Five-step system helps improve employee performance

The simple system encourages poorly performing employees to fire themselves while helping good performers improve.

ByDerek A. Preece, MBA

A system is defined as a step-by-step method of accomplishing a task. Every practice employs systems. There is a step-by-step way of checking patients in when they arrive for appointments or for working up patients in preparation for the physician’s portion of the exam. Any practice that does not have a step-by-step system for claims submission and collection services will not be in business long.

However, while managing employees is critical to the success of any practice, most managers lack a step-by-step system to get their employees to do what is needed, to develop good performers and to eliminate poorly performing employees so that the practice runs efficiently and smoothly.

This article presents a simple, proven management system that, if followed, will result in greater productivity among your employees.

The Five-Step Management System

An employment relationship implies an agreement between management and employees. In this agreement, management has certain responsibilities, and the employee has corresponding duties. Management is responsible for the following five steps.

Step 1: Provide the tools. Employees must have the tools they need to be able to effectively do their jobs. The tools required may include items such as adequate space, computer equipment, written forms and telephone. If employees do not have the proper tools, they cannot be held accountable for accomplishing their work, and it is management’s responsibility to make sure the appropriate tools are available.

Step 2: Provide training. Employees must be properly trained in their responsibilities, and it is management’s responsibility to provide opportunities for receiving training. Management must make sure that it provides training to each employee in each of the positions in which he or she is expected to work.

Step 3: Set goals. Practice ownership and management should set overall goals for how the practice wants to position itself and for what it wants to accomplish. Then each department or work group should set complementary goals that, when accomplished, will help the practice reach its goals. Employees then should focus on the practice and departmental goals in establishing individual goals for performance improvement. Management should review and approve all employee goals and may at times ask individual employees to work on specific goals to improve performance.

Step 4: Become a resource. Once employees have the tools and training they need and have set goals for improvement, management must become a resource to help the staff when they have done everything they can and reach an impasse or an obstacle they cannot overcome by themselves. For staff to look to management as a resource, managers must be available, approachable and ready to listen with an open mind. However, managers must also be careful to let employees retain responsibility for accomplishing their goals. The manager is only a resource; she or he should not take responsibility away from the employee.

Step 5: Hold employees accountable. The final step in the supervision process is to hold the employee accountable for progress toward his or her goals. Because goals are often set without full knowledge of all the factors that will be faced in accomplishing them, it is appropriate to measure success by progress made rather than by whether or not the goal has been accomplished in the projected time frame. Employees can be held accountable through regular reviews and individual meetings. These are also good opportunities to give employees feedback, training and commendation whenever possible and correction when needed.

The five steps of employee responsibility

In the employer-employee relationship, employees have responsibilities that mirror and support management’s duties outlined above. They are the following.

Step 1: Use the tools. Employees are responsible for using the tools that the practice provides to them. For example, employees are responsible for using the practice’s computer systems to full advantage for the practice. They are also responsible to appropriately and fully use the office equipment, forms, phones, medical equipment and any other tools provided.

Step 2: Apply the training. Employees are responsible for applying the training that the practice provides. In other words, if the practice sends an employee to a seminar to learn how to improve collections, the employee is responsible for applying the methods taught in the seminar to their work.

Step 3: Set and accomplish goals. Employees are responsible for setting goals for improvement of their work and for putting forth effort to accomplish those goals. Only the individual employee can ultimately put forth the effort that meeting a goal requires, so it is the employee’s responsibility to set goals under the guidance of management and then work to achieve them.

Step 4: Ask for assistance when needed. Employees are responsible to ask for help when they cannot accomplish their goals by themselves. If an employee needs additional tools, training or other resources to accomplish a goal, he or she must request that assistance from management.

Step 5: Be accountable. Employees are responsible to be accountable for their use of time, tools, training and resources in carrying out their duties and accomplishing their goals.

Applying the steps

Because the Five-Step Management System is a step-by-step process, managers who encounter challenges with their employees can review the steps of the process to determine the source of the employee problem.

For example, if an employee is not progressing, it may be that step three of the manager’s responsibility has been skipped; that is, the manager may not have set goals for improvement with the employee. Or it may be that the employee has goals but that management has not held the staff member accountable for progress on those goals.

Alternatively, management may have completed all of its responsibilities, but the employee may refuse to be accountable for making progress toward goals. Once the situation has been reviewed and the problem area identified, the solution is usually obvious.

This Five-Step Management System will allow superstars within your practice to flourish, while encouraging average performers to improve their work. As an additional benefit, poorly performing employees will fire themselves rather than face the pressure of setting goals and being accountable for improving their performance.

For more information:

Derek A. Preece, MBA, the president and chief executive officer of Enhancement Dynamics Inc., practice management consultants, can be reached at 165 N. 1330 West, Suite D-2, Orem, UT 84057; 801-227-0527; e-mail: derekpreece@aol.com.