How can physicians improve employee satisfaction at their practice?

In the service industry, it is crucial that organizations spend more on staff. The average payroll cost this year for Major League Baseball is 45% of the combined team revenue. That’s nearly half of what the team is earning throughout the season. According to the National Society of Certified Healthcare Business Consultants, roughly half of a practice’s operating costs are spent on staff.

Click here to learn about a state-of-the-art Electronic Health Record (EHR) solution from CureMD designed to improve workflows for physicians.

Physicians are highly trained and skilled individuals but quite a few of them suffer with their employee management skills. They are often ill-prepared and sometimes withdrawn to hire, train, manage or fire staff. So what are the most ideal ways to managing a practice’s most expensive and most required asset? Let’s discuss.

1. Know what you need: It is important to have written personnel policies for the practice. Everyone needs to know the entire flow and function of a practice in order to be expected to perform up to the required levels.
2. Know how to hire: Hiring someone who is very skilled but does not have the required skills will not get you anywhere. It is important to get the right person with the right attitude. See how the resource has been doing in his/her past experiences to be able to predict future behavior.
3. Train for results: Many practices fail to train their staff adequately. It is important to realize that you have to provide required training and then expect results.
4. Create performance expectations: Items such as dress code, work schedule adherence and HIPAA compliance are requirements of the job where failure to adhere results in termination. Remember, ongoing specific feedback is important for not only you but also for the staff.
5. Conduct purposeful reviews: Constantly reviewing and measuring performing against set benchmarks is crucial for success. You need to make sure that you inform the staff about their performance levels regularly in order to keep the performance up to the mark.
6. Be consistent: Don’t change policies every now and then. If you have established a set policy for the whole staff to follow, stick with it.
7. Praise publicly, give private feedback: It is important to give feedback to an employee privately if it is a negative one. Respecting someone in the public will go a long way in improving job satisfaction.
8. Motivate: In case nothing is working in case of an employee at your practice, try some unique motivational techniques to get the job done.

If all else fails, then maybe it is time to let the employee go. Remember, it is as important to let go of a sub-par employee as making your practice a success.