Your employees are your greatest asset, and your largest cost. They provide the public face to your practice. They can make, or break, a patient’s satisfaction and loyalty. Human Resources management is arguably the most important and complex element of your practice, so let’s take a look at some things to keep in mind when it comes to managing employees.
Be Supportive
A good employer isn’t necessarily a best friend, but your attitude towards your employees can have a serious impact on their job performance. By treating your employees with respect, you are showing them that they are important to your practice’s business model and are valued. If your practice size can support it, learning every staff member by name and a basic fact about their home life can go a great distance in maintaining a positive employee/employer relationship. The employee feels recognized and appreciated, which results in a positive attitude and is reflected in their productivity.
Provide Your Employees Job Development and Enrichment
The healthcare field in general is a great area to provide job development, job enrichment and possible job advancement because of the wide array of training programs and certifications. For instance, having your receptionists trained in something like basic first aid can allow them to feel as though they play an important role in your practice.
Techs/Nurses are also able to learn additional skills through continuing education that can make them feel important, such as learning about new and revolutionary procedures, diagnostic tests and medications as they are released. This can be furthered by involving the techs/nurses more in the patient care process.
Positive Feedback
Going hand-in-hand with being supportive, it’s also important to recognize and give feedback when employees do something good. As managers, it’s all too common to focus only on negative feedback and neglect the positive feedback — this can cause undue workplace tension which can lead to lower productivity. Even a simple ‘you’ve been doing a fantastic job, keep it up’ can go a long way for an employee’s morale.
Institute a Pay for Performance Model for Human Resources
Pay for Performance is an umbrella term used throughout healthcare. For Human Resources, a Pay for Performance model is a system that links compensation to measures of work quality and goals for employees. We have implemented our Pay for Performance program in a multitude of practices to create a “be the Ritz Carlton of clinical care” philosophy. This sets the standard for employees to follow for quality and service. If you institute a Pay for Performance program correctly the first time, you can create a “buy-in” from the staff, which will ensure excellence and efficiency, improve teamwork and is effective in improving customer service and self-improvement. Our performance tool is tied to direct performance standards and rewards the employees for their performance – it pays the staff for what they produce and their level of responsibility. It creates a system of accountability. Since we started implementing this program more than 20 years ago, we have seen it produce outstanding results, and in some rare cases, suboptimal results. Providers and managers always ask us “what happened when the practice did not have the desired outcomes.” The answer is always the same – the shareholders and managers did not give it the time, resources and commitment that it needs. However, on the notable side of our Pay for Performance program, we’ve had tremendous success with employee satisfaction and support for the program resulting in increased productivity and positive attitudes. A well-executed Pay for Performance system can provide the best possible ROI for shareholders by investing in your greatest asset, your employees.
Contact us and let us know if you need help improving your Human Resource Management program.