How We Can Get Gen Z to Fall in Love with Senior Living as a Career

By Jacquelyn Kung

Here are 3 things we can do to help Gen Z want to work in senior living:

1. Cohort onboarding -- Most communities need to hire lots of people. Could we consider hiring groups and onboarding Generation Z in cohorts? It gives instant camaraderie and when we ask employees to relocate for career advancement (which Generation Z, and Millennials even for that matter, would love to do), it gives Generation Z instant peer group friends.

2. Career picturing -- During new hire orientation for dining servers, we could add in talks by different directors of departments . . . or even corporate officers. The idea is to give the story of “how I got here” and to give a cohort of young employees a mentor and champion for their career advancement (heck, they might even need advice about what major to pick in college).

3. Assistance getting training and certificates -- If we want to alleviate the LPN/RN and AIT/ED shortage, we can gift teams of Generation Z the advice and toolset of step-by-step training and what courses they should study in school. Millennials and Gen Xers are already some of our industry’s most excellent EDs. Generation Z could soon be too!
   
   And… this might even work for your Millennials as well.

Please leave your ideas and comments below.

Author’s note: Tony Mullen passed away recently. He was a big believer in inculcating the next generations with a love of our industry like he had. Here’s to Tony’s legacy.