You may have seen a few new faces around Meadowlark Hills this month, especially in the lobby at the Hospitality Desk! The Hospitality Team, which includes Tom Atwood, Liz Birk and Lynette Ford, has doubled in size. The team has welcomed three new members: Jessica Hudson, Kaila Trombley and Mary Harness. The new employees are part of the transformation the Hospitality Team has seen over the past few months.

To better serve the community, the Community Relations team examined what we were lacking. Our phone answering service, utilized outside of regular business hours wasn’t making the cut. We developed a proposal that eliminated the answering service and extended the hours that the Hospitality Desk was staffed. This will be a great improvement in staff availability and ability to receive incoming phone calls. The best part about it, after the contract with the answering service is discontinued, the changes will be budget neutral!  
The new, part-time Hospitality employees will staff the Hospitality Desk from 5 to 9 p.m. on weekdays and also on weekends from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Incoming calls, outside of the staffed hours, will be directed to an automated attendant with available directory options.

The main job duties of the part-time, evening and weekend employees will be to serve as the primary point of contact for residents, visitors, employees, family members and community members during their shifts. They will be responsible for answering incoming calls and directing them to the appropriate person. Other duties will include technical support for programs and classes in the Community Room, greeting visitors and reporting security concerns immediately. 

The part-time, evening and weekend staff will not be responsible for all functions that the current staff have. For instance, the cash drawer and the postal services will continue to close at 5 p.m. on weekdays and will not be open during the weekends. Meadowlark Hills continues to suggest that maintenance requests be made during the normal business hours. However, the Hospitality staff will be available to discuss maintenance needs and to contact the on-call maintenance staff, when needed. 

We are excited to have the friendly, new employees at Meadowlark Hills and look forward to the benefits  they will bring to the organization! We continually  strive to improve the quality of services available to every resident.