By Stith Keiser | Blue Heron Consulting
This article was written for and featured in Today’s Veterinary Business.
I sat next to a registered veterinary technician at a recent continuing education meeting. As we chatted, she explained that she was no longer in practice. Her employer informed her that after over a decade of service, she had hit the pinnacle of career advancement and pay. That was it! She would never have another raise, add skills or grow professionally. She took the declaration to heart, and her reaction wasn’t surprising. Not only did she leave the practice, but she also left the profession.
Could her situation have had a different ending if the workplace culture promoted growth opportunities and mentorship? What if the owners had discussed a new position, duty, training or specialty with her? Anything other than “This is it.” Ultimately, the profession lost another great technician.
While not all voluntary employee turnovers (versus terminations) are as dramatic as the one I encountered, similar situations play out in veterinary practices daily. While letting go of a poor performer is a good decision, high turnover is bad for business. It drains knowledge from the company, reduces productivity and efficiency, and represents a significant loss of income. Estimates of the cost of replacing an employee vary, but it can be as high as twice the person’s annual salary. Revenue and monetary costs aside, excessive turnover also depletes a team’s morale and cohesion.
Why Employees Leave
Team members resign for various reasons. Management can do little to change some, like a relocation. Thankfully, however, a practice manager or owner can influence other reasons, such as:
- A poor workplace culture
- Disengagement
- Uncompetitive compensation and benefits
- A lack of trust in management or the business
- Poor management
Knowing that, could we design a veterinary practice that retains its employees? What can we influence, and what would it look like? Our imaginary practice would offer compensation and benefits at or near the top for their location. The work would be exciting and challenging, and the team would have the autonomy to accomplish it. Management would be fair and provide feedback. Management would empower all team members to make decisions within the practice’s guidelines.
Such a practice doesn’t have to be imaginary. Your employees are the foundation upon which your business is built, so invest in their retention because, in doing so, you’ll invest in your hospital’s success.
Building a Better Culture
Building good culture starts with building expectations. A business benefits from a clear goal, just like beginning a journey with a destination in mind. What would success look like for you? Do you have written company mission and vision statements, values and a code of conduct that are crystal clear, and does every team member understand them and is able to communicate them? Have the values permeated every level of the organization to the point that they guide every decision?
In short:
- A mission statement is who you are today, whom you serve and what you do. If the mission statement was carefully crafted years ago and promptly forgotten, now might be the time for a fresh start.
- A vision statement is where you want to be in the future.
- Values are a set of guiding principles for everyone in the business. They are nonnegotiable.
- An employee code of conduct clarifies expectations. These guides allow you to share the practice’s passion and purpose with the team.
I once spoke with a practice manager who lamented that her teammates were perpetually late to work even though punctuality was part of the company’s code of conduct. I asked whether she was held to the same standard of on-time arrival. She admitted that she had difficulty with it. However, every person in a company is responsible for the culture and should feel confident in calling out anyone, even the owner, who violates expectations.
How can we take mission, vision and values from concept to practice? Try this exercise:
Have every team member write on separate index cards each word or phrase that describes their work as unique or essential. For example, do they “always do the right thing,” or are they “advocates” for the patients? Do they strive to provide the “best customer service”? Other examples might include treating team members and clients with the same level of respect, accountability, integrity or professionalism.
Sort the cards into groups of similar ideas, watching for repeating themes and key concepts. Narrow the list to three to seven values. Be sure the values are defined in a way that is easy to communicate and understand.
The selected values should become part of the clinic lexicon. They should guide decisions at every level and become part of the daily conversation. Post them on the wall.
While multiple hospitals might use similar verbiage, every clinic has its own guiding principles. Recognize and reward team members whose actions exemplify those values.
Providing peer-selected “core value awards” is one way to keep the values in everyone’s mind. Allow team members to select the individual who, over the previous month, displayed one of the values through action. Hand out an award for each core value. Celebrate the cultural victories together.
For example, I worked with a veterinary practice that selected “providing excellent customer service” as one of its values. Team members could award each other a coin for upholding the value. The precipitating event and giver were recorded to keep the system honest and fair. Finally, a prize wheel was pulled out at team meetings, and everyone who received a set number of coins could spin it.
Fighting Disengagement
Disengagement is a buzzword often tossed around. In general, disengaged workers are pessimistic, egocentric and frequently absent. They lack initiative and accountability. The disengaged team member mentally quit but is still on the payroll.
How do we help prevent disengagement and keep veterinary medicine interesting and engaging?
At some point in your career, everything was exciting and new. An easy way to reconnect with those feelings is by being a mentor to someone in that same phase of their career. Mentors provide technical support for learning new skills and sharing knowledge. They also help navigate professional growth. In return, they receive a healthy dose of wonder and enthusiasm.
In our imaginary practice, picture your first day on the job and being told you’re a mentee. Your mentor, a specific team member, is ready to help train you on certain well-defined tasks and coach you through the “I’m new here” jitters.
If mentorship is too formal for the culture you’re building, reframe the relationship as an “assigned work buddy.” Or borrow the language many veterinary schools use for incoming first-years and instead tap the “big sister, big brother” vernacular.
Think back to the technician I met at the CE meeting. Instead of saying her advancement was over, what if her employer had sent her to a meeting to learn a new service skill or asked her to become a subject matter expert and teach her team? That would have increased her value to the practice, added variety to her career and provided room for professional growth.
At first glance, a career in veterinary medicine might not appear to have much room for advancement, but career advancement doesn’t have to mean obtaining a new degree or certification. Instead, help team members grow by encouraging them to explore their areas of professional interest. Every veterinarian, veterinary technician, veterinary assistant, receptionist, client service representative and kennel attendant can become a subject matter expert on a topic central to their work. In turn, they can teach their teammates. The exchange of knowledge provides excellent opportunities for cross-training and collaboration.
Keeping Compensation Competitive
Fair compensation is a cornerstone for retaining team members. No matter how loyal people might be to their work, they eventually have to leave if they lack the resources to care for themselves or their families. Do you know what nearby veterinary practices pay? Be the one that sets the bar on benefits rather than the one that lags.
If your practice’s budget doesn’t allow for competitive benefits and pay, explore the financials. (I encourage you to read my article “A Balancing Act.”)
Consider additional fringe benefits, like flexible work hours or job sharing. What about a bonus structure? First, set specific business or individual goals. Examples include the percentage of filled appointment slots, the number of new clients each month, a daily income goal or maintaining a set COGS percentage. Then, award bonuses for reaching preset milestones.
Addressing Management
Lack of trust and poor management go together. It’s often said that people don’t quit jobs; they leave bad managers. If you, as the practice owner or manager, aren’t improving team member retention, look hard in the mirror. Are you unintentionally undermining all your efforts?
Is your practice’s management style fair, or does favoritism exist? Are some team members criticized for the same behavior ignored in others? Remembering your practice’s values and employee code of conduct and evenly applying the rules helps combat unfairness.
Keep thinking. Do your employees feel empowered or micromanaged? Those trained in the company culture and competent in their work can be given the green light to make decisions within their areas of expertise. I’ve been in practices where the owner or manager had to clear every decision. The result was stress on everyone involved and a waste of time.
What if your team members, using your practice’s mission, vision and values as their north star, were trained to make decisions within their areas of expertise? For example, if a client can’t pick up a pet’s medications, empower your technician to mail the prescriptions or direct the client to an online pharmacy to ensure the best customer experience. Likewise, if a client is unhappy that a $12 e-collar broke as soon as the pet got home, the CSR should have the autonomy to decide on a refund, alternative product or replacement. The CSR shouldn’t have to say, “I need to ask my manager.”
Now, how would your team members respond when asked, “When was the last time you received praise from management for your work?” Would they remember a time? Ditto with the last time they met with a manager to discuss their career path and opportunities for growth and improvement.
If you can’t remember the last time you praised a team member, making it a habit can be challenging. The great news is that giving praise is free and doesn’t take more than a moment. Good praise should be fair, provided consistently and related to job-based wins, not personal traits. The amount of praise should match the accomplishment. If praise isn’t a frequent visitor to your practice, start by setting a daily goal of the number of times you praise someone.
Investing in Employee Retention
Building employee retention into the fabric of your practice starts with providing the team with a roadmap in the form of a mission, vision, values and code of conduct. Set a standard of working with or hiring only those who fit the company’s values. Give them the autonomy to use their training to perform their work and provide them with opportunities to grow professionally and as a team. Finally, hold everyone accountable for upholding the values and enforcing them. Provide praise and feedback often.
Employee retention takes an ongoing commitment to your team but is worth the time and effort. After all, investing in your team is investing in your success and your hospital’s.
