last word

Alan Cleinman

Hiring a Winning Team

What does it take to build a winning team? It starts with culture. Culture is “how an organization’s owners and employees think, feel, and act.” What type of culture do you desire? Make sure that your hiring culture fits. Stop saying, “We just can’t find good people.” Start asking what you need to change in order to recruit and retain the best.

RECRUIT RIGHT. The days of putting an ad in the paper and having 25 qualified applicants show up are over. It’s called “recruiting” for a reason, and it involves selling yourself as a leader and your practice and the position as an opportunity. Make sure that opportunity is competitive on all fronts—salary, responsibility, environment, development, and fun.

EYES AND EARS. Recruiting, like patient development, is a way of life. Be on the constant lookout for opportunities to identify good candidates. Get your entire team behind the process…you need their eyes and ears, too. In recent years, I’ve made appeals for applicants at a local Chamber of Commerce meeting and on my local cable news program.

DOUBLE UP. Combine your patient development and recruiting processes. Many of you are used to standing before groups and speaking about your practice as it relates to patient care. Imagine what it says about your practice when you stand in front of an audience and describe how your growth has opened up new opportunities for good people. You’ll receive both applicants and new patients as a result.

LOOK AHEAD. Get ahead of your hiring needs. Identify and interview prospects before you have a crisis on your hands. Don’t hesitate to hire an outstanding prospect even if you don’t have an existing seat. Why? First, it takes three to six months to attain productivity. Furthermore, one of two things will happen: that new employee will raise the performance of the rest of the team, or you’ll find that one of your team members isn’t cutting it. You can then remove the under-performer without throwing the practice into understaffed turmoil…which, in turn, would lead to poor service.

When you have enough staff—and the right one—you deliver consistent WOWs. That’s what creates practice ambassadors and results in exponential practice growth. EB

Alan Cleinman is the founder the CEO of Cleinman Performance Partners (cleinman.com).