The youngest members of the workforce have made ideal administrators at one in-home care provider. Millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, are quickly becoming the largest group in the workforce, making their presence in home care essential.
Millennials’ strengths with technology, social media and communications have made them successful in corporate roles at Idaho-based Assisting Hands Home Care, according to the agency’s president and CEO, Lane Kofoed.
“Millennials go right into solving problems with technology,” Kofoed told Home Health Care News. “They know how to stay in touch and how to keep our brand looking updated and fresh with social media.”
While some home health agencies have had great success in hiring millennials to caregiver roles, Kofoed has not found this to be the best fit within his company, which serves more than 99 franchised territories in 16 states across the U.S. and one Canadian province.
However, when it comes to filling positions in the corporate office, specifically technology roles, millennials have brought problem-solving skills and new ideas to the table.
One such idea was developing a tool for the company’s website and social media pages to generate positive reviews. Having grown up in an environment where it was easy to go online and get other consumers’ opinions on products, millennials understand how positive reviews can validate and promote a company.
“The millennials in our office don’t buy things unless they read what others said about it first,” Kofoed said. “And now, millennial consumers are teaching their parents and grandparents more and more that reviews are important.”
So how does a home care company bring strong millennial candidates into its corporate offices? Kofoed says that he considers whether the potential hire has a degree, checks sources from previous jobs, and makes sure to set expectations in the interview.
Once Kofoed had a few millennials in place in his corporate office, he found that word-of-mouth hiring picked up.
“Pre-millennials, we were doing more traditional recruiting, such as through Craigslist ads,” Kofoed said. “Now, our millennial employees bring in new millennials through social interactions.”
Millennials are also good at spotting needs within the company and recommending solutions, according to Kofoed. The company has added a social media specialist and internal systems specialist recently.
“In the past, I’ve been wary of millennials and questioned whether they would be reliable,” he said. “But I have strong millennial team members now who I have promoted quickly because of the skills that they brought to the job right away.”
Written by Elizabeth Jakaitis
Companies featured in this article:
