Motivating Your Staff

Motivating your staff members and keeping them motivated can be a significant challenge. However, it is an essential part of operating any successful business and it should not be ignored. Motivation is a direct link to job performance. Individuals and teams that are motivated achieve individual, group and overall business goals. In addition, motivated individuals consistently deliver a high quality work performance, are more apt to overcome obstacles and challenges, and are more productive with their time. Motivating your staff requires effective, dynamic leadership, which is not something you do “to” your staff, it is something you do “with” them. 

Some keys to effective leadership include: Integrity:

• Leading with integrity by modeling the behavior you want others to display.
• Setting standards that are clearly communicated and measurable and then training, coaching and motivating to those standards maintains a culture of integrity.
• Leading with integrity builds trust. Show the staff that you trust them by creating a culture of self-responsibility; encourage them to solve problems, contribute to building the practice, organize and implement new procedures, and handle day-to- day challenges.

Partnership:

• Build relationships with your staff by sharing the big picture and by positively emphasizing the importance of their role in achieving it.
• Coaching helps to build partnerships. This is not about discipline, it is about encouraging your staff members to discover their best and perform at it.
• One way for a staff member to contribute to the big picture is to develop and grow. Ask staff members to stretch beyond what you have observed them doing in the past and provide them opportunities for growth with advanced education, training, and special projects.

Affirmation:

• Observe the good in the staff and offer praise and affirmation.
• Reward the team for their contributions.
• Learn what staff members feel positive about doing and maximize their opportunity to contribute in these areas.
• Create opportunities to communicate with your staff members.

Rewards and Incentives: For a rewards and incentives program to be effective, clear and measurable performance goals must be set. These goals must also be clearly communicated with the team with details such as the time period within which the goal should be achieved, and how the goal will be measured. Lastly, and most importantly, ongoing encouragement, motivation and coaching (as needed) should be provided to support the staff in goal achievement. Rewards for achieving goals, contributing new ideas, or for solving problems is a great way to keep the staff motivated. One way to reward your staff is to offer Cynosure procedures at cost or at no charge, as may be appropriate for the individual. This is a terri c incentive and it allows staff members to experience treatments so they can better service your patients. However, some staff members may not be interested in such procedures and, therefore, the reward will not be of value to them. Take the time to understand what would be a good incentive for each individual in your of ce. Of course, you can’t diminish the importance of showing employee appreciation. Acknowledging excellent performance is best done with a sincere “thank you.” You might send a personal note or stop by the employee’s desk to convey your appreciation. Meetings: Regular staff meetings are important in developing and maintaining staff motivation. In busy practices, it is often dif cult to nd time to communicate new information or to feel “connected” to the staff. Meetings provide this opportunity and allow for the staff to communicate with you and with each other without the distraction of the bustling practice. Meetings can be used in many ways. Every meeting does not have to have the same purpose or agenda, and they can be used for a number of reasons including:

•  To update the staff on changes in the practice and to communicate new information.
• To address and solve a problem.
• To celebrate a recent success.
• To plan an upcoming event.
• To conduct a training.
• To demonstrate a new or existing treatment or procedure to increase staff knowledge.
• To review and refresh on existing policies and procedures.

Some tips on conducting a successful meeting include:

• Keep agendas manageable in scope. The entire agenda should be covered during the allocated time.
• Be prepared. Outline the agenda and the goals of the meeting.
• Clearly communicate the date, time and meeting place in advance to give staff time to plan.
• Assign a “scribe” who will take notes and distribute minutes to the staff.
• Be mindful of maintaining an open forum for comments, questions and suggestions, while making sure to stay on time and topic. For items that require more time, recommend they be added to an agenda for a future meeting.
• Meetings should be upbeat, relaxed and comfortable.
• End the meeting on time.
• Have the “scribe”post minutes so that any action items assigned, decisions made, or information dispelled are clearly documented.
• All action items should be put on the next agenda for follow up.