With so many communities changing hands in 2026, turnaround operators have their work cut out for them this year. Their efforts will hinge on the people who already work in those communities.
As senior living REITs reassemble and grow their regional portfolios, they are acquiring communities and assigning them to senior living operators like Dallas-based 12 Oaks Senior Living. As 12 Oaks President Greg Puklicz well knows, senior living communities are run by dozens of employees that turnaround operators will need to enlist in their efforts.
During any turnaround Puklicz attends town hall meetings with employees, residents and family members of a community to explain the path forward and get buy-in. The company also brings in support from its corporate office and dedicates its own staff to righting operations for the first 60 to 90 days.
12 Oaks is not the only senior living operator taking a keen focus on turnover in active turnarounds. Lifespark and Sunrise Senior Living are also taking on troubled communities and believe that closing the proverbial backdoor by reducing turnover is a key to successfully taking a community from troubled to successful.
Slowing turnover in turnarounds
Senior living operators like Lifespark often take on otherwise “failing” communities, according to COO Matt Kinne. Those failures take on a variety of forms, and Kinne added each one is uniquely different, with issues ranging from being unable to staff properly, missing debt service payments, to rent and service fees being below market value.
St. Louis Park, Minnesota-based Lifespark puts its efforts into building up a strong company culture to help maintain its staffing with an employee experience anchored in “mission, vision and values.” The company’s transition process includes interviewing and rehiring existing staff to ensure they are up to its standards.
Part of the pre-assessment of an acquisition includes evaluating the existing team members, particularly among the community’s leadership.
“We hold a really high standard for who we hire,” Kinne said. “Just because we’re acquiring a new building doesn’t mean that we’re coming in and just automatically hiring all the employees.”
In the instances where staff are let go or don’t meet Lifespark’s standards, the company has a transition team and float resources such as nurses that can come in and fill positions until a more permanent hire can be completed.
When coming into a new community, McLean, Virginia-based Sunrise Senior Living takes a similar approach as a new community opening, according to Adam Heffron, vice president of field operations. The transition process is led by a dedicated corporate transition team and “supported by cross-functional partners across operations, sales and marketing, human resources and recruiting, care and asset management.”
“In recent acquisitions, this coordinated approach has allowed us to assess staffing needs early, deploy centralized recruiting resources, and build staffing pipelines prior to close,” Heffron told SHN. “This, in turn, helps communities transition with stability and continuity of care from day one.”
Sunrise utilizes a cluster-based approach to grow. The approach provides a variety of benefits, among which are leadership support, shared talent pools, centralized recruiting services and peer mentorship, according to Heffron. Sharing resources cuts down on the reliance of agency labor if there are shortages in an acquired community.
Heffron added there is a noticeable positive impact during a community transition from “strong leadership, a clear sense of purpose and consistent engagement.” That takes the form of introducing new employees to the company’s mission while committing to “creating an environment where they feel heard, supported, and empowered to grow.”
“Listening and responsiveness are embedded throughout the transition process. Early town halls and small-group discussions create space for open dialogue, while ongoing engagement tools and data-driven insights allow leaders to identify issues quickly and course-correct in real time,” Heffron said.
12 Oaks takes the approach of preserving as much of the community’s original team as possible while being transparent with what is happening to build trust between the teams. The early transition period tends to range from 60 to 90 days, where regional staff such as vice presidents are brought in to act as regular points of contact with the 12 Oaks corporate team while additional resources, such as care and compliance and sales and marketing teams, are utilized to begin righting the community’s direction.
“We will bring in our systems, and what the communities always find is that we do that for them,” Puklicz said. “That’s what 12 Oaks as a corporate operator comes in and does, because we want leadership at the community focusing on wellness and ensuring that the residents can thrive in the community.”
Avoiding agency and boosting training
While staffing turnover concerns vary by operator, one thing that is a particular focus during a community transition is avoiding expensive agency labor usage.
According to Puklicz, the process 12 Oaks implements results in less than a 1% turnover rate in new communities it is brought in to manage. That is in part credited to giving all staff a chance, and the company has “developed a pretty good reputation” in the markets it operates in when it comes to stabilization.
Alongside this, 12 Oaks implements a psychometric test called the Harrison assessment to evaluate community leadership to determine how aligned new executive directors are with the company, and training is implemented continually across all levels of staff. Within the first two weeks of 12 Oaks taking management of a community, the existing executive director is brought to the company’s corporate office for a dedicated three-day training program, and then three times a year, company-wide three-day training sessions are held for the various teams to continue building culture at the community level.
To stay on top of its turnover, 12 Oaks is in the process of implementing a pilot program through technology provider Yardi, which pulls turnover data by department to see where pain points might be arising on a quarterly basis.
Across Lifespark’s 50-community portfolio, the company currently has no agency usage and only budgets or around 3% of staffing costs for overtime. In addition, new staff receive training through a “Spark school” program, according to Meaghan Puglisi, senior director of marketing communication, which educates them on mission, values and lines of business Lifespark is involved in.
The company is also changing its transition process to spread its educational component from three months pre-acquisition to six months post-acquisition to avoid overwhelming new staff.
All told, staff turnover doesn’t tend to rank high as a concern for Lifespark following an acquisition.
“It doesn’t scare us,” Kinne said. “We just don’t have the same hiring challenges that a lot of our competitors do.”
According to Heffron, Sunrise’s approach is rooted in “preparation, scale and execution,” which helps lead to longer term success at reducing turnover and improving stability within a community.
“By leveraging dedicated transition resources, centralized systems,and a proven operating platform, we help communities stabilize quickly and position them for long-term success,” Heffron said.
