Jim Zauner changed careers to make a difference in senior care, seniors’ lives
OCEAN CITY – About a dozen years before Jim Zauner became the new executive director at The Shores in Ocean City, a personal experience prompted him to change careers.
After many years in the publishing industry, he took some time off to go to Florida to visit his aging parents and help out. His father became ill and required hospitalization and assisted living.
Because of his experience as a consumer – seeing everything from a customer’s standpoint, whether in a hospital, nursing home or hospice care – he realized his broad business and leadership skills could translate into the senior living field.
It is a field where he wants to make a difference.
“That’s how I ended up in this seat,” he said in an interview Thursday morning, Nov. 11, in his office at The Shores, part of the United Methodist Communities, before giving a tour of the extensively renovated facilities.
He was attracted to the United Methodist Communities because of its priorities, including “having seniors live an abundant life.” UMC, he said, is “a religious-based, not-for-profit organization that I think really does strive to fulfill our mission and values serving seniors.”
It is an organization in which “money and resources are plowed back into the community” and are “not trying to sweeten the pockets of a for-profit organization.”
“Having been in the business going on 12 years, in my experience, there are certain providers that I would want to be connected to as an employee, as a leader. This is one of them,” he said. “They have a good reputation. They treat their people well.” That includes both the residents and the staff, he said.
Zauner said he came at an opportune time. The Shores has been undergoing a multi-year renovation inside the facilities to upgrade and emphasize the communal areas. (The renovations were unveiled in a special gathering and ribbon-cutting Tuesday.)
That involved moving the offices toward the front of the building – instead of the middle – and having the bistro become the center of the community.
Along with the bistro, which looks like a nice restaurant, not a cafeteria, The Shores also upgraded places for residents and families to gather: sitting rooms, a game room, a salon, a gift shop, a library, and a town hall room which is used as the chapel and for larger events.
The idea was to make things more spacious and beautiful, Zauner said. Still to come is renovation of more hallways. The renovation created more of an energy, he said, a vibrancy in a facility where people can move about more easily and interact.
The Shores has different sections for the roughly 118 residents who are in assisted living, memory care and hospice, and another 45 who reside on the skilled nursing side. There are about 200 staff members who care for the residents and Zauner is working to hire more qualified people to expand the staff. “The hard part now is hiring people,” he said. “That is our biggest challenge. …. We’re doing what we can to attract the right type of person to work in this environment.”
Although Zauner had business and management experience, becoming licensed and certified as a nursing home administrator involved a year of work where he learned the business from top to bottom – or, perhaps more accurately, bottom to top.
It was a full year of volunteer work. Certification requires 1,750 hours of experience, not to mention reports and testing, he explained.
“It was a great learning experience. I had a great preceptor who exposed me and helped me understand the roles and responsibilities,” Zauner said. Not only was he learning all the aspects of managing a nurse home, he “was cleaning toilets, vacuuming floors, stuff frankly that I thought my days of doing that were done as a teenager. And I was OK with it. It helped me connect with the staff that performs those duties. I have a great appreciation for that.
“I have done, maybe not all the jobs, but most of them that are here, and I definitely would do them if they need help in the kitchen or as a dishwasher,” he said. “I would jump in because I know it matters and it helps and it just shows I am engaged.”
He brings all of his past work experience to bear at The Shores.
“My philosophy is something that is consistent in my roots, even in my other career, which is focusing on the customer,” Zauner said. “And providing leadership and support for the front-line staff, for the leadership team, in order to do the best we can to serve our customers – our patients, our residents.”
“The term is thrown around a lot, but I’m very much into collaborative leadership. If we have a problem or issue, pull together the team and let’s sort through it step by step,” he said.
He is a hands-on manager. That can be a double-edged sword sometimes when he gets “too involved in the details, but I think that’s important. There’s a certain level I need to understand so I can support our team too, up to our corporate folks when there are resources that are needed, support that’s needed. Then I can communicate that as effectively as possible.”
Staff, he said, is critical, from the nurses and certified nurses aides to the activities and dining professionals to maintenance and housekeeping.
Zauner said he does like the direct interaction he gets from his job as executive director.
When he was in publishing with Dow Jones, as he moved higher up in the organization, he got more removed from those interactions with customers
Not now. He has direct interaction with the residents – the customers of The Shores.
“In the end, it’s about what our customers think and are we meeting their needs. Are we providing the type of environment that helps them live a purposeful life? In the end that’s an important piece to remember. It’s person-centered care,” he said, whether how to meet different meal schedules for different residents or how the chef prepares food to different tastes. It’s understanding the preferences and likes and dislikes and doing our best to make sure we accommodate that.”
“You don’t get any closer to the customer than in their home,” Zauner said. “That is what this is. This is their home.”
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff