You work hard to hire the right eyecare professionals, train them on your software and workflow, and nurture their career growth. Sometimes, your competitors notice their success and attempt to poach your best employees.
How do you stop your employees from leaving you? Keeping your employees satisfied sometimes isn't enough when there are competitors with larger budgets and flashier perks or benefits. We want to highlight a few effective methods for combatting poaching and other direct competition for your best optometry talent.
Prevent Your Best Employees from Leaving You
Regular Check-InsTalk to your staff to understand how they are responding to offers from your competition. Scheduling 1:1 meetings with each member of your staff gives them a space to air out grievances before they turn into issues that would make them leave you. We prefer the preventative method of growing a work culture that promotes openness, prioritizes job satisfaction, and keeps your employees content with their existing roles.
Make a Competitive Offer
The best way to combat poaching is to pay your best employees a competitive salary, provide benefits that they value, and delight them with rewards and perks. If your practice is doing well enough to afford higher salaries it's because your employees are working well together and contributing to the long-term goals. The ultimate way to let your employees know they can continue to grow their careers successfully is through appropriate raises and promotions.
Investigate
It's highly likely that corporations and practice staff members are sending LinkedIn messages to your employees. If you figure out that these messages are mass-sends, you probably don't have anything to worry about because they aren't targeting your practice specifically.
Have a Direct Conversation
If you have been made aware of the poachers' identity because your employees are sharing the information with you, you might want to approach them directly. Seeing as the eyecare community isn't large, we strongly recommend using this method as a last resort. If the poachers are using unfair tactics and harassing your employees digitally or directly, then it is within your right to ask them to stop. Be the bigger person by emphasizing how you can help each other by building a relationship and referring patients.
See why Dr. Ali's staff's job satisfaction increased with easy software training.
