This SNF Chain Is Using Psychology Coaching to Cut Burnout and Keep Staff From Walking Out

New York, N.Y. — Running a skilled nursing facility has never been easy, but keeping leaders from burning out has become one of the industry’s most stubborn problems. One New York-based rehab and skilled nursing chain thinks the answer isn’t another HR training program — it’s psychology.

The McGuire Group, which operates 18 facilities across New York under the Absolut Care, Taconic Health Care, and VestraCare brands, has rolled out a Psychologically Informed Leadership Development Program that uses one-on-one coaching and group sessions rooted in behavioral psychology. The goal: help managers understand themselves better so they can lead more effectively — and stop losing staff over problems that never needed to escalate in the first place.

Why Traditional Training Falls Short

Pat McFeely, the company’s Chief Experience Officer, spent a decade as a nursing home administrator before developing the program. He’s seen plenty of management trainings come and go, and he’s skeptical of most of them.

“Traditional management systems don’t always do a good job at sustaining behavior change,” McFeely said. “It might make a slight change up front, but typically people slide back into the way they were doing things.”

That’s the problem the coaching program is designed to fix. Rather than a one-time seminar, it’s an ongoing process — individual sessions are confidential, and participants work through their own behavior patterns and communication styles at their own pace. Administrators are the most common participants, though any of McGuire’s roughly 2,800 employees can take part.

A Generational Shift in How Respect Works

Part of what McFeely coaches around is a fundamental generational shift in the workplace. Managers who came up in an era where a title commanded automatic respect are struggling to adapt — and that struggle often shows up as aggression or rigidity rather than effective leadership.

“Now it’s sort of the other way around,” he said. “You, as the manager, have to get the respect from people. Your title isn’t going to do it. And a lot of folks have a hard time with that. They wind up defaulting to being more aggressive — more ‘do it or else.’ Unfortunately, those don’t produce the results we want to see anymore because jobs are easy to find.”

It’s a real tension in long-term care, where many leaders built their careers under very different expectations. The coaching doesn’t tell them they were wrong — it helps them see why what worked before won’t work now, and what to try instead.

Early Results

McGuire says the program has led to higher retention, better survey outcomes, and fewer family complaints. The company’s marketing team noted a drop in negative online reviews — a metric that carries real weight in a sector where families are actively researching facilities online before placing a loved one.

Some employees join voluntarily, looking to sharpen their management skills. Others are referred by regional leadership when outcomes start to slip or culture issues surface. There’s also a team-based facilitation option for when problems go beyond one person.

McFeely is careful about how the program is positioned internally. It’s never framed as corrective or punitive. That matters — in a field that’s already asking a lot of its workers, the last thing administrators want is another mandatory task that feels like a reprimand.

“We’re creating those ideal conditions so that our traditional tools, like policies and procedures, work the way they’re designed,” he said. “Now I’m more likely as an employee to follow the proper steps — and if I follow the steps, we get the results we want.”

Whether other providers follow McGuire’s lead remains to be seen, but the approach offers a practical model for an industry that’s spent years trying — and often failing — to crack the retention code.