3 Ways to Increase Staff Retention in Your Healthcare Business
“Good help is hard to find.”
“The labor market is terrible.”
“I’m worried we’ll never find good people.”
“This generation doesn’t value hard work.”
I often hear this early-on from my clients.
The medical and dental field is fast-paced, and being the practice leader requires a lot of you, maybe even some kind of “super human” capabilities, which I hope you know is an unrealistic expectation.
The solution is simple, but not necessarily easy, and will require you to gain clarity, learn to let go of some control, and trust that when you step into your CEO shoes, you will get the results you desire.
With turnover rates high, 26% in healthcare in 2022, you’re challenged with hiring well, training, providing sufficient support to your team, and creating a healthy workplace. You also have the pleasure of being the team lead, even if your practice manager is in charge of hiring, firing and training.
Some of the primary reasons for turnover are:
Staff is overworked
Work environment is stressful
Lack of decision-making power
Lack of recognition and direction from the top
I’m going to focus on the last reason, lack of recognition and direction from the top. I assure that you all are important, though in my experience in my 12 years of coaching and consulting clients, focusing on one area can often be supportive in addressing other sticky areas in need of attention.
Here are 3 ways to increase employee retention:
Get clear about what you want for your practice. Look at the big picture and all the details. If my clients haven’t done this yet, we spend a day together in a VIP intensive to comb over the details, operational flows, wish lists and goals. With this clarity, we’re able to start working on updating, or in some cases, writing drafts of the operations and training manuals (what I lovingly refer to as the “office bibles”).
Once we’ve done this, we start to plan how they’ll communicate their mission, vision and expectations.
Communicate your vision with your team. When I was a manager in a luxury health club, every employee was expected to know the company mission and values statements, and we were informed that we could be visited by secret shoppers at any time, so we needed to be ready to recite them. We were taught to embody, practice and consistently demonstrate the company values. As a result, our clients were genuinely happy, and the staff turnover at the location where I worked was low compared with the rest of the industry.
As employees, we knew what was expected of us and how to do our jobs. Job descriptions and company policies and procedures were crystal clear. As a new hire, I spent three days in their corporate headquarters in hands-on training, and was offered unlimited and unchallenged support for any questions or uncertainties that might arise. In short, I knew exactly what they wanted from me in my role, and how to meet and exceed their expectations.
Follow up like the wellbeing of your practice and team depend on it, because they do. Keep the lines of communication open. Trust but verify. Make sure your employees are empowered and sufficiently supported to do their jobs. Let go of control as much as possible, AND, check in with them regularly.
I recommend that you bookend each day with a morning huddle and an evening debrief. These should last no longer than 10 minutes each, and ideally you ask questions and listen while your practice manager documents the details. You will follow-up in your weekly manager meeting. If there is a need for more staff follow-up, your practice manager can handle that.
One of my clients is a provider and owner of a practice with 10 providers, 10 technologists and 5 administrative professionals in two offices; the providers and practice manager work remotely. The practice more than doubled in patient demand, number of providers and technologists over a two year period. By any standard, this is huge growth in a short period of time. When we started working together, the turnover at the practice was well below industry average, at less than 10% turnover for several years. However, morale was dipping and frustrations were mounting.
My client was concerned about how this would impact the practice overall, and wanted to get a handle on it. I conducted several interviews with their team at all levels and length of tenure. I learned that every person who worked at the practice held the owner in the highest regard, and they all expressed they felt they were lacking direction, and some of the administrative team felt underappreciated and overworked.
I reviewed the interview results with my client and their practice manager, and before we set to work writing operations and training manuals, we got back to basics.
We re-visited the practice mission and values, and put those in writing. Then, in collaboration with department heads, they updated their manuals. Once they had good working drafts (I recommend that these are living documents, to be adjusted incrementally over time), we planned implementation. They started having shorter, more frequent meetings for each department, and full-practice meetings. After a few months, my client told me it seemed like everyone had breathed a sigh of relief. The practice continues to be incredibly busy, and yet morale is at an all-time high. They have had zero turnover in the last year.
Notice that morale is at an all-time high, and they didn’t put ping pong tables or snacks in the break rooms or go on fancy trips. They got clear about their mission and expectations, communicated them clearly with the team, and implemented a system for followup and quick resolution for issues that arise.
If you want to have a happy, engaged team, you don’t have to get fancy or complicated. Get clear. Communicate. Follow-up. Rinse, repeat.
If you would like support in improving morale and retention, schedule a complimentary Practice Assessment Strategy session. We help our clients navigate the challenges of being a provider-owner by taking back their time and finding the right strategy to grow their practice without burning out.
We’d be honored to explore what’s possible for you and your team.