A day in the life of your optical practice is likely to be a busy one. And you might not always have the time to sit down with each member of your staff to provide performance reviews and feedback on the work they are doing. But it is something that is so important to employee productivity that it is worth making time for. In a recent article, we found 5 convincing stats that show how important employee feedback can be for the success of your staff, and your practice.

Why You Need to be Communicating with Staff in Your Optical Practice

There are many ways that open lines of communication among your staff can help boost productivity in your optical practice whether it's communication about patients, brainstorming new practice ideas, or discussing new processes or tools so that everyone is included in decision making. Let's take a look at the numbers about communication on employee feedback and learn how you can improve communication among your team.

Communicating with your patients when they are doing great work might be more beneficial than communicating when their work is slacking. Positive reinforcements are a great way to keep your staff motivated towards doing their best! And if you're patients aren't feeling appreciated there is a good chance that attitude could be rubbing off on your patients.

Part of letting your patients know that they are appreciated is focusing on their strengths in the office. When an employee is putting in effort and doing great things, let them know! You could even go a step farther in providing them with more responsibilities in the areas they are excelling at.

Ignoring your team could be causing them to feel disconnected from the success of the practice. If your team understands the specific roles they play in keeping your office running smoothly they are going to be more excited to do their part. Company culture can play a role in this one too. Make sure that your staff has good chemistry when working together to ensure that everyone feels comfortable and enjoys working with each other. Team building activities in and out of the office are great ways to build that team morale that keeps everyone engaged.

The people have spoken! And they will work harder if they get more recognition. There are a lot of things you can do to give recognition. Maybe the staff member with the most sales each month gets a free afternoon off. Or, if the practice as a whole reaches a goal you schedule a team dinner to celebrate. You could also create some type of visible tracking system in the office that shows how close you are to reaching a goal, or shows who is leading sales that month.

You want happy employees. Happy employees are likely going to lead to happy patients. Keep your staff motivated with the different strategies we have mentioned in this article. Positive feedback and open communication can help keep your practice on the right track. If your staff is motivated to do their job, chances are they will work hard to come up with innovative ways to improve their own jobs and the entire practice.

For more tips on engaging staff and building communication, download our ebook on staff management.