Several years ago, Wesley Enhanced Living redefined its mission to aggressively reposition its resident services model from one of Care to one of Enhanced Living (EL) — a change from the traditional static care model of maintaining resident well-being with survival services to the actual enhancement of resident well-being and expanding the senior living experience to lives more meaningful, more purposeful. The WEL Mission of making a “compelling difference in the lives of residents through providing excellence and innovation in aging services” requires a special community culture which supports thriving over just surviving and excellence over good enough. It is essential to understand that creating this special EL culture for residents demands a special, complimentary environment be built for the staff providing resident support. To obtain the best results for our residents, means that we must create the best conditions for our employees. As someone once said, “take good care of your employees and they will take good care of your residents”. In that regard, we establish the Wesley Enhanced Living Golden Rule of Resident Support – Do unto staff as you would have them do unto residents. These two cultures, resident and staff, while affecting distinctly different populations are interdependent and cannot be separated. Both require a special covenant defining reciprocal obligations and benefits. For employees the covenant establishes a relationship with the Company demanding a culture of mutual respect, empowerment, fair treatment, and growth opportunities in return for commitment, engagement, continuous improvement, and outstanding results. The employee-resident covenant is one of attention, concern, innovation, and change in return for respect, gratitude, and the great satisfaction which comes with making a compelling difference. In recognition of this shared purpose and to reflect the binding nature of these two cultures, I believe we need to acknowledge an unspoken, but important underlying element to our Mission. The work that we do at Wesley Enhanced Living not only “makes a compelling difference in the lives of our residents”, it also can make a compelling difference in the lives of our employees and only through commitment to that special Company-Staff-Resident relationship can our Mission be fully realized.