Staffing can be one of the most frustrating, yet rewarding investments when managing an optometry practice. Every aspect of a patient’s experience at your practice revolves around the work of a staff member. So why do some offices successfully find great staff members and others seem to go through personnel like my sister goes through friends on Facebook?

Finding great staff members requires diligence, repetition of the process, and patience:  diligence to continue to pursue the right fit, repetition in finding systems that work and sticking to them, and patience to pass up mediocre hires for great ones. Here are three steps to hiring great staff members.

  1. lady writing on clear board ACTION PLAN IDEABegin with the right marketing plan – Yes, just like you market your business for new patients, you market your optometry business for new staff members. Since many experienced professionals work at competing practices and other healthcare specialties, you must have a plan to pull great employees from other places. Market the wages that you are willing to pay the potential staff member. There is nothing like the allure of more money–advertise that.
    1. “optician position pays $17-25 hr. depending on experience”
    2. “signing bonus of $1,000 after the first 90 days”
  2. Allow current staff to interview applicants – As an owner of the practice, you do not have time to interview five to 10 potential applicants during the week. You need to work on tasks that will give you the greatest return on investment, and first-line interviews are not that. Instead, create a guide with approximately five questions that two of your staff members can ask during each initial interview. That way staff members can sift out ones not suited for your practice before you ever meet with them. Also, by giving current staff members some of the responsibility of evaluating future co-workers, they will be encouraged to lead them when they come on board as new hires. Of course, a key to this strategy is picking staff members to do the interview that you want the new hire to emulate. Below are a couple of sample questions to get you started.
    1. Why did you apply for the position?
    2. What is an optometrist?
    3. Describe a time where you demonstrated great patient care.
  3. Ignore the resumes – As CEO of your optometry business, it is imperative that you cut through the veneer of a resume. Having a simple online application that the applicant is required to fill out in the application process will not only give you a first-line informal interview, but it will help you discover which applicants you don’t want on your team because they can’t spell correctly (you would  think spell check would be used), or they talk in #trendy verbiage. If the details are important to you, then consider the online application. Of course, a resume continues to be important for analyzing past experience, but it should not be your first step in the process.  Check out this online optometry application for details on making your website function with an online application.

Diligence, repetition, and patience are the keys to finding the right staff.  According to a survey conducted by CareerBuilders.com, a hiring mistake can cost some companies more than $50,000. Successful optometry practices lead the industry by taking the time to hire the right staff.