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The profit gains of boosting workplace enjoyment for staff
Making the workplace a fun environment can help reduce staff turnover, thus increasing practice profitability.
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“I am going to keep having fun every day I have left, because there is no other way of life. You just have to decide whether you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.” — Randy Pausch
“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.” — Joe Namath
“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” — Katharine Hepburn
I recently worked with a practice manager on the East Coast who shared in confidence, “I don’t know how to have fun.” (He did not even say it with a smile.) And thus started an interesting 3-day dialogue on the economics of workplace fun.
The greatest operating cost in your practice, irrespective of scale, is staff — both lay staff and any associate care providers that you employ. In the typical setting, 30% to 50% of every dollar you collect goes back out to employed staff.
Curating a practice team and managing providers and support staff well have numerous aspects:
- Correct hiring choices
- Written performance standards
- Great, never-ending training
- Fair, frequent performance feedback
- Appropriate discipline and redirection
- Not delaying termination decisions
Which brings us back to those very un-businesslike concepts of “fun,”“enjoyment,”“happiness” — words that are not often on a punch list of staff management pearls. They should be. The absence of workplace enjoyment is the key driver for staff dissatisfaction and excessive turnover. And excessive turnover has some high, hard costs in ophthalmic America.
Have fun to increase profitability
In the typical ophthalmic practice today, the average turnover rate (the percent of staff who leave each year for one reason or another) is about 25%. In practices that make an active effort to reduce this figure, 15% is the norm. In lower-morale settings, the annual turnover rate can be 35% or higher.
What does this cost in dollar terms? According to labor economists, the cost to a company of losing one staff member is about 50% of their annual wage. This rule-of-thumb estimate includes the cost to recruit, hire and train a replacement worker, plus the lost productivity and extra burden put on the staff who are left behind.
Here is an example. Imagine a three-surgeon practice with 24 lay staff. The normal turnover rate would be 25%, or about six people departing a year. If this same practice had disgruntled, unhappy employees and the turnover rate was 38%, or nine departing staff instead of six, the cost associated with the excess staff departures would be: three excess staff × their $45,000 average wage × a 50%-of-wage cost = $67,500. In a practice this size, three excess staff leaving in a year would represent a 5% or greater reduction in profitability.
Great staff management certainly takes wise hires and great supervision. But it also takes fun.
The fun factor in a practice comes from the top. When the surgeons and administrator are playful by nature, it rolls downhill to the rest of the staff. Unfortunately, doctors and administrators can be notoriously uncheerful. They are serious people doing serious work. Being serious is what got them elevated to this level of authority. If this is you, here is a helpful combo menu of fun, disarming and nearly cost-free actions you can take to boost workplace enjoyment for staff and doctors alike.
Twenty-five fun ideas
1. Budget and delegate for fun. Choose two nonsupervisory staff for the year to collaborate on fun activities and give them a budget to work with.
2. Memorize one joke a week. Learn how to tell it well. Or not. You can tell it poorly. In fact, the more uptight and stuffy you are seen to be by your staff, the more hilarious and appreciated your efforts will be.
3. Learn a magic trick or two. Spencer Thornton, MD, one of the smilingest ophthalmologists I know, has spread joy to staff and patients alike with magic. Even a bungled trick will raise the fun factor.
4. Do not overlook any opportunity to dress up. Wear costumes or fun accessories for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s and the rest of the holidays.
5. Dress up the office, too. You should have a plastic tub in storage for each of the holidays, along with one or two holidays that you make up. How about celebrating “Halfway Day” when half of the year is done? Or “Half-Million Day” when you have served your 500,000th patient?
6. Give everyone in your practice a nickname. Not to be used often in front of patients, but privately. These should evolve organically, say something positive about the person and be a handle that each staffer is proud of.
7. Create traditions and celebrate them, such as making the most cheerful and upbeat person in the office in the last month wear a small smiley button.
8. This one is easy and highly effective: Feed people free food. You should bring in lunch, snacks, dessert, pastries or the like at least once a week on a random schedule.
9. Increase workplace enjoyment by loosening up your instructions. Nobody likes to be told precisely, in exquisite detail, how to do their job. People like to know the outcomes you expect of them and have a chance to innovate their own way to the desired outcome.
10. As the lead physician or administrator in your practice, be extremely sensitive to interpersonal conflicts. These will always arise in a workplace, but they should cool down briskly. Your job as a leader is to reduce the level of conflict wherever it arises. Conflict kills work enjoyment.
11. Without going over the line, without trying to be a buddy, be more accessible to staff. Providers should treat line staff not like peers (you are not) but like respected colleagues with important roles to play in a common mission. Do not treat staff like beneath-you minions.
12. Preserve and strictly enforce all of the important rules (eg, patient safety, clocking in, name tags) while relaxing others (eg, a relaxed dress code on Fridays).
13. Keep a library of comedy and book CDs and books on tape for staff with long commutes to borrow ad lib.
14. Launch a company fitness club, walking group, or bowling or softball team.
15. Allow staff to personalize their workspace with photos, vacation memorabilia, etc.
16. Decorate the break room whimsically. Hire a singing telegram for hallmark employment anniversaries. Never, ever forget birthdays.
17. Do not let doctors intervene with staff about performance errors; make sure these all get filtered through the appropriate supervisor.
18. The administrator and managing partner should take at least one complete walking tour of the office daily, visiting casually with staff in all areas and praising them about specific aspects of their performance. If necessary, arrive early or stay late to accomplish this.
19. Check local wages to assure pay equity in all areas of the practice.
20. When you have especially tough or late days, consider “battle pay,” meritorious service awards, compensatory time off and the like.
21. Find ways to increase scheduling flexibility for staff. Start by asking staff what changes in scheduling would make their lives easier while still delivering great patient care and customer service.
22. Have the administrator take two different staffers to lunch each week to listen and learn both up and down the chain of command.
23. Doctors: Share your future dreams for the practice. Most staff see their work as a career and want to know where you, as their leader, are taking them.
24. Make sure any final job candidates, including doctors, are interviewed briefly by every staff member.
25. Finally, Google “workplace fun” for about 87 million other citations of how to boost staff enjoyment of their job.