Eyeworld

EW NEWS & OPINION 30 July 2017 To the point: Simple practice tune-ups for complex times by John Pinto and Corinne Wohl, MHSA, COE unusual, but when present, correlate with lower turnover rates. Average scores below "5" are very rare, but definitely correlate with higher turnover. 3. Boost workplace enjoyment. People work for love and money, so even if you pay at above-market rates, you have to provide a lot of attentive care. Indeed, there are practices that due to circumstances are forced to pay well below market rates and have a low turnover rate because partner-physicians deeply engage with staff. At the same time, boost staffer-to-staffer connections; one of the greatest determinants of job satisfaction is the relations we have with our coworkers. Do this with everything from short-term, interdepartmental problem-solving task forces to TGIF gatherings at the end of the week. 4. Have a buddy system for new hires. Every new worker joining your team should be bonded for- mally for an initial 90-day period to a colleague. This is in addition to their direct supervisor and is usually a peer in their own department. After 90 days, the new staffer will have made their own connections and found their own way in the practice, but this formal approach assures that everyone has at least one friendly face in the practice at the outset. 5. Treat every job as a career. If you don't treat every job in your practice as important, you won't convey a vi- tal message to every worker: "What you do here counts." One of the lowest turnover rates we've seen was in a practice where the solo doctor made it a part of his routine to walk back to the records clerk at some point every day to say hello and give thanks. It costs nothing and will keep your people bonded to you and the practice. 6. Foster career mastery. Every worker, from surgeons to scrub techs, tends to enjoy work that they have become a master at. Don't let this mastery be an accident in your Please rate staff morale on a 0–10 scale. "0" is low/terrible, "10" is high/ wonderful: In the past few weeks, staff morale has been: About 6 months ago, staff morale was: About a year ago, staff morale was: Expand if you like with a follow-up question: Two things we should do this year to build a better practice and improve morale are: A. B. The collated results of this simple poll will be revealing. We've applied this survey to tens of thousands of staffers over the years; the average morale score is a "6," even in prac- tices with quite acceptable turnover rates. Average scores above "7" are it's very problematic in an ophthal- mology clinic, where it can take years to learn how to be a highly competent technician or biller. Although eyecare's 25% turn- over rate is what we see most com- monly in our consulting work, we also see stressed practices with 50+% rates, and a few practices with 10% rates and lower. Here are eight fast tips for in- creasing staff tenure. 1. Measure your turnover rate. Di- vide the number of lay staff who left your practice (for any reason) in the last 12 months by the total number of workers you typically employ. If you lost five staff and employ 20, that's a 25% turnover rate, roughly the average in our field. Get con- cerned if it's more than 35% and alarmed at 50% or higher. 2. Measure staff morale. This can be as easy as a brief, three-question, confidential survey. "Quitting is the easiest thing to do." —Robert Kiyosaki "While determination builds character, quitting is habit forming." —Frank Sonnenberg A ccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median adult workers in America have been at their present job about 4.2 years. That's down 9% from just a couple of years ago. But it's in line with the typical turnover rate among lay support staff in ophthal- mology today. Expressed in different units, that's about a 25% turnover rate— the percent of staffers who leave each year for any reason. General Motors has a 10% turnover rate, while Amazon has a roughly 100% turnover rate. Of course, it only takes a few hours to learn your job as a new warehouse worker at Amazon, so a high turn- over rate there is less disruptive. But Avoiding the high cost of high staff turnover rates

• Blank Page
• Blank Page (1)