Kisco Senior Residing has added over 1,000 items to its senior residing portfolio since 2023. With extra progress on the horizon, the corporate has turned its focus to bettering staffing and different operational points.
In 2025, Carlsbad, California-based Kisco is concentrated on bettering its management hiring efforts whereas bringing “consistency” to its eating program, in accordance with CEO Andy Kohlberg. All of the whereas, the corporate is layering in know-how to help employees.
Now at 32 communities in 10 states, Kisco’s portfolio has grown to over 6,000 items with 3,061 staff. Half of the corporate’s portfolio is made up of unbiased residing and the opposite half assisted residing and reminiscence care.
The corporate has added new communities to its portfolio whereas additionally finishing ground-up improvement in restricted situations. The operator lately opened new communities in Washington, D.C., Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boston whereas increasing and renovating different properties. In 2023, Kisco finalized the acquisition of the Balfour Senior Residing portfolio of communities in Denver, Colorado.
To enhance operations, Kisco is concentrated on strengthening its eating and care supply operations whereas additionally trying to cut back turnover by elevated worker coaching.
“Our primary strategic goal for this yr is hiring prime expertise, and we’re centered on the hiring course of and retaining expertise whereas bettering onboarding and coaching,” Kohlberg informed SHN. “We’re beefing up our coaching.”
Staffing ‘greatest driver’ in care supply, resident satisfaction
Senior residing operators lately have confronted stiff competitors for prime expertise, particularly looking for licensed care employees. These aggressive circumstances have led Kisco to introduce new coaching alternatives for current employees whereas refining recruitment and hiring efforts to make sure the correct candidates are employed.
“When a neighborhood has excessive affiliate turnover, it’s very laborious to have any kind of consistency in high quality of care,” Kohlberg stated.
Kohlberg sees a chance to enhance the corporate’s ecosystem of know-how platforms for current employees, particularly by layering in synthetic intelligence (AI) to the corporate’s proprietary purposes for eating, care supply, and back-end help for operations groups.
“We’re taking a look at methods to automate key processes and take away a number of the knowledge entry burden on caregivers to allow them to spend extra time with residents,” Kohlberg stated. “The longer term is embedding AI in these apps and making an attempt to automate workflows that actually ship our entire service package deal.”
This has led Kisco to deal with the chief director management place, and the corporate has a deep bench of “long-tenured” EDs. The present problem is hiring proficient and skilled neighborhood leaders.
“It’s laborious for a care providers director to achieve success in the event that they’ve by no means labored in senior residing earlier than. It’s a tricky transition; even bringing somebody in from nursing or a hospital setting will be difficult. All of it begins with the chief director, however hiring prime expertise is at all times the toughest half, particularly for key administration roles,” Kohlberg stated.
Kisco can also be grappling with hiring shortages for licensed care employees in some markets. Northern California poses the hardest problem for cultivating prime medical expertise, Kohlberg added. In distinction, it’s simpler to draw expertise on the gross sales facet, due to a “wider internet to forged” when hiring gross sales administrators from exterior the senior residing business.
Eating program ‘consistency’
Because the appetites and eating habits of senior residing residents proceed to alter, senior residing suppliers have labored to enhance their culinary packages to satisfy a various vary of dietary and lifestyle-driven preferences.
Kisco has recognized areas of its eating program that may be standardized throughout its portfolio, whereas nonetheless permitting culinary administrators creativity in designing localized menu choices, Kohlberg stated.
Previous resident complaints centered on inconsistency of meals and providers, which drove the corporate to revamp menu improvement, buying, and high quality management to convey uniformity throughout all communities.
Throughout its 32 communities, Kisco eating groups oversee 78 eating places, all of them branded with distinct menu choices, with some communities having 4 venues spanning bistros, pubs, and conventional eating areas.
“We’ve accomplished an excellent job in reorienting the resident view of eating, and it’s much like how resorts have a number of eating venues, every with a distinct identify and expertise,” Kohlberg stated. “We’re engaged on the buying facet to manage meals prices whereas bettering high quality management to ship a extra constant product.”
Inside Kisco’s latest progress
Fueling Kisco’s want for evolution are its plans to proceed rising.
Kisco lately opened The Carnegie at Washingtonian, a brand new 300-unit neighborhood in Gaithersburg, Maryland, together with a deliberate growth at The Cardinal at North Hills in Raleigh, North Carolina, which can convey the neighborhood’s whole measurement to 416 items. The corporate’s D.C.-area neighborhood, The Fitzgerald, opened earlier this yr, together with The Newbury, a neighborhood in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The corporate can also be increasing its Sandy, Utah, neighborhood with 30 new cottages—the most important cottage growth in its historical past. Kisco has its sights set on rising within the D.C. market, including three communities within the space, whereas additionally exploring alternatives to develop in Denver.
“We’re taking a look at making an attempt to do cluster markets and develop, so we’ve at all times been centered on accountable progress,” Kohlberg stated. “Our plan is to densify within the markets that we’re in, and we see North Carolina, D.C., Boston, Colorado, and California as key markets for us.”
Kisco has added 15- to 20-unit reminiscence care additions at a number of communities relying on native market demand for higher-acuity providers. Choose communities are “turning into far more care-driven,” Kohlberg famous.
Residents are looking for to remain in unbiased residing so long as doable earlier than transitioning to assisted residing or reminiscence care. Some Kisco communities are seeing an inflow of {couples}, with as much as 40% of recent move-ins at newly constructed communities being {couples}.
This displays the corporate’s philosophy in neighborhood design, with bigger items and a number of eating venues interesting to a “far more lively” older grownup profile.
In care supply, Kisco has improved its evaluation course of and empowered employees to establish residents who could have to transition to higher-acuity care, Kohlberg added.
All of those efforts are in service of positioning Kisco as an operator sure by “heart-led hospitality” that fuses way of life and care providers.
“We’re making an attempt to fuse the 2 in our working fashions, and we have now a brand new branding marketing campaign with a brand new web site popping out quickly that talks about boutique hospitality, heart-led service, and all these issues that we’re making an attempt to do some bit otherwise,” Kohlberg stated.
With Kisco’s three manufacturers—its way of life model, the Balfour banner in Colorado, and Signature, an upscale luxurious model—Kohlberg sees a chance to create “bespoke hospitality” experiences for residents. This contains personalized providers and expanded life enrichment programming to draw the incoming child boomer era.
For instance, including tech concierge positions has confirmed in style with residents, easing their transition into new items.
Whereas provide and demand demographics are the strongest they’ve been in 35 years, Kohlberg is aware of the chance of stagflation—a mixture of excessive inflation, gradual financial progress, and excessive unemployment.
“It might be difficult if recession and excessive rates of interest happen collectively,” Kohlberg stated. “On this enterprise, model and belief come from constantly delivering on the promise of high-quality service. Not like motels, prospects can’t merely stroll away the following day, making execution much more vital than simply advertising.”
