Best practices for staff performance: Tips to engage your staff and increase

productivity

01/03

While many physicians would describe their office staff as dedicated, hardworking and resourceful, others say their staff members are often disengaged, entitled, and unmotivated.

Having worked with small and large medical offices across Canada, I often hear physicians (and their office managers) say that staff issues and related performance issues are the most challenging part of their day and their practice. Even the most credentialed, experienced and renowned physicians confess to being at times perplexed or frustrated by their staff.

Creating an environment of engagement, and encouraging staff members to do their best on a daily basis, takes a special set of skills — as well as trial and error in the art of managing human behaviour.

Ultimately, you are more than a physician: you are an employer, which comes with a set of ongoing challenges, opportunities and responsibilities related to building an office environment in which your employees want to work.

By virtue of the fact that employees change and develop, managing staff engagement requires your

ongoing time and attention. While this can be a significant task, the payoff is clear: medical practices in which staff report being highly engaged in their work have greater productivity that contributes to a more stable, efficient and profitable practice.

Here are some simple strategies that you can implement into your practice that will build and maintain a culture of active staff engagement.

Know And Align Your Staff

People do their most productive work when they have the opportunity to use the best of their skills, abilities and talents in their job every day.1

Ask yourself if your employees are in the right jobs. Moreover, ask your staff: “Does the role you’ve been assigned allow you to use your skills and abilities?”

I consulted with one practice where the three receptionists were asked this very question. The answers revealed that one of the receptionists had an entire skill set that led to her spend three hours per week developing the practice’s electronic newsletter. This in turn allowed her to be more engaged in the practice (she’s been at the same

office for four years). As well, in addition to saving money by not having to outsource this function, it allowed the physicians to produce more relevant and patient-friendly content in their newsletter.

Implement Effective Staff Management Strategies

Workforce talent is a critical factor in building and sustaining the success of your practice. Once your employees are on board, you must retain and grow their talent. Competitive companies have long recognized that human capital is a key asset that could walk out the door at any moment, resulting in significant recruitment and retraining costs.

There is a growing view that recruitment, training, performance management, and rewards/compensation are key areas that drive bottom-line business results. Here are four strategies to help retain staff, improve job satisfaction, and increase productivity.

1. Job Description

Create a job description for each position in your practice — and keep it simple. A one-page job description is all that’s required.

Not sure where to start? Consider having staff members document their job in bullet points. It may surprise you how adept they are at describing what they do. It may also serve as an important reminder to staff that you see what they do, that their work matters, and that you recognize their work enough to create a job description. Remember that job descriptions are living documents that should be reviewed annually to ensure that they stay relevant.

2. Training And Development

As noted, people do their best work when their skills align with the job they were hired to do, so it is important to keep employee skills current.

Another simple strategy to ensure staff members are engaged, knowledgeable, and that they take ownership in their role, is to create a cross-training plan. Aim to have each staff person do a minimum of two hours of cross training in another role each quarter. They can either take an active role, such as answering phones or escorting patients, or an observer role, such as watching a procedure.

Remember, the more your staff members know about the various roles, processes, treatments and procedures offered by your practice, the more effective they will be at representing you to current and prospective patients.

3. Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is an essential part of retaining and engaging staff. Focus on making your office a place where your staff want to work by considering the following questions: Do staff members have the right tools to do their job? Do they feel that their work is noticed? Is there respectful communication among all staff? As an employer, are you fulfilling your commitments to staff for things such as performance reviews, earned pay increases, earned vacation time, professional development, or even office social activities?

Strong workplace cultures have many complex factors, but these questions pertain to areas that, when left unattended, represent some of the most common reasons why staff report being disengaged at work.

4. Performance Reviews And Compensation

Commit to conducting an annual performance review on either the anniversary date of a staff member’s employment, or during a designated month of the year.

While it can be awkward when you first start conducting formal annual performance reviews with staff, it’s yet another way to demonstrate that you recognize how a staff member’s daily work affects your practice. Consider this a development and planning meeting where, in 30 to 60 minutes, you can discuss staff performance (the good, the bad, and the ugly), and staff goals for the period prior to the next review.

Gone are the days of a “one-way” performance review, where the physician calls a meeting and tells a staff member how he or she has been performing since the last review. A more contemporary approach is to have the staff person complete the same performance evaluation form that you complete on their behalf. Using the same form with the same rating scale will promote staff members’ self-awareness of their job and how they are performing it, as well as help staff be more engaged in the review process.

This model of self-assessment lends itself well to the fact that, as a physician, the nature and structure of

your work requires you to spend the majority of your time behind closed doors treating patients, thus not affording you the opportunity to regularly observe staff performance. Be open to hearing about the many duties and activities your staff perform that you may not see on a daily basis.

Finally, while studies have shown that money is not the primary factor in determining employee satisfaction, ensure that you have a fair system in place to review and, where warranted, increase remuneration for those employees who consistently meet or exceed expectations based on their performance evaluations.

Communicate

Another important rule: communicate, communicate, communicate!

Whether it’s regular staff meetings (even monthly meetings are better than nothing), 10-minute standing team huddles at the beginning of the day, or a written communication log that staff read before starting their shift, increasing the content and frequency of communication throughout your office will help to promote staff engagement. You may also consider giving staff a turn at running a short meeting and contributing to an agenda posting in your staff room.

The question of how to keep employees engaged continues to challenge even the best-staffed and most successful practices. Maintaining good human resource practices is a step in the right direction for ensuring that your staff are productive and growing your practice.

1. Buckingham M, Coffman C. First, Break all the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently. New York: Simon and Schuster (1999).

While many physicians would describe their office staff as dedicated, hardworking and resourceful, others say their staff members are often disengaged, entitled, and unmotivated.

Having worked with small and large medical offices across Canada, I often hear physicians (and their office managers) say that staff issues and related performance issues are the most challenging part of their day and their practice. Even the most credentialed, experienced and renowned physicians confess to being at times perplexed or frustrated by their staff.

Creating an environment of engagement, and encouraging staff members to do their best on a daily basis, takes a special set of skills — as well as trial and error in the art of managing human behaviour.

Ultimately, you are more than a physician: you are an employer, which comes with a set of ongoing challenges, opportunities and responsibilities related to building an office environment in which your employees want to work.

By virtue of the fact that employees change and develop, managing staff engagement requires your

ongoing time and attention. While this can be a significant task, the payoff is clear: medical practices in which staff report being highly engaged in their work have greater productivity that contributes to a more stable, efficient and profitable practice.

Here are some simple strategies that you can implement into your practice that will build and maintain a culture of active staff engagement.

Know And Align Your Staff

People do their most productive work when they have the opportunity to use the best of their skills, abilities and talents in their job every day.1

Ask yourself if your employees are in the right jobs. Moreover, ask your staff: “Does the role you’ve been assigned allow you to use your skills and abilities?”

I consulted with one practice where the three receptionists were asked this very question. The answers revealed that one of the receptionists had an entire skill set that led to her spend three hours per week developing the practice’s electronic newsletter. This in turn allowed her to be more engaged in the practice (she’s been at the same

office for four years). As well, in addition to saving money by not having to outsource this function, it allowed the physicians to produce more relevant and patient-friendly content in their newsletter.

Implement Effective Staff Management Strategies

Workforce talent is a critical factor in building and sustaining the success of your practice. Once your employees are on board, you must retain and grow their talent. Competitive companies have long recognized that human capital is a key asset that could walk out the door at any moment, resulting in significant recruitment and retraining costs.

There is a growing view that recruitment, training, performance management, and rewards/compensation are key areas that drive bottom-line business results. Here are four strategies to help retain staff, improve job satisfaction, and increase productivity.

1. Job Description

Create a job description for each position in your practice — and keep it simple. A one-page job description is all that’s required.

Not sure where to start? Consider having staff members document their job in bullet points. It may surprise you how adept they are at describing what they do. It may also serve as an important reminder to staff that you see what they do, that their work matters, and that you recognize their work enough to create a job description. Remember that job descriptions are living documents that should be reviewed annually to ensure that they stay relevant.

2. Training And Development

As noted, people do their best work when their skills align with the job they were hired to do, so it is important to keep employee skills current.

Another simple strategy to ensure staff members are engaged, knowledgeable, and that they take ownership in their role, is to create a cross-training plan. Aim to have each staff person do a minimum of two hours of cross training in another role each quarter. They can either take an active role, such as answering phones or escorting patients, or an observer role, such as watching a procedure.

02/03

Remember, the more your staff members know about the various roles, processes, treatments and procedures offered by your practice, the more effective they will be at representing you to current and prospective patients.

3. Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is an essential part of retaining and engaging staff. Focus on making your office a place where your staff want to work by considering the following questions: Do staff members have the right tools to do their job? Do they feel that their work is noticed? Is there respectful communication among all staff? As an employer, are you fulfilling your commitments to staff for things such as performance reviews, earned pay increases, earned vacation time, professional development, or even office social activities?

Strong workplace cultures have many complex factors, but these questions pertain to areas that, when left unattended, represent some of the most common reasons why staff report being disengaged at work.

4. Performance Reviews And Compensation

Commit to conducting an annual performance review on either the anniversary date of a staff member’s employment, or during a designated month of the year.

While it can be awkward when you first start conducting formal annual performance reviews with staff, it’s yet another way to demonstrate that you recognize how a staff member’s daily work affects your practice. Consider this a development and planning meeting where, in 30 to 60 minutes, you can discuss staff performance (the good, the bad, and the ugly), and staff goals for the period prior to the next review.

Gone are the days of a “one-way” performance review, where the physician calls a meeting and tells a staff member how he or she has been performing since the last review. A more contemporary approach is to have the staff person complete the same performance evaluation form that you complete on their behalf. Using the same form with the same rating scale will promote staff members’ self-awareness of their job and how they are performing it, as well as help staff be more engaged in the review process.

This model of self-assessment lends itself well to the fact that, as a physician, the nature and structure of

your work requires you to spend the majority of your time behind closed doors treating patients, thus not affording you the opportunity to regularly observe staff performance. Be open to hearing about the many duties and activities your staff perform that you may not see on a daily basis.

Finally, while studies have shown that money is not the primary factor in determining employee satisfaction, ensure that you have a fair system in place to review and, where warranted, increase remuneration for those employees who consistently meet or exceed expectations based on their performance evaluations.

Communicate

Another important rule: communicate, communicate, communicate!

Whether it’s regular staff meetings (even monthly meetings are better than nothing), 10-minute standing team huddles at the beginning of the day, or a written communication log that staff read before starting their shift, increasing the content and frequency of communication throughout your office will help to promote staff engagement. You may also consider giving staff a turn at running a short meeting and contributing to an agenda posting in your staff room.

The question of how to keep employees engaged continues to challenge even the best-staffed and most successful practices. Maintaining good human resource practices is a step in the right direction for ensuring that your staff are productive and growing your practice.

While many physicians would describe their office staff as dedicated, hardworking and resourceful, others say their staff members are often disengaged, entitled, and unmotivated.

Having worked with small and large medical offices across Canada, I often hear physicians (and their office managers) say that staff issues and related performance issues are the most challenging part of their day and their practice. Even the most credentialed, experienced and renowned physicians confess to being at times perplexed or frustrated by their staff.

Creating an environment of engagement, and encouraging staff members to do their best on a daily basis, takes a special set of skills — as well as trial and error in the art of managing human behaviour.

Ultimately, you are more than a physician: you are an employer, which comes with a set of ongoing challenges, opportunities and responsibilities related to building an office environment in which your employees want to work.

By virtue of the fact that employees change and develop, managing staff engagement requires your

ongoing time and attention. While this can be a significant task, the payoff is clear: medical practices in which staff report being highly engaged in their work have greater productivity that contributes to a more stable, efficient and profitable practice.

Here are some simple strategies that you can implement into your practice that will build and maintain a culture of active staff engagement.

Know And Align Your Staff

People do their most productive work when they have the opportunity to use the best of their skills, abilities and talents in their job every day.1

Ask yourself if your employees are in the right jobs. Moreover, ask your staff: “Does the role you’ve been assigned allow you to use your skills and abilities?”

I consulted with one practice where the three receptionists were asked this very question. The answers revealed that one of the receptionists had an entire skill set that led to her spend three hours per week developing the practice’s electronic newsletter. This in turn allowed her to be more engaged in the practice (she’s been at the same

office for four years). As well, in addition to saving money by not having to outsource this function, it allowed the physicians to produce more relevant and patient-friendly content in their newsletter.

Implement Effective Staff Management Strategies

Workforce talent is a critical factor in building and sustaining the success of your practice. Once your employees are on board, you must retain and grow their talent. Competitive companies have long recognized that human capital is a key asset that could walk out the door at any moment, resulting in significant recruitment and retraining costs.

There is a growing view that recruitment, training, performance management, and rewards/compensation are key areas that drive bottom-line business results. Here are four strategies to help retain staff, improve job satisfaction, and increase productivity.

1. Job Description

Create a job description for each position in your practice — and keep it simple. A one-page job description is all that’s required.

Not sure where to start? Consider having staff members document their job in bullet points. It may surprise you how adept they are at describing what they do. It may also serve as an important reminder to staff that you see what they do, that their work matters, and that you recognize their work enough to create a job description. Remember that job descriptions are living documents that should be reviewed annually to ensure that they stay relevant.

2. Training And Development

As noted, people do their best work when their skills align with the job they were hired to do, so it is important to keep employee skills current.

Another simple strategy to ensure staff members are engaged, knowledgeable, and that they take ownership in their role, is to create a cross-training plan. Aim to have each staff person do a minimum of two hours of cross training in another role each quarter. They can either take an active role, such as answering phones or escorting patients, or an observer role, such as watching a procedure.

03/03

Remember, the more your staff members know about the various roles, processes, treatments and procedures offered by your practice, the more effective they will be at representing you to current and prospective patients.

3. Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is an essential part of retaining and engaging staff. Focus on making your office a place where your staff want to work by considering the following questions: Do staff members have the right tools to do their job? Do they feel that their work is noticed? Is there respectful communication among all staff? As an employer, are you fulfilling your commitments to staff for things such as performance reviews, earned pay increases, earned vacation time, professional development, or even office social activities?

Strong workplace cultures have many complex factors, but these questions pertain to areas that, when left unattended, represent some of the most common reasons why staff report being disengaged at work.

4. Performance Reviews And Compensation

Commit to conducting an annual performance review on either the anniversary date of a staff member’s employment, or during a designated month of the year.

While it can be awkward when you first start conducting formal annual performance reviews with staff, it’s yet another way to demonstrate that you recognize how a staff member’s daily work affects your practice. Consider this a development and planning meeting where, in 30 to 60 minutes, you can discuss staff performance (the good, the bad, and the ugly), and staff goals for the period prior to the next review.

Gone are the days of a “one-way” performance review, where the physician calls a meeting and tells a staff member how he or she has been performing since the last review. A more contemporary approach is to have the staff person complete the same performance evaluation form that you complete on their behalf. Using the same form with the same rating scale will promote staff members’ self-awareness of their job and how they are performing it, as well as help staff be more engaged in the review process.

This model of self-assessment lends itself well to the fact that, as a physician, the nature and structure of

your work requires you to spend the majority of your time behind closed doors treating patients, thus not affording you the opportunity to regularly observe staff performance. Be open to hearing about the many duties and activities your staff perform that you may not see on a daily basis.

Finally, while studies have shown that money is not the primary factor in determining employee satisfaction, ensure that you have a fair system in place to review and, where warranted, increase remuneration for those employees who consistently meet or exceed expectations based on their performance evaluations.

Communicate

Another important rule: communicate, communicate, communicate!

Whether it’s regular staff meetings (even monthly meetings are better than nothing), 10-minute standing team huddles at the beginning of the day, or a written communication log that staff read before starting their shift, increasing the content and frequency of communication throughout your office will help to promote staff engagement. You may also consider giving staff a turn at running a short meeting and contributing to an agenda posting in your staff room.

The question of how to keep employees engaged continues to challenge even the best-staffed and most successful practices. Maintaining good human resource practices is a step in the right direction for ensuring that your staff are productive and growing your practice.

For inquiries about this content or OMA Practice Management & Education, please contact us.1.800.268.7215 or 416.599.2580 | practicemanagement@oma.org | OMA.org

For additional information on hiring and managing your medical office staff, please refer to the OMA Practice Management & Education (PME) guidebook, “Managing Your Medical Staff: An HR Guide for Physicians”. PME resources aim to help physicians maintain a successful medical practice, including skills development, usable tools, and medical billing support. Additional resources on these and other topics are available at www.oma.org.

This article was written by Ildi Wiley and originally published in the March 2013 issue of the Ontario Medical Review.