21 Dec THE FREELANCE REVOLUTION: WHY MILLENNIALS WANT TO BE THEIR OWN BOSS
Over the past decade, education institutions have been reporting a shift in the career goals of their students. From Universities to technical colleges, many students and graduates aspire to be their own boss.
With millennials – those born in the 1990’s and early 2000’s – set to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025, the future is now, and practices who want to continue attracting and retaining talented team members are going to have to have a strategy for accommodating the new generation.
What This Means for Dental Practices
The concept of freelancing isn’t new to the healthcare sector. Over recent years there has been an emphasis on contract and casual work over full-time appointment. Many practices are already using labour hire and specialist short term recruitment agencies to engage an ancillary workforce.
While it has been possible for people to build a lucrative career filling dental support positions without having a fixed place of employment, the agency model is dated and unlikely to meet the demands of the millennial workforce.
The Perks of Being Their Own Boss
When considering how freelancers can fit into your practice, it’s important to understand why the youth are making the decisions they are.
- Millennials are more independent. They’ve grown up in a very different world to their parents and grandparents and as society has evolved, it’s become harder for the younger generations to follow the same rules and conventions of those before them.
- They have seen it done before. Look at how apps like Uber have quickly disrupted well established industries like the taxi industry. They can even work for themselves as a driver. The share economy and the ability to launch their own low-cost start-up using app platforms is a part of their daily life.
- They know that the economic conditions aren’t always stable. Even though Australia weathered the Global Financial Crisis better than other countries, there is still awareness. Millennials see working for themselves as a way to contribute to their own job security.
- Permanent work isn’t guaranteed for them. The Graduate Careers Council of Australia has found over recent years that there have been significant drops – up to 10% – in the number of full time employed dentists which has a flow on effect to the support staff roles.
Why Agencies Won’t Make Millennials Happy
The ancillary workforce agencies aren’t modelled towards genuinely meeting the needs and expectations of the modern worker.
Staff can feel intimidated by recruiters. The agency doesn’t get paid if shifts go unfilled, so they may pressure workers to ensure that the people on their books don’t turn down shifts.
While some agency staff are just filling time between permanent work arrangements, others have tried to forge flexible work arrangements around family, study or other lifestyle commitments but found themselves having to agree to shifts they don’t want to work or facing long commutes just to ensure the agency doesn’t stop offering them work.
There can also be uncertainty with agency work. A common frustration that people report is agreeing to a shift in advance, turning down other work in the meantime and then having it cancel at short notice leaving them a days’ pay out of pocket.
Agencies are expensive for the practices who engage them too, and millennials know this. There is a real anti-establishment feeling amongst younger workers. They don’t want to feel like someone else is getting rich at their expense and would rather cut out the middle man.
ANCI: The Uber of the Dental Industry
Traditional recruitment agencies work for practices because they take the hassle out of engaging short-term staff. Your team can make a call or send an email and get on with their work while someone else deals with finding the staff and then handles all aspects of payroll administration.
Until recently there hasn’t been a viable alternative but ANCI makes it easy for practices to manage in house ancillary appointment – and for industry professionals to freelance their skills.
As with every good peer to peer style app, there is a two-way review process so both parties can read feedback about what it is like to work with one another. ANCI manages time sheets and automatic payments via credit card. Once the practice approves the time sheet, the employee is paid straight into their bank account.
It’s free for employees to use, and practices pay a small percentage on top of the job value to ANCI. Currently only 15% of the total job value, the cost to use ANCI to engage short term staff is usually considerably lower than what you pay in agency fees. ANCI also reduces the HR burden on managers who don’t have to chase up bank accounts and group certificates in engaging casual staff.
Dental practices set the hourly rate of pay, and users are automatically matched with jobs fitting their location and skillset. Job seekers can then filter these jobs based on their availability and hourly rate. This means when someone expresses an interest in your short-term position, they’ve already checked it against the criteria that is important to them.
Conclusion
The entrepreneurial share economy is here to stay. With younger staff members typically only staying in a role for 1 – 3 years before moving on, starting to engage some freelance work solutions into your overall staffing strategy will go a long way to making sure your practice is a place that the new generation will want to work.
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