to elevate into even broader and more impactful roles down the road. So development is how you create a great environment where people can advance.”
Capri Communities focuses on sustainability
Waukesha, Wisconsin-based Capri Communities’ operational SWAT team currently consists of four people, two of whom are focused on sales and marketing while the other two are dedicated to operations. The operator typically deploys them to newly opened communities, when there is a management vacancy or when occupancy in a community begins to dip, according to Capri President and CFO Kristin Ferge.
The operator selects SWAT team members from current workers who have “come up through the organization” and are familiar with the corporate culture, policies and procedures, such as executive directors or regional directors.
The company’s SWAT team works with communities based on their overall need. For instance, the team may stay for three to four months in the event of a new community or leadership vacancy. Marketing turnarounds take about a month. Using that approach, Capri has grown its senior living portfolio average occupancy rate to around 90%.
Whether a community can meet the standards of Capri hinges on employee training, Ferge said. Once the team achieves the benchmarks and completes the improvement plan it sets out upon arriving at a community, they often stay within the community for an extended period to support it.
“The goal is to get the property back to budget,” Ferge said. “If we’re not going to get back to budget … We do a lot of forecasting and re-forecasting and work with the finance team to come up with what makes sense for new financial targets.”
Capri has deployed the team to turn around communities on the verge of losing their state licenses. For example, Capri tasked its turnaround team with improving performance at a community with less than 10% occupancy in Appleton, Wisconsin.
To achieve this, Capri repositioned the community under its brand, and the SWAT team connected with professional referrals, healthcare providers and improved marketing to bring people to the property. Today, the community is full with a total of 101 residents.
“Clearly, it’s a team effort across the whole company. But they’re the ones executing on the strategy and the game plan,” Ferge said. “It’s helpful to have people that are just dedicated to help change course. Being able to insert people who understand your culture and your systems and can hit the ground running is just really invaluable.”
