eyecare by the numbers

The Economics of Employee Turnover

Al Cleinman

Do a survey of ECPs and you’ll learn that staffing and employee management are often big headaches. If your practice is typical, you’ve experienced at least some of the following over the past year: one in four of your employees left; you were challenged to hold on to opticians and frame stylists; and, there is a 50 percent chance you replaced your optometric technician.

Turnover is costly—estimated by many experts to be a full year’s salary of a lost staff member. Based on averages from our semi-annual wage and benefits survey, turnover is costing a typical office more than $50,000 a year. This comes not only in the direct cost of replacement and training, but also in lost productivity. Unnecessary costs like that can put you under in a tough economy.

STAFFING SOLUTIONS

So, what’s a practice owner to do?

■ RESPECT. Show that you value and respect employees. Listen to their thoughts and ideas, and never belittle them.

■ EDUCATE. Encourage learning by offering training and facilitating education outside of the office. Reward employees for earning certifications.

■ SHARE. Allow members to share knowledge at staff meetings and in one-on-one training. Cross-training is good for everyone.

■ BURNOUT. Staff adequately to minimize burnout.

■ COMMUNICATE. Give performance feedback and praise good efforts and results. Communicate well and often so people know what is expected and feel part of the team.

■ HUMOR. Make work fun: Smile, share a chuckle, and engage your staff members’ sense of humor.

■ TRADITIONS. Establish practice traditions. Encourage staff to wear costumes on Halloween, and have a contest (let patients be the judges). Pick a monthly charity and donate time or money. Have an annual holiday dinner at a nice place.

■ FLEXIBILITY. Enable work-life balance. Flexible starting and ending times go a long way toward fulfilling family responsibilities. Take an interest in and show respect for employees’ lives outside work.

■ COMPENSATE. Be competitive with compensation, including salary, benefits, vacation and holidays, and tuition reimbursement. Money isn’t the most important thing, but it matters more in a tough economy. Remember, high turnover costs more.

■ DELEGATE. Now more than ever, you need good staff and support. If you want to keep a good team, you’d better delegate both responsibility and authority. Good people want to be challenged.

■ LEAD. Hire good people, and get out of their way. The leader’s job is to establish a vision for the practice and each position in it. The team’s job is to figure out how to deliver on the vision and get the work done.

Where better to invest than your own business, and where better to start than with hiring and developing the very best team? EB

Alan Cleinman is the founder and CEO of Cleinman Performance Partners (cleinman.com), a business consultancy specializing in the development of high-performance optometry practices. ©2013 Cleinman Performance Partners, Inc.