Drew Allen: Customer service to the core

At a Glance

Drew Allen
Director of Culinary Services
Otterbein Lebanon Lifestyle Community
Lebanon, Ohio

Accomplishments

When Drew Allen began working at a senior living center while attending the University of Cincinnati, he met a chef who was determined to make him into a long-term care foodservice operator. Even Allen didn’t know how right that chef would turn out to be. As director of culinary services for Otterbein Lebanon Lifestyle Community in Lebanon, Ohio, Allen has become a leader who is fiercely dedicated to customer service and letting residents lead the charge for change.

“Drew has a calm demeanor during challenging tasks, which makes him a stronger leader,” says Jason Miller, vice president of operations at Otterbein. “His personality is that of a person working to develop the people around him, similar to a coach.”

Related:Photos: Drew Allen

Elevating dining

When Allen arrived at Otterbein in 2010, Miller tasked him with updating foodservice for the community’s independent residents. At the time, the dining room, Allen says, was very institutional, with an old-fashioned cafeteria tray line. “It broke my heart to see that some of the residents couldn’t maneuver through the line,” Allen says. “Nine months after I started, we launched restaurant-style dining where residents come into the dining room and are served their meals.”

Even with the improvements, Allen quickly learned that change could be tough for both customers and employees. Reaching compromises meant he and his team had to be accommodating to residents who just wanted to come in, eat their food and leave. “It’s set up to be a dining experience with appetizers, salads, entrees and dessert, but some residents didn’t want all that,” Allen says. “So we allow them to let their server know they’d like their entree immediately. Showing flexibility was key to satisfying everyone.”

To help make the transition more palatable and give diners something to talk about, Allen incorporated new features such as a 600-gallon saltwater aquarium, a digital piano player and a two-sided fireplace. Technology also played a big part in making the change more successful. The department switched to a digital system for monitoring payment, eliminating confusion for residents who are not on a meal plan. The system also utilizes iPads, allowing servers to quickly take orders tableside instead of walking back to a POS station.

Upgrading transactions

Independent residents weren’t the only community members adapting to a big change. Allen implemented POS dining for skilled-nursing facility residents as well. The new system allows nurses to take orders at 10 Otterbein neighborhoods or kitchenettes, then pass the information on to a neighborhood-specific culinary employee who assembles the resident’s tray and delivers it.

“If change is hard for our residents, it is just as hard, if not harder, for our [employees], especially with this switch,” Allen says. The department got through the transition, he says, by moving slowly. It took a year to map out and execute the new system, which included planning, training and about $90,000 in renovations. Implementation was all about listening to what each invested department had to say.

“We held tons of interdepartmental meetings to decide how this system could work,” Allen says. “The training took a lot of long days to ensure that each department—culinary, nursing and housekeeping—were all getting their needs met.”

Resident choice

While the switch to restaurant-style dining and the new POS system was about updating service, the decision went much further. Both styles of service give residents more agency in their food experience, Allen says.

In the dining room, for example, the department increased menu options from two entrees to 20; on the skilled-nursing side, choices increased from two to seven. “We had to invest in equipment and labor,” Allen says. “We knew restaurant-style meant making a lot more of the food to-order, so that meant more grills, more fryers and more bodies.” He and his team started with a best-case scenario, then pared their ideas down to something more realistic for the operation.

That focus on choice extends beyond the menu and throughout Allen’s department. Residents are consulted on every decision, and Allen has encouraged other departments to follow the culinary team’s lead in seeking feedback. “Many residents said they were so happy to have this type of dining, because they were used to this kind of service from eating at restaurants,” he says. “Some residents stated, ‘Before we were just eating, but now we are dining and having an experience.’”

Partners matter

Allen’s dedication to customer service doesn’t apply just to residents, it includes staff too. That encompasses everything from providing free lunch to all employees to holding them accountable on the job. When Allen first started, the staff voiced concern about a previous lack of accountability. “To correct that, we have meetings—probably too many. The point of these meeting is to overcommunicate,” he said.

All this talking has led to his department’s three-year streak of deficiency-free state surveys. “When I walk across our campus, I try to ask everyone I see what I can do for them. I encourage my staff to do the same,” Allen says. “That way, if someone in another department has an issue, they know they can go to any number of people for the answer.”