Whether you are operating an insurance, cash or membership practice model, the fact remains that as you get busy… you will need people to help you keep the operation running smoothly.
You will of course also need to pay those people and would like for each to be worth the wage paid out.
The unfortunate reality is that for most chiropractors and small business owners in general, finding and hiring staff is less than a pleasant experience and training employees is not as successful as intended.
The good news is that if you fix 2 very common mistakes you can eliminate most of the frustration that business owners experience with building and employing a team.
The Mistakes
When hiring, most chiropractors look or the ‘pro’ with a lot of experience to fill the position. If you find that person at a great price, even better.
This is where it goes wrong right off the bat.
As an example let’s just assume you are hiring a front office C.A.
Most chiropractic business owners would love to stumble on a chiropractic assistant with fifteen years under their belt doing the same job they are interviewing for.
This is a mistake. I have proven this is mistake many times while helping doctors train staff and do what they should have done before ever seeking the employee in the first place.
- Create a Job Description
- Create an Operations Training
A Job Description informs the new employee about exactly what they will expected to do each day. The secret is to include everything they will do and everything they might do in the future. A new hire will always agree to every responsibility they are expected to handle – they won’t always agree so easily to task being added on in the future.
By defining the expectations for the day or week in a job description, you start the employee off doing what you need done. A good rule of thumb is that it’s much easier to eliminate a task than it is to add one.
The 2nd mistake – and one that has a greater negative impact than failing to use a job description – is relying on an employee’s previously learned skills and natural talents to guide them in their position. This is a common and critical mistake.
When I am seeking a new employee my focus is on a positive attitude, great manners, an upbeat personality and a neat/clean appearance.
Unless you have a criminal history that involves taking money, I have little interest in your past.
If the interview and employment verification calls reveal a dependable, kind person with a positive attitude and energy, I am sold because I will teach them the rest through the Operations Manual (Training) for their position.
Done right, your operations training will teach the staff member everything they need to know in exactly the way you want it done. A preconceived idea about how it should be done as learned through previous employment is just a roadblock to getting this employee well trained for the position.
Hiring employees based on a well written job description and training them from an even better crafted operations manual will usually be the difference between a stressful poorly run office and an office that runs like a well-oiled machine.
One leads to unhappy customers and staff while the other leads to a consistently excellent experience for both.