As the owner or practice manager of a cosmetic surgery practice, you’ve reached a level of success where your office is bustling with happy patients, and you’re enjoying a healthy reputation amongst industry peers.
Your practice is fully staffed, and your team seems happy. What more do you need?
You need to stay on top of employee retention, which involves a lot more than just ensuring your staff shows up on time each day.
According to the Wall Street Journal, finding and training a replacement for a lost staff member can cost “twice an employee’s salary,” and that doesn’t take into account the specialized staffing needs for a cosmetic surgery practice.
Plus, once you’ve found a replacement, training and the learning curve that follows translates into more of a resource drain.
Here are three top tips to keep your employees around, so they- and your practice -continue to thrive.
1. Invest in your employees, so they’ll become vested in you
Offer training to all your employees, whether it’s in technology, HR, laws or social media. It helps create an office family where members feel included and important.
Can you remember a time in your career when you were excluded from attending a trade show or training opportunity? The feelings of exclusion and not being valued probably resonated with you for a long time.
Excluding employees to favor others because of cost or relevancy might translate into their feeling unimportant, and who could blame them from seeking work elsewhere?
2. Get to know your employees
It’s important for morale that you know and understand what every one of your employees is experiencing in their lives outside of the practice.
For example, if your appointment intake clerk makes a scheduling mistake, your possible instant reactions of “I’m putting you on probation!” or “Look how much money you’ve just cost me!” will likely be tempered if you know she’s experiencing the stress of caregiving to an ailing parent or she’s spending all her free time taking her son to visit college campuses.
3. Recognize and celebrate your employees’ accomplishments
Has your practice manager earned her degree? Has your esthetician completed a half-marathon? Take some time out to announce these milestones with a mini celebration or even a shortened workday.
Of course, clear the announcement with the employee first! It may be something she wants to keep to herself.
This practice conveys two morale-boosting effects: first, it lets your employees know you won’t give them ultimatums regarding a work/life balance; and it reinforces the knowledge that you support them.
But that’s not all. Experts at MJ Management Solutions, Inc., suggest that you offer incentives and out-of-the-box benefits.
Catered lunches can work wonders for morale. And while standard vacation/sick/retirement benefit packages are a must-have to stay competitive and glean the brightest talent, so are lifestyle benefits, such as flextime, remote employment or subsidized childcare.
You could also consider profit-based raises and practice investment options. Whatever you choose, remember that your practice’s reputation and success lies not just in your skills but in your employees’ healthy morale.
