The Operational Advantages Of Hiring Seniors To Provide Home Care

Home Health Care News | By Joyce Famkinwa
 
Seniors Helping Seniors has long distinguished itself from other home care companies by hiring active seniors to serve as caregivers. Josh Obeiter — an owner of one of the company’s franchise locations — has seen even more added value from this strategy as the industry at large combats labor shortages. 

At Seniors Helping Seniors, the average age of an employee is around 70 years old, and 80% of caregivers are in their 60s and 70s, according to Obeiter.
 
“People often have a lot of resistance when their family members say, ‘I think it’s time to bring in a caregiver, you need help,’ especially when there’s cognitive impairment,” he told Home Health Care News. “People lack the insight into their own deficits, so our model of having somebody who looks and feels more like a friend or neighbor allows the person receiving the help to feel a lot more comfortable and typically a lot more receptive.” 

Pennsylvania-based Seniors Helping Seniors is a personal care franchise company that has over 200 locations in 36 states.
 
Obeiter owns and operates a Seniors Helping Seniors in the Greater Boston area. This location offers non-medical home care with a focus on providing care to seniors living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. It serves over 200 clients and employs more than 200 caregivers.
 
Through Seniors Helping Seniors Boston, Obeiter has employed more than 1,000 seniors. Over the years, he has seen the benefits of tapping into this underutilized labor pool. 

Since the majority of caregivers at Senior Helping Seniors are retirees, the company doesn’t have as many employees who are juggling multiple jobs across different home care agencies.
 
“They’re not straddling between Senior Helping Seniors and another non-medical home care agency, or an assisted living,” Obeiter said. “They’re able to come to us looking for part-time work. We’re able to fill what they’re looking for, so they don’t need to go elsewhere for work.”

Employees who aren’t juggling multiple jobs are able to bring their full energy to caregiving, Obeiter noted. 

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