Millennials may be making up more of your patient schedules and your workforce than other generations. While we’ve covered tactics for marketing to millennials, how do you manage the millennials who work in your optometric practice?

The millennial generation is different than previous generations. Life events like overly planned lives, exposure to computer technology and social media, among others, have shaped the way millennials see the world and have defined what their idea of work should be. Below are tips to help you more effectively manage the millennials in your optometric practice to keep your turnover-rate low, employees working hard, and patients happy.

Tips For Managing The Millennials In Your Optometric Practice

Provide Growth Opportunities

Millennials want to be challenged and grow. With that mindset, most are hard workers and are willing to take on challenges. However, if they feel like they can’t progress in their role, then they may look for other opportunities. It’s important to give your millennial employees tasks that will challenge them so long as you give them the proper resources and guidance they need to accomplish the task.

Providing your millennial employees with growth opportunities doesn’t always have to mean a wage increase. Mentoring your employee or offering different benefits that will help them grow professionally will keep them interested and staying with the practice.

Make An Impact

More and more companies are giving back to communities as part of their sales tactics—think of the buy-one/give-one model. Millennial consumers are activists for making the world a better place, and they are advocates of the brands that help them do that. Companies who have caught on to this have realized that if millennial consumers are more loyal to brands that provide a platform for improvements, maybe their employees will be more loyal and stay longer too. Giving your millennial employees the feeling that they are working for something greater than the practice and contributing to the betterment of the community will assist in the retention of millennial employees and may result in positive publicity of your practice to your community.

Reinforce The Team

Millennials thrive in a team setting. Letting them share responsibility by cross-training the team will give them skills they need to grow in your practice while giving you back-ups in case of scheduling conflicts. Reinforcing the team also leads to more collaboration throughout the practice and the shared want to succeed.

Create Work-life Balance

Work-life balance is important for every employee. While some employees may seem to be always on and ready to work, there will be times when these individuals burn-out and either request a break, look for other opportunities, or let their performance slip.

Like you, millennials don’t want to sacrifice their time with friends and family to work. If you’re an overworked OD on the brink of burning out, take a few tips from the millennial generation and leave work at the office to disconnect from the optometric practice.

Have Fun

Whether your millennials are part-time employees or are putting in 40 hours a week in your optometric office, they want to have fun and enjoy where they work. Making your optometric practice a fun place to work will help you attract and retain millennials in your office. And, if your employees are happy and having fun, it could lead to more favorable patient interactions. Below are a few ways to make sure your employees have fun at work:

• Outings
• Book clubs
• Happy hours
• Movie nights

For more tips on managing staff in your practice, download our Ultimate Guide to Staff Management ebook.