Resource Centers:(News, information, and tools to support your practice)
5 ways to keep your staff happy How great would it be to hire a superstar staff and then have them work for you for five or 10 years — or even longer? The most important factor in long-term employee retention is to hire right. Most practitioners have heard the rule, “Hire slow and fire fast,” yet many seem to ignore the advice. In the hiring process, those who ignore the rule become overly impressed by either personality or skills and overlook flaws and deficiencies. The result: They settle for mediocrity, and usually end up regretting their choice. This doesn’t mean you can’t get lucky and choose a winner, but you don’t want to rely on luck. Be patient; understand what you need in an employee (skills and personality); and interview to find the right person. “Perfect fits” — the ideal match between you and your staff members — are rare, but even without a perfect fit, you can do a number of things to encourage your staff to stick around for a long time: 1 Train your staff well. If you do everything it takes to hire a great staff, then why wouldn’t you want to invest the time to train them? Consider how much you pay your staff each year and then look at the value they bring to your practice. You invest a lot of money in your staff, and undoubtedly you expect them to help your practice grow. If your staff is not adequately trained, your practice will never reach its full potential. Conduct good initial training when you first hire a person, and provide continuous training on a regular basis. 2 Praise and recognize regularly. If you do not praise your staff at least once a day, then you’re not praising them enough. Yet, it’s the easiest thing to do and it doesn’t cost a thing. Everybody likes to be praised and recognized for doing a good job, and if you offer a little bit of praise each day it will help keep them motivated. It’s also important to praise quickly for a task well done. When you see them doing something right, praise them that same day, preferably right on the spot. 3 Reward them. Because your staff helps grow the practice, give them incentives. Put them on a bonus program — for the overall growth of your practice, for converting interested prospects into new patients over the phone, or both. Also, consider rewarding them for bringing in referrals. Even though you expect your staff to refer, if you reward them for doing it, they are likely to do it more often. 4 Conduct regular staff meetings. Conducting staff meetings on a regular basis helps improve retention and encourages open communication and problem solving. 5 Give regular feedback. In addition to praising your staff and listening to their opinions, you should also give each staff member regular feedback about his or her performance. Do this in an informal matter frequently, but also do it formally at least twice a year (quarterly is better). Formal performance evaluations allow you to provide overall feedback on the duties performed, acknowledge accomplishments, and identify areas needing improvement. It is also a good idea to have your staff evaluate you, too. They can give you their honest feedback on how good (or bad) a job you are doing and how they think you need to improve. Just don’t take anything personally, and let them know you want them to be completely honest. If you do these five things, you should have staff that remain happy and motivated and will stay with you for a very, very long time. |
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Eric Osansky, DC has a practice in Concord, N.C., where he uses his adjusting instrument as a marketing tool to attract new patients and build his practice. He is also the CEO of Instrument Adjusting Marketing Solutions. He can be reached by e-mail at