According to ChildTrends.org, the percentage of youth that have jobs is on the upswing, but it’s still not as high as it was in 2006, before the Great Recession hit in December 2007. When that recession occurred, teenagers took a significant portion of the brunt of unemployment.
There are clear benefits for a teenager when they are employed, and there are benefits for the overall economy, but what are the benefits and challenges for employers? What about your practice? Does it make good sense for you to hire teenagers?
Here are some of the challenges, as well as the numerous benefits of hiring a teenager to work at your practice. Plus, learn some helpful tips on finding the right teen for the job.
Challenges of Hiring Teenagers
One of the most obvious challenges is their lack of experience. This means you’ll need to expend more resources training and/or supervising a teenaged worker and be patient as the learning curve takes place. You will likely need to explain tasks in more detail and answer more questions. After all, this may be his or her very first job. If not, he or she is still near the beginning of life as an employee.
Teenagers are usually more at the mercy of their family’s schedule. They may or may not have their own transportation and they may not have as much control over when family commitments take place. Plus, during the school year, they will have multiple scheduling conflicts, whether it’s because of exams or extracurricular activities. They may have parents who hover over them and this can have a negative impact on the workplace.
You may need to explain policies to them more than once, perhaps about cell phone use at work. Teenagers have likely been surrounded by cell phones for as long as they can remember, and it just feels natural for them to quickly Google something they want to know or answer a text. Policies that just feel natural to you, as an employer, may not make sense to them at all.
Teens may need guidance in how to handle pressure and/or frustration at work, and they may struggle to accept feedback if it’s the first time for them in a workplace setting. They won’t have the same perspectives as older workers, something that will serve as both a positive and a negative.
Their conditions of employment are more subject to regulations, from federal on down, from when they can work, to how many hours, to what safety considerations need to be in place. The latter includes the restrictions on some equipment usage because of hazards. Remember that state laws can be even more restrictive than federal ones, so know what your state requires and restricts. It’s important to know the youth minimum wage (currently at $4.25) and whether your state pushes that to a higher amount. It’s also important to know how long you can pay that youth rate before being required to pay the regular federal minimum wage (currently for the first 90 calendar days before changing to $7.25).
Benefits of Hiring Teenagers
Stereotypical jobs for teenagers include summer employment such as a lifeguard, a camp counselor, or at an ice cream stand. Other common jobs include working in a fast food restaurant or at a retail store during the busy holiday season. In those cases, the benefits of using teenagers are clear: extra help during peak seasons, especially at tourism sites, and/or at a lower pay rate.
Hiring teen workers can reduce your payroll costs, in part because of the youth minimum wage and in part because they are less experienced employees and would receive starting levels of pay. (Note: just because you can pay a teenager a wage lower than the federal minimum wage for a period doesn’t mean you necessarily should. If a reasonable amount of companies in your area are hiring, you may need to offer something more enticing.)
Because teenagers typically work part-time, you can save money on benefits, as well. And, depending upon where your practice is located, you may be able to claim a tax credit for employing teenagers.
Hiring teenagers provide more stability than if you rely upon temporary workers who could suddenly leave your practice if offered regular employment. And the teens you employ part-time may stay with your practice throughout their school years, perhaps even through college. If they decide to stay in the veterinary industry after finishing school, they become a source of experienced employees that are already part of your company’s culture, and trained to your specifications.
Younger employees can bring a fresh perspective to your practice. In fact, many companies today use a reverse-mentoring philosophy in which young workers share perspectives with older ones, on topics such as social media and crowdsourcing.
Young workers usually have higher levels of energy and, when harnessed in the workplace, this can help energize the workers around them. When given appropriate direction, guidance and feedback, teenagers can be extremely productive workers. They can often multi-task especially well, can be quite versatile, and aren’t set in their ways like many older employees.
How to Find the Best Teens for Your Practice
Just like with adult workers, some teens may be a better fit for your practice than others. It helps to talk to school counselors at the local high schools, vocational schools and community colleges to find out how to connect with students who are looking for jobs. They often host job fairs and may have programs to connect job-seeking students with businesses looking to hire.
Referrals from current employees and other people in your network can lead to finding the right teenagers to hire. If you are going to advertise, do so where teens are likely to be. Use social media, for example, rather than local print newspapers. Another effective way to reach young workers is through online job websites such as Indeed.com, ZipRecruiter.com and Monster.com. Regardless of how you share your employment advertisement, when you reach the right person, you will have found a new, young member to benefit your veterinary team.
