The Key to Staff Retention in Your Pediatric Practice

To take good care of your staff, you need to establish the right communication platforms and use them consistently. As you tailor these communication channels to the needs of your individual staff, you can increase your retention.

In different practices, one-on-one meetings are held monthly, every other month or maybe even weekly. It’s not a cookie-cutter formula you can apply. The meeting schedule should be based on what members of the team need and want.

Determining Your Ideal Staff Meetings Schedule

The need for meetings might be based on the level of experience of the staff. Sometimes long-term staff don’t need frequent meetings. On the other hand, twenty-year veterans might need weekly meetings because individually, they need a lot of validation, contact and clarity. Maybe they are very vocal.

As the leader of the group, it’s up to you to determine who needs extra contact, who needs that extra validation? Who needs to be cared for a little extra? And, in that case, how often should one-on-one these meetings happen?

To Create Better Retention, Understand Your Staff’s Needs

This culture that our practices are operating in right now, it’s a feeling culture. It’s not a bad thing but as employers wanting to retain staff, we just have to learn to appreciate your staff’s level of feeling, emotion and needing to be cared for. You’ll get the best results if you meet them where they are.

Of course, by results, I am referring to better retention of your valuable staff.

I don’t have to tell you that losing a teammate stinks. It is an emotional void for the team. Sometimes it’s good news, but for the most part it’s a void. It’s also super expensive to go out there and find another teammate and train them up.

Start by Picking the Right Staff for Your Practice

You have your best shot at good retention if you pick the right ones when you’re hiring. Then you need to hang onto these staff. And that happens by caring for them. A consistent schedule of one-on-one meetings is a definite must. You’ve got to give them a voice and opportunity to share.

If you don’t provide them with these opportunities, people get so busy that they get caught up in their thoughts. Then one bad thing happens and it tips them over the edge. Suddenly, you get a resignation. When you have these platforms for sharing, these opportunities for communication that you don’t cancel and reschedule all the time, you’re going to have this consistent exchange of information and emotion.

Conducting One-on-One Meetings with Staff

In a meeting of this type, you want to find out, how are things going? We actually train our leaders on this coaching mentality and ability. You have to ask lots of open-ended questions. It could go something like this:

• “Tell me about how things are going for you.”

• “Tell me more. What else?”

• “What else? Tell me two more things.”
• “Tell me more…”

Don’t talk just to hear yourself talk, but do a lot of listening and probing. Just get them to spill. When they stop talking, be quiet a little bit.

You can say, “I just want you to really think and share more.” Then be quiet and make them think on- the question more. They might feel uncomfortable in the silence. That will make them share more. You’ve got to really find out how things are going for them so that you can work with them to get any problems handled.

Getting Staff Help in Coming Up with Solutions

Here’s my key response when they come up with a problem: “What do you think we should do about that?” I’m famous for asking this question of my staff after they identify a problem.

Tap into the members of your team for their solutions. You want to hear what they think you should do about it, because they obviously think the problem should be handled differently to how it is handled now.

Brainstorming with Staff to Resolve Problems

Make it unacceptable in your culture that someone comes up with problems but no solutions. If they say, “I don’t know how to solve that problem,” I might not know either, but I’ll talk with them about it. I’ll say, “Let’s brainstorm. Let’s problem-solve together. Maybe we’ll find that right now we’re doing it just the best way we know how, but we’ll keep thinking about it. And if you come up with another solution, then we’ll try that.”

That simple statement can dissolve the emotion around a situation. It also puts the responsibility for problem-solving back on the teammate.

How to Improve Your Staff Communication Skills

If you’re not currently comfortable managing staff communications like this, there’s help available to you. We’ve got so many webinars covering these and dozens of other topics, just waiting to help you build confidence and skill in managing your staff. Check out our Lemonade Library to start building better skills for yourself so you can retain your staff longer!

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.