What Qualities to Look for When Hiring Private Practice Staff

What a dream it is when you walk into a well-staffed practice with well-trained staff. The whole operation is smooth, patients are making excellent progress, families are happy, there’s an enjoyable buzz to the place. The entrance point to this smooth, profitable operation is hiring the right staff. 

If you’ve been running your own practice for a few years already, then you probably know how expensive and painful it is to hire the wrong staff. Let’s look at the most important steps that can enable you to bring the right staff on board, every time.

Identifying Qualified Staff for Your Private Practice

TOPS is an acronym we coined to remind Private Practice Owners how to find and hire the most productive and loyal staff. It reminds owners to incorporate three vital concepts in every conversation, interview or ad related to recruitment. Here’s what it means. 

• T = TEAM: Always present your practice as a place where the staff work together to create a cooperative and collaborative atmosphere. Point out that as the owner, you are involved in day-to-day operations and you’re highly interested in staff welfare, productivity and compensation. Point out also that you only hire high-caliber staff. This will appeal to a person who’s been frustrated by working with poorly motivated, shiftless co-workers who offer poor quality care! 
• O = OPPORTUNITY: You’re offering the person a career in a stable, growing company where they will have unlimited potential for personal growth and ability to provide care for patients. Share your goals and the steps you are taking to create this expanding operation. If you see their eyes light up, you just might have found the new employee you’re looking for. 
• P = PURPOSE: You’re looking for a person whose primary motivation is to help kids reach new milestones of ability, independence and enjoyment of life. You’re not looking for a person who just wants to fill a slot and collect a check. Burnouts need not apply. You want someone who wants to help as many kids as possible and doesn’t mind being well-compensated for providing a high volume of high-quality care. That person is going to fit right into your practice. 

Keep this acronym in mind whenever you’re involved in recruitment as a reminder and guide for your activities. 

If you fail to align your operation and recruitment activities with these concepts, you run the risk of bringing aboard personnel who don’t align with your practice’s culture. Or you might attract staff who are solely money motivated, meaning they are likely to run the first time they encounter a better-paying position. What you want are employees that are TOPs!

Private Practice Hiring Tip

Regardless of the Great Resignation and that it’s a virtual hiring desert right now, you always need to be on the lookout for new staff, even if you don’t need to hire one right at that moment. Collect resumés and make sure you keep them on file. Then when you need a person, you’ll have a whole resource pool to draw from. That day one of your staff announces their impending departure, you’ll be really glad you’ve got it.

We’ve got plenty of helpful advice to help you learn how to hire qualified staff for your private practice. Start by watching our online webinar “Hiring! What You Need to Know” in the Peds-A-Palooza™ Lemonade Library. 

If you need help on any of the points in this article, feel free to reach out to me at nancymura@pedsapalooza.com.