Seniors Helping Seniors has long distinguished itself from other home care companies by hiring active seniors to serve as caregivers. Josh Obeiter — an owner of one of the company’s franchise locations — has seen even more added value from this strategy as the industry at large combats labor shortages.
At Seniors Helping Seniors, the average age of an employee is around 70 years old, and 80% of caregivers are in their 60s and 70s, according to Obeiter.
“People often have a lot of resistance when their family members say, ‘I think it’s time to bring in a caregiver, you need help,’ especially when there’s cognitive impairment,” he told Home Health Care News. “People lack the insight into their own deficits, so our model of having somebody who looks and feels more like a friend or neighbor allows the person receiving the help to feel a lot more comfortable and typically a lot more receptive.”
Pennsylvania-based Seniors Helping Seniors is a personal care franchise company that has over 200 locations in 36 states.
Obeiter owns and operates a Seniors Helping Seniors in the Greater Boston area. This location offers non-medical home care with a focus on providing care to seniors living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. It serves over 200 clients and employs more than 200 caregivers.
Through Seniors Helping Seniors Boston, Obeiter has employed more than 1,000 seniors. Over the years, he has seen the benefits of tapping into this underutilized labor pool.
Since the majority of caregivers at Senior Helping Seniors are retirees, the company doesn’t have as many employees who are juggling multiple jobs across different home care agencies.
“They’re not straddling between Senior Helping Seniors and another non-medical home care agency, or an assisted living,” Obeiter said. “They’re able to come to us looking for part-time work. We’re able to fill what they’re looking for, so they don’t need to go elsewhere for work.”
Employees who aren’t juggling multiple jobs are able to bring their full energy to caregiving, Obeiter noted.
So far, Seniors Helping Seniors Boston has brought on 30 new caregivers this year.
While the company makes use of traditional job boards – such as Indeed.com – to recruit caregivers, it also leverages other methods meant to attract seniors to Seniors Helping Seniors.
“We do presentations out in the community, typically one to four times a month, about aging well and what aging well looks like, and how part-time employment, social engagement and stimulation can actually be good for your physical and mental well-being, as you age in retirement,” Obeiter said.
Seniors Helping Seniors also distributes flyers — at places like YMCAs, grocery stores and senior centers — throughout the communities the company serves.
“What’s interesting about the people that come to work for us is they’re more often than not more of a passive employee,” Obeiter said. “They didn’t know they were really looking for work, or they didn’t know they were looking to be a caregiver. They came across our organization and discovered that we align with their values, interests and experience.”
At a time when employee benefits packages play an increasingly critical role in attracting caregivers, the company also has a benefit that appeals to seniors. People who work for Seniors Helping Seniors receive a discount on care services for themselves or family members.
“More than half of the people that work for us are solo-agers,” Obeiter said. “They are people who do not have a spouse or adult children. Their set of needs are different and more complicated. We have realized that and really tried to provide them, not only with a way to earn extra income in their retirement, but also a way for them to connect with peers, build friendships and learn about the different resources they may need down the road.”
Overall, Obeiter believes that hiring older adults brings the organization a deeper experience that comes from life lived versus training.
“Seniors come to us with tremendous life experience that often a certification or degree may not necessarily help with as much. The life experience that people come with – their common sense, their savviness – is tremendous,” he said. “It’s something that our counterparts don’t necessarily benefit from as much when they employ younger adults. They’re also more committed. They can empathize with the patient population they’re serving because they’re so much closer in age.”
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