From Firefighting to Forward Thinking: How Intentional Hiring is Reshaping Senior Living Talent Strategies

By: Stephanie Freiboth, Owner at My Empowered Career

In the world of senior living, hiring can often feel like a race against the clock. A nurse resigns. A culinary manager takes a new opportunity. Suddenly, the team is stretched thin, morale dips, and the scramble to backfill begins. Does this sound familiar? It’s exhausting and it’s not working.

In today’s ultra-competitive labor market, where skilled candidates have options and your community’s success is tied directly to your people, filling open roles isn’t enough. Reimagine your talent acquisition strategy with me. Not as a function of HR, but as a strategic lever for growth, culture, and continuity.

What if instead of reacting to turnover, you planned for it? Instead of simply posting jobs, you marketed opportunities? Instead of hiring for today’s vacancy, you hired for tomorrow’s vision?

Before we dive in, let’s agree on one thing: turnover is not a dirty word. People grow, roles shift, businesses evolve, and so do the needs of the people we serve. It’s a natural part of progress, not a failure.

The Cost of Hiring on Autopilot

Think about your last few open positions. Were you simply hiring to backfill someone? Or were you hiring someone who could help your organization get where it wants to go? Most job descriptions are stuck in the past, written years ago, dusted off in times of need, and centered on tasks instead of outcomes. They are often vague, uninspiring and don’t reflect the kind of impact you actually need from the role. That misalignment shows up in all kinds of costly ways such as high turnover, longer time-to-fill, burnout, and disengagement. Not to mention the missed opportunity to bring in people who elevate your culture which is a competitive advantage for your communities. Intentional hiring means pausing to ask:

• What skills and capabilities do we actually need moving forward?
• How does this role connect to our bigger picture?
• And how do we make our job postings sound less like a checklist—and more like a meaningful opportunity?

You Can’t Build a Great Team Without a Plan

Here’s where things start to shift. Hiring isn’t just an HR function. It’s a business strategy. The communities that are winning in the talent game right now are the ones thinking ahead. They are aligning workforce planning with organizational goals, looking at staffing trends, and building talent pipelines long before they need them. They’re asking things like:

• What roles are likely to open up in the next 6-12 months?
• Where can we promote from within and what skills do those people need to grow?
• How can we tell our story better to attract people who care about what we do?

That kind of thinking takes you out of the reaction cycle and into a proactive, purpose-driven strategy.

A Smarter Pipeline is a Stronger Pipeline

Let’s get practical. Because intentional hiring isn’t just philosophical, it’s actionable.If you’re still waiting until a resignation hits your inbox to start recruiting, you’re already behind. Proactive organizations are using smarter sourcing techniques to build pipelines before there’s a gap.

• Smarter Sourcing: Build segmented talent pools of passive candidates by role type before you need them. Engage lightly and consistently so when a role opens, you are not starting from zero.
• Recruitment Marketing: Think like a marketer. Highlight your culture, benefits, impact, and team stories in a way that connects emotionally, not just professionally. What are you doing outside of the job posting?
• Internal Mobility: Look inside before you look outside. Proactively upskilling, reskilling, and succession planning create movement that builds loyalty and fills future roles faster.

Speak the Language of Business

One of the biggest challenges I hear about workforce planning is communication, especially across departments. Operators care about census. HR cares about headcount. Finance cares about cost. Everyone agrees hiring is important, yet not everyone is speaking the same language. To elevate the conversation, find common ground in your communication. Communicating workforce needs in terms of business outcomes helps create common ground.

• Link staffing strategies to occupancy goals.
• Quantify the cost of turnover and the ROI of retention.
• Use data to build your case for proactive hiring such as time-to-fill, vacancy rates, candidate drop-off, etc.

The more we connect talent to performance metrics, the more influence HR gains at the decision-making table.

Intentional Hiring is a Team Sport

Recruiters, hiring managers, HR leaders, operators, everyone plays a role in creating a culture that attracts, hires, and retains top talent. If you take one thing away, let it be this: in a people-powered industry like senior living, the success of your organization is the success of your hiring strategy. It’s not about filling roles, it’s about shaping your future, one hire at a time.

Let’s stop firefighting and start building.