Carole Burns, OD, FCOVD, realized the need to retool the office culture if it was going to be the kind of place to retain millennial employees. “Fifty percent of our hires are millennials,” she says, noting the percentage will climb. There are 80 million of them, and 50 million are already in the workforce. “Most have no experience in the medical or eye care field,” she says. 

But Dr. Burns actually considers that an asset. Get the right millennial candidates on board and your practice can thrive in new ways, she says. “This is the most diverse demographic. One-in-three millennials is a minority. As much as you can categorize any group of individuals, millennials have extreme feelings about what the workplace should be. They’re confident, civic-minded and committed to a company that shares their values.”

But the retention strategies that may have worked with staff previously are not likely
to have the same impact. Dr. Burns is one of nine partners at Professional VisionCare, a three-location practice in Westerville, Ohio, that focuses on primary care and vision therapy. Two of the partners are millennials, too.
- WO