Founded in 1999, Dial Senior Living owns and operates 26 senior living communities in six states: Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Its mission is to help residents love the way they live.

The search for a new caregiver training platform

Carrie Aylward, VP of People and Culture, and Shelby Andersen, Director of People and Culture, at Dial Senior Living, decided that it was time for a change after auditing their existing caregiver training platform. They wanted a caregiver training experience that was highly transparent and visible to caregivers on their side while up-leveling the quality of training as well.

Dial Senior Living was also looking for a content experience that was more than death by PowerPoint. “We wanted caregivers to not just listen to the information to get by for compliance requirements, but truly understand and hear it,” Andersen added.

A solution that met and exceeded their community standards and diverse needs.

“One of the things that stood out to us about CareAcademy is how easy it is to look at the dashboard. It helps our communities to see where they stand with incomplete courses and maintain compliance. Providing refugees with a great place to work is really near and dear to our founder’s heart, and the ability to have courses in different languages is very beneficial to us as well,” Andersen shared.
With communities across six states, Dial Senior Living had to consider multiple state regulations, operational requirements, and other factors when selecting a caregiver training platform.

Each community operates slightly differently than the next. Dial Senior Living needed a platform that adapted at the community level. “Having a lot of videos can be overwhelming. Each community appreciates being able to customize the content.

If they have a lot of in-services, for example, they can select which courses they want to be delivered through CareAcademy to satisfy annual state requirements in a way that best meets their needs,” she added.

“I love how easy it is to view outstanding initial training courses and how we can customize the training platform based on the state and the communities themselves.”

– Shelby Andersen, Dial Senior Living

Clinician and caregiver training that’s designed around a culture of retention and upskilling.

Dial also utilizes CareAcademy across different role types, enabling nurses and administrators to complete continuing education units (CEUs) in the platform. “The onboarding process went pretty smoothly in selecting which courses satisfied each state regulation. It was also great to see the crosswalks (that make it easy to identify which courses met certain criteria state-by-state),” Andersen shared.

“Our resident satisfaction from 2023 to 2024 has improved in all categories. The training is much more specific in CareAcademy than our previous platform.”

– Shelby Andersen, Dial Senior Living

When Dial hires caregivers, they want them to feel valued and find ways to improve their career experience. “We offer optional elective training within the platform for a wage increase. It includes around ten hours, allowing team members to improve their career within Dial,” she added. “We’ve noticed that team members who take the elective training go the extra mile and take the initiative.” The numbers speak for themselves. When Dial initiated an employee survey, they found that:

The opportunity for upskilling also reinforces the tie between quality training and quality of resident care. “Our resident satisfaction from 2023 to 2024 has improved in all categories. The training is much more specific in CareAcademy than our previous platform.” This included:

Not only that, but the Dial team worked with CareAcademy to co-create a food safety course for their dining team to satisfy an Iowa requirement that has kept employees compliant but also well-engaged and attentive, especially around foodborne illness.

Improve resident care with robust caregiver training.

Competition is fierce when it comes to finding the right approaches and strategies to improve resident longevity and new occupancy.

By leaning on a robust onboarding and continuing education program for staff, facilities can enable them to work with confidence and a long-term future in mind.

Achieving results like those of Dial Senior Living demonstrates what’s possible when a driven, committed organization partners with a like-minded training partner, CareAcademy. Building a positive culture and continually reinforcing it demonstrates dedication as a community while keeping both care teams and residents at the center. “We want to make sure that all of our team members get the samelevel of training on all of the topics that we need with CareAcademy, while giving flexibility for communities to adapt and change as needed,” Andersen added.

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