Staff Retention because Team Happiness = Practice Success

 

Ideas to Improve Staff Retention because Team Happiness = Practice Success

Improving staff retention is crucial for maintaining a stable and productive workforce. Here are the top five strategies to enhance staff retention.

Create a positive values-based culture

People don’t leave a job they leave a toxic environment. Creating a positive environment that is built on your values and culture is key to team recruitment and retention. It is advisable to create an environment where employees feel valued, respected, and supported, what do you think? This will involve encouraging open communication, provide regular feedback, and addressing any concerns promptly. A welcoming atmosphere can significantly impact employees' job satisfaction and commitment to staying with the organisation.

Define Opportunities for Growth and Development

Offering opportunities for career advancement and skill development has been shown to be an important factor in team stability. You can define and implement clear pathways for team members to enhance their skills, take on new responsibilities, and grow within your practice. Providing training, mentorship, and avenues for learning can demonstrate a commitment to your colleagues' professional growth.

Provide Competitive Compensation and Benefits:

Money is important, and not the most important thing and you must get it right. Your compensation and benefits packages must be fair, transparent, and competitive within the profession and your area. Fair and competitive pay, along with benefits such as gym memberships, pension plans, flexible work arrangements, can significantly influence employees' decisions to stay with the practice. We encourage you to use a points-based salary structure that encourages and rewards your team and encourages loyalty.

Offer Recognition and Rewards

Recognising and rewarding team members for their contributions and achievements is important so they feel seen and valued. Team members will have their unique and preferred way for appreciation to be expressed, learn about your individual team members, and discover do they feel appreciated by words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service or receiving gifts.  Regularly acknowledge their hard work through their preferred medium. Feeling valued and appreciated boosts job satisfaction and increases loyalty to the practice.

Encourage Work-Life Balance

Promote a healthy work-life balance by offering flexible work options, remote work opportunities (if feasible), and paid time off. Respect employees' personal time, don’t expect them to do surgery set up and close down in their own time, don’t run late so they miss lunch or leave late, encourage them to maintain a balance between their professional and personal lives. This approach can reduce burnout and improve overall job satisfaction.

Bonus tip

Recruit well

The most important and often overlooked component of team retention is recruiting right in the first place make sure you recruit a round peg to fit into your round hole, a square peg will never fit. Recruiting well, involves benchmarking your vacancy and selecting those criteria as you write your ad an proceed through the recruitment process. The thinking pattern of your team members will predict their behaviour and foresee if they are a good fit for the role and your practice. Recruiting well will save you so much time money and stress later down the line.

Remember, your practice is unique, so it's essential to assess your specific needs and tailor these strategies accordingly. Regularly gathering feedback from your team through conversations, meeting and facilitated team days will help you identify areas for improvement and enable you to enhance staff retention.