The art of hiring the right staff to ensure the success of your practice
More than ever, running a successful practice in today’s highly competitive marketplace is largely dependent on the team you hire and entrust with your business. It’s vital that you select and employ the best applicants, people who you feel are confident, strong, capable and loyal, and who’ll care as much about your patients, and their satisfaction, as you do.
Establishing a reliable, trustworthy team is vital to the ongoing success of your practice. However, team building is a dynamic and ever-changing process which you’ll have to keep on perfecting over time.
To attract and find the right people you should always draw up a comprehensive job description based on the following checklist of necessary information.
Always include:
While this list may appear daunting at first, thinking through the job description will save you time when recruiting and selecting staff – and clarifying tasks that are performed by other members of your team helps to highlight where you may have capacity or a skills development need.
In a skills-short market it can also be tempting to overlook references and qualification authenticity, but it’s a straightforward step, easily accessible through professional bodies – and one that doesn’t make any sense to disregard!
Building an effective, efficient team starts with clearly understanding your business staffing requirements. For example, are you looking for seasonal, permanent, qualified and experienced staff, and can you cover the total cost of the staff member for the entire period they’re needed? If you run a smaller practice where all staff need to be able to cover a variety of tasks, remember to ensure that the job description is broad enough to cover all the areas of responsibility. Larger practices may have more dedicated specialised staff whose job descriptions will be very detailed and specific to the focus of their area of responsibility.
Clearly outlining your needs, job descriptions and performance criteria for staff are the corner stones needed to effectively build, manage and accurately reward your team.
Most successful practices have discovered the secrets to building and maintaining an efficient, professional team which include: hiring the right people and looking after them, recognising and rewarding exceptional performance, and reacting to and dealing with any issues that may arise – swiftly and effectively.
When you consider the prohibitive nature of the legal landscape with regards to employers and employees, as well as the fact that the skills market is highly competitive, it really makes sense that you take your time to carefully select the right people to join your business – and to manage and take care of them well. It may be worth evaluating outsourcing your payroll function to avoid the pressure on the daily operations of the business when it comes to dealing with payroll queries particularly as relates to statutory deductions and leave management.
From the outset of their employment, each staff member’s performance (how well they execute tasks) and productivity (how effectively they execute these tasks against time) should be clearly established against a predetermined set of criteria and standards – and they need to understand what is regarded as poor, average or excellent in terms of their individual performance and productivity.
When it comes to defining this set of criteria and standards, be as specific and detailed as possible; discuss your expectations with your staff and explain to them how the practice’s optimal performance involves them functioning optimally in their specific roles.
If you create a clear connection between the levels of productivity and performance that you expect from your staff, in relation to your practice’s predetermined goals and objectives, you’ll be able to evaluate and reward your employees more accurately.
This will help you in determining which employees to recognise and reward for commitment and a positive contribution to the workplace, while creating a proactive culture of symbiosis within your practice that’s based on mutual respect and success.
Industry insights to maximise the success of your practice!
If you’re in need of personalised and professional advice on how to run your practice more efficiently, in-line with current industry trends and legislative guidelines, get in touch with Vizibiliti Management Services today.
