There is an old proverb, "ask and you shall receive". These days, the proverb might be more aptly changed to, "give and you shall receive". In today's working environment, organizations must increase their dedication to staff and levels of leadership if they wish to achieve employee commitment. Employee commitment is not bought with a salary (nor is it expected), but rather earned through the actions of the people who lead the organization."
For employees, commitment is based on a number of factors:
- Sufficiency of pay, benefits and rewards
- Family oriented policies and actions
- Quality of the supervisory relationship
- Favorable developmental training and experiences
- Promotions
- Clearly stated guidelines defining appropriate work behavior and job demands
- Participation in goal setting
- Receipt of performance feedback
- Supportive communications with immediate supervisors and upper management
- Procedural justice in performance-appraisal decisions
- Evaluative and objective measures of performance
When these things are in place, employees are willing to work harder, perform duties beyond requirements, remain in their organization for a longer period of time, and even have fewer absences from work.
Employee commitment is defined as staff being continually motivated to achieve results and satisfied to see their future with the organization over time. The benefits of such commitment are clear. But how do organizations gain and support the commitment of its people?
In order to ensure that company ideology remains the living breath of the organization, it is vital to be able to measure commitment, taking on board feedback and gauging subtle organizational changes. Without measurement, an organization cannot find the gaps in commitment and improve.
With this in mind, we have an Employee Commitment Questionnaire that assesses employee commitment. This will serve to give you a better understanding of what your employees need to be more effective in their position, how you can improve your working relationship, and how committed they are to their role in your clinic.
 | Click Here To Download The "Employee Commitment Questionnaire" | | File Size: | 7 kb | | File Type: | pdf |
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1. Keeping up an Immaculate Presentation of the Office
The office should always have an immaculate presentation whenever a new patient or a recurring patient comes to visit. Think as if your family in law were coming to your house to stay the weekend, what would you do? How would you arrange the place? The plants? The front desk? The presentation of the office should be warm, comfortable, and inviting. The presentation of the office on a day to day basis is going to make your chiropractic office that much more memorable to all of your new and recurring patients. Don't slack off when it comes to presentation. Consider hiring an interior decorator or a feng shui expert for a 2 hour consultation one day to show you how you can improve the appearance of your office. It will make all the difference.
2. Complete Focus and "Presence" with All Patients
Alongside your office's presentation comes your CA's presence and how they relate to the patients…new and recurring. What I mean by this is that every time a patient comes to visit the office, your CA should give 100% of their focus, time, and "presence" to that patient. If they are on the phone, they should acknowledge that patient letting them know they have seen them and will be with them shortly. If they are texting, or on the computer, they should immediately stop what they are doing and give 100% of their focus to that patient. What does it take to impress and acknowledge a patient? Oe minute. That's one minute per patient per day that helps show them you are the chiropractic office they SHOULD continue with. The CA should be treating the recurring patients with just as much, if not more, attention, kindness, and presence, as they would any new patient or prospective patient.
3. Building Long Term "PROFESSIONAL" Relationships with the Focus of the Patient in Mind
This is something to be very cautious with. When done correctly, you can have repeat long term patients for a long time to come. When done incorrectly, your patients could leave your office forever, without a second look back. We have to remember, patients don't come to a chiropractor's office to make friends, they come to get their pain and problems fixed. So the type of relationship you build with your patients should be a 95% professional, and no more than 5% personal one. It is ok to talk about "light" personal topics with the patients such as local events, sports, and activities that THE PATIENT is interested in, but pouring out your weekend club hopping extravaganza with patients, is a huge no-no. Also talking about personal problems, life situations, and "drama talk" will only push your patients further away. The best way to build a long term professional relationship with your patients that keeps them coming back to your chiropractic office month after month, is to learn a few topics that the patient likes to talk about, and let them talk to you about those topics, while you listen and converse back with them on a professional level. Do this correctly, and your patients could keep coming back to you again and again, feeling good about referring your practice to their friends and family.
Improving employee retention through training is a strategic management tactic that is frequently overlooked. All too often a business assumes giving people a salary raise or more vacation time will create job satisfaction. Instead, what happens is the staff adjusts their standard of living to consume the raise and are away from their jobs longer due to the increased paid leave time. They remain dissatisfied while at work.
It is difficult to do any job when you don't have access to the right training. Struggling through a job, or spending time doing a job wrong, results in frustration and often leads to conflict between employees, and employees and managers. The employees feel as if their employer really doesn't care enough about the quality of the job being done if they refuse to invest in training. The result is the staff and the employer are unhappy with the results.
Employees who sense an employer will not invest in adequate training will seek other employment. Staff turnover is an expensive proposition for a business. Anytime an employee leaves and must be replaced, there is a learning curve for new staff during which productivity will drop. In addition, the manager must spend an inordinate amount of time making sure the replacement staff has enough information to do the rudiments of the job. Then the cycle starts all over again.
Increasing employee retention is possible by providing staff training. But it cannot be training just for training's sake. Most people have, at some point, sat through a seminar wondering why they are being forced to listen to information not relevant to their job.
Staff training must be focused, and it must be focused on providing the tools and knowledge staff need to do their job. The training must be relevant on many levels.
* Promote the chiropractic mission and culture
* Increase customer relationship management
* Teach communication skills
* Instruct in use of technology
* Encourage creative thinking
* Develop potential managers
This probably sounds like an ambitious agenda. But an effective training program that is well designed and addresses the very real day-to-day issues employees must be able to handle to do their jobs well, will result in increased employee retention. The reason is quite simple. Well trained employees take ownership mentally and emotionally of a company when they are treated as valuable assets.
Developing an "Our" Organization Mentality
Staff who do not take some level of ownership of their place of employment are normally dissatisfied employees who always keep their jobs at an arm's length so to speak. They never really feel as if they need to be as productive as possible or need to put forth the extra effort good job performance always requires. Eventually, it is inevitable these employees will seek another job.
Employee training builds staff confidence, competence, and a sense of job ownership. The result is a workforce that is knowledgeable and has a high level of job satisfaction. When someone is satisfied, they will stay right where they are, on the job.
Do you have a referral based business? Most doctors would say yes. But realize there is a huge difference between a Word of Mouth Business and a Referral Based Business. Referrals are generated proactively where Word of Mouth is a passive method. Below you will find 5 ways you can generate referrals proactively. Remember, when implementing a system you must be CONSISTENT!
Calls
Have your CA call through your database once per quarter to keep in touch with your patients. A simple “Hey, how is life? We just wanted to check in on you and make sure things are going well. Oh, before I forget… if you run into anyone who is in pain or could benefit from seeing Dr. ________ have them give us a call. We are never too busy for your friends and family.”
Hand Written Cards
There is power in writing cards. It is the only piece of mail that gets opened every time! It is also the only piece of mail people like to receive, short of receiving money for their birthday. Make a lasting impression and take time out of your day to write your patients a note of gratitude.
Business Lunch Meetings
Do you know who your top referring patients are? If so, take them to lunch. You need to acknowledge those who help your business. Imagine if everyone that you referred business took you out to lunch. Would you refer them more business? I know I would.
Quarterly Gatherings
Schedule Quarterly Gatherings for the remainder of this year. This should be an easy task as there are numerous opportunities to “Get Together”. Put them on the calendar, have your CA create an invitation, and start letting your patients know when you’ll be holding them. Create community in your database of patients. Have them invite family and friends. You will be astonished by how many new patients you generate.
Monthly Newsletters
Open up your Marketing Manual! You have an entire years worth of newsletters sitting there asking to be sent out. Remember “Knowledge does not equal power. Knowledge is worthless unless put into application.” So send those letters out and generate some new patients!
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