Do you find your staff making the same mistakes over and over? When confronted, do they say no one ever told them differently?
Never mind that the issue was discussed in the past two staff meetings. We’ve noticed staff members rarely save staff meeting notes for future reference, even when we email the notes or print them and physically hand them out.
As managers, we need to make sure staff members have the tools to be successful. For our practice that means having all staff meeting notes available for easy reference. Here’s what has worked well for us:
- Member Content Section – Creating a “members only” section on your website can be done with various website building platforms. This allows staff members to sign in and access password-protected information on your website. Our office has titled our password-protected section “What’s Happening Now”. The staff meeting notes and all important updates are put on this page for staff to reference. When issues come up, we are able to point them towards this information. Having this resource for them to access communicates they are responsible for knowing the information and working accordingly. We have found that this keeps our staff accountable for staying on top of current operations and procedures. We use iMatrix as our optometry practice website platform.
Guiding staff successfully is never easy for leaders of optometric practices. Staff members naturally push the blame to systems or people who have not allowed them to succeed. Finding little ways to provide your staff with all the resources for success not only improves their performance, but it eases the management burden and ultimately gives patients better care.
