Changemakers: Doug Schiffer, President And Ceo, Allegro Living

Meet Doug Schiffer, president and CEO of Allegro Living — a St. Louis- and Orlando-based senior living operator spanning 53 communities and 8 brands, primarily comprising Allegro and Spring Arbor properties.

With a career largely driven by change, including shift from commercial real estate to a sole focus on senior living, Schiffer has also applied his experience and leadership as past chairman of the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) and is a member of the Senior Housing Council of the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

In this Changemakers interview, Schiffer shares his take on what’s changing in senior living, how to manage through that change, and what he’d change about the industry, if given the opportunity to wave a magic wand and make it happen.

In what ways do you think the senior living industry is changing right now?

The industry is in a state of flux. There are so many aspects that are changing. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track. The players are changing. There are mergers, acquisitions, failures and changes in leadership. This creates many opportunities for growth and is one of the reasons we were able to merge recently. Consolidations and integrations are in fashion right now as sub-scale operators are having a harder time. Finding the right size is interesting — it means being small enough that culture matters and large enough to have economies of scale.

A.I. is everywhere and is especially [prevalent] in senior living. We are all working to find ways that A.I. can enhance our business model. That means looking at everything from room monitoring to caregiving. Wherever A.I. can be helpful to residents when we have staffing challenges, we are looking to bring it into the community.

In what ways do you think senior living operators need to change for the incoming generation of older adults?

Our residents are changing, and we need to keep up. Previous generations were happy with a nice environment, decent food and being looked after. That’s not good enough anymore. The baby boomer generation is quite discerning. They expect to be catered to in a different way. They’ve worked hard to be able to afford finer things for most of their lives and there is no reason to assume they want to take a step down now.

It’s our responsibility as senior living operators to listen to our residents and respond to their needs. That’s our job! We need to focus on predictive technologies that monitor patterns in gait, risk of falls and those kinds of things.

How do you think the senior living industry can change to better educate prospective residents and their families in the years ahead?

Surprisingly, there is still confusion as to what senior living is. I’m always amazed when personal friends ask me how the nursing home business is, and I have to explain X number of times what senior living is all about. While there is much better understanding today, it’s still a sector that is only researched when the need for a loved one is apparent. Great strides have been made by groups like ASHA with “Where You Live Matters,” and other direct educational sites, but getting the word out through visits with members of Congress and local meet-and-greets goes a long way.

In what ways can senior living companies change the public’s perception of the industry?

This is a tough question to answer as so many different ways have been attempted. I believe that we’ve come a long way as we’re starting to enter an era where our customers are former “adult children,” and they learned a lot about the industry while researching for their loved ones. While still educated, these new prospects are not yet familiar with the present offerings. In many ways, our onsite teams need to understand (and I think our training helps) that the people walking in the door want to be advised more than sold on the community. There is always a need for which we can offer a solution.

We should also continue funding critical research on health benefits of community socialization versus isolation and the impact of community on depression, longevity and dementia.

Tell us about some of your recent efforts to change the senior living industry for the better.

As mentioned before, we are wrapping our arms around A.I.

For example, we’ve moved to include fall monitoring in our Ensemble (memory care) neighborhoods. We’ve been amazed by the benefits to our residents and the reduction of our response times.

Change is hard. Can you talk about a time when you tried to execute a change, and things didn’t go according to plan? How did you pivot, and what did you learn as a leader?

We’re going through that right now as we merge Spring Arbor and Allegro. There are core beliefs and culture in each organization that we don’t want to lose, and it’s my job, along with others, to figure out how to pull them together into an integrated organization. I had a similar challenge earlier in my career. During the early days of Allegro, the owner was Hallmark Housing, the manager was Love Management, and the communities were known as Allegro. These were all entities we owned, but knew we needed to act under a common name, so everyone understood that they were all “rowing” together. I thought it would be an easy conversion, but didn’t consider the level of investment each group had in their respective naming. I had to take a step back, listen to each group and slowly make the change so that everyone felt heard. That’s exactly the process we’re going through now.

What’s the biggest change you’ve ever made in your career or life? How did it go and what did you learn?

The biggest change by far was moving into senior living. I began my career as a mortgage banker, mostly working on multifamily deals, but quickly transitioned into financing health care — specifically assisted living. Over time, that’s all I was working on. When the opportunity presented itself for me to move into the development and operations of senior living, I jumped at the chance recognizing I could make a difference.

What advice do you have for other senior living companies implementing their own changemaking efforts?

Do the research. Know specifically what you want to accomplish and then stick to it. There will inevitably be some pushback, but if you believe in the desired change you need to stick to your guns.

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about the senior living industry, what would it be and why?

Staffing challenges. It’s often forgotten that we had staffing challenges long before COVID exacerbated the issue. Being able to fix staffing would allow our teams to focus on the residents in a totally different way. Having caring individuals able to really get to know the residents and treat them as family would be a dramatic shift to how our business functions.

What fictional character would you enlist to help change the senior living industry for the better this year?

What a fun question. I’d like to enlist Spock (from Star Trek.) He is highly logical with an emotional center that helps with decision making. That’s what we need. Someone of advanced age who would understand our issues, be able to cut through the “bull”, but wouldn’t forget “the needs of the one.”

Pretend the senior living industry is a streaming service. What movie or television series best describes the industry right now? And if you could change to a new movie or television series, what would it be and why?

Right now, we seem to be stuck in “Severance.” There is a real separation between what we provide and what prospects think we provide.

I’d change it to “Ted Lasso.” There’s always change in our business, just as in Ted Lasso, but staying optimistic is more than half the battle — especially when you can take on new challenges with humor.

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