Building a staff that will stay with you is intimately involved with aligning your staff’s values to your company’s mission, vision, and values. I’ll break that down further so you understand how to make this happen in your own pediatric private practice.
Hiring the Right People with the Right Values
When you hire new teammates, there are some vital topics you need to cover to make sure you get the right people. Checking each of these points enables you to hire someone who has the same values you do.
- They must have a service-oriented heart
- They want to build into their community
- They want to help more children
- They are not out to do less while getting paid more
If they don’t have these qualities, they’re not the right person for your culture.
Share Your Practice Goals With Current Staff
Your current staff need to know and be involved in your company’s goals. Get and keep them engaged by taking the following steps:
- Start by writing goals down and updating them regularly. Share them with your staff every year.
- Promote them to your team. Get their agreement on the goals. Make them part of the game of achieving those goals. That way, it’s not you telling them what you’re going to do.
- Celebrate meeting those goals. “Look how many kids we helped this week. You guys are rock stars!”
- Share your wins. This is a great thing to do in staff meetings. Make your good works known. You’ve got to get the team inspired and empowered.
- Once you share the goals, you’ve got to make sure that you’re tracking the goals. You need a method of tracking that your team is aware and celebrating along with you as you progress towards each goal.
Update Your Private Practice Staff on How They Can Help
You want your staff to know where the team’s production is throughout the week. Don’t wait for the end of the week to tell them. Keep them involved with the achievement of production targets. When you need more push to meet targets, you can state it in a positive way that engages their interest and help, like this:
“Yeah, that snowstorm we had Monday really took a toll. Anything you can do, any flexibility you have in your schedule because you came in late on Monday, to add hours to help these kids, would be most appreciated.”
When targets are being met, celebrate it: “Guys, we’re killing it!”
In this way, you let them be part of the solution! But you’ve got to promote and celebrate the wins and keep the staff informed of progress and goals being met.
How to Make the Time to Keep Staff Retention High
If this sounds like a lot of work to you and you can’t make the time to keep everyone on board, you might be treating too much. You’ve got to make sure that you are spending time running the business, not doing the business.
Let Your Staff Be Part of the Success
Your staff want to feel they are part of something bigger than themselves and part of your practice success. They want to contribute to it. When your staff feel they can contribute to your practice success, then you will have greater retention. That’s why you need to let your team know what the goals are and let them know how they can contribute.
Deliver messages like this to your team: “We want to help this many kids this week. Are you in? What are you doing? What little bit more can you see? One more on your schedule? Two more? What can you do to be a part of this success?”
When you hire the right people, engage them in achieving your goals, and keep them informed on progress, they can feel they are part of something big.
Get the Help You Need to Build a Culture in Your Practice
I know this kind of culture doesn’t suddenly create itself. You need to generate it from the top of the organization. You can get help from our Lemonade Library. Get logged in and look for Lemonades on building a strong, positive culture in your practice. You can soon be on your way to creating a culture that increases loyalty and contributions from your current staff and attracts the right staff in the future.
About Diane Crecelius
Diane Crecelius is a physical therapist and founder of a multi-million-dollar, multi-location practice with well over 3,000 visits per week and 200 staff! In the past several years, Diane has worked tirelessly to support Peds-A-Palooza® Community & Conferences and the success of Private Practice Owners. Diane has presented at nearly every Peds-A-Palooza live and virtual conference since the first sold-out conference in 2018. Her extensive knowledge derives from her decades in practice and from being trained and consulted by Survival Strategies, Inc. She uses this training to help Private Practice Owners learn how to thrive and expand while keeping their stress low.