When you land a valuable and loyal employee in your eyecare practice it's important to be able to meet their needs and keep them around for more than a few years. With many practices, employee turnover can be high, and higher turn over is going to cost you more money in hiring and training new employees. Which is why you'll do almost everything you can in order to hang on to those employees that you value the most.
We've got 4 tips that we think will help you create a stellar practice atmosphere, and if you can create a place that your employees want to be you should be one step closer to keeping them around for the long haul.
4 Ways to Hang On to Your Best Employees
Make Your Practice a Place Employees Want to Be
One of the best ways to hang on to your employees is creating an environment and a team that your staff enjoys being around and showing up at every day. This can be done by creating a positive and engaging practice culture. It's not something that can be done over night, and there is no set formula for the perfect practice. A few things that can help build a strong culture include:
- Breaking the mold - What's an incentive or benefit you can provide your staff that other practice's in the area aren't doing? Have fun and be unique when coming up with ideas to have a little fun in your office.
- Hire the right people - When you're in need of a new employee for your practice don't settle for someone who isn't a good fit. The right people in your practice can make or break the chemistry of the team.
- Stay motivated - Rewarding your staff for reaching certain goals is a great way to keep them motivated and always looking out for the good of the practice.
Listen
Make sure that you're listening to the needs of your employees. We understand that not all wishes can be granted, but it's important to take the time to hear out requests or problems and work towards a compromise that everyone is happy with. More importantly, don't wait until one of your best employees is unhappy. Be proactive in regularly chatting with your team to make sure that everyone is happy and things are running smoothly.
Set Clear Goals
When it comes to sales in your eyecare practice, just about everyone in the practice contributes to a sale in one way or the other. While your opticians are closing most of the sales in the end, everyone a patient talks to during their appointment has their hand in making a sale. That's why team-based goals and incentives are a good idea to help encourage teamwork and can help you avoid pitting employees against each other to meet their numbers.
Establish clear goals for the week, month, quarter, or year - whichever you decide, and reward your staff as a team if and when goals are met.
Address Problems
Chances are, at some point people on your team will butt heads or disagree about something in the practice. Don't let these types of problems go unnoticed or not acted upon. Holding regular team meetings is a way to get ahead of some of the confrontations that might be occuring. Checking in with each employee and giving everyone a chance to discuss any problems, or to discuss the good things will help keep everyone involved and on the same page.
Looking for more hiring and staff management tips? We created a free ebook for you.
Originally published March 2016