Motivating employees is a challenge in every business, but in healthcare, where patients’ lives may be at stake, it’s something that physician practice owners and physician team leaders simply must figure out how to do.
Increased motivation leads to increased productivity, and while employing motivational techniques won’t cost you a penny, it does require an investment in time. If you’re a physician running your own practice or operating a group practice, here are seven ways you can keep your team motivated, no matter how stressful or busy the practice may be.
1. Give Employees Autonomy
Trust is crucial in an employer-employee relationship, and when your employees feel as though you trust them, they’re more likely to want to work harder and be more productive. Give your employees the autonomy to make their own decisions and they’ll know that you have confidence in them to do what the job requires.
Improved confidence leads to improved motivation and increased productivity, a win-win for both the physician leading the practice and everyone else on the team.
2. Have Honest and Open Lines of Communication
You can also motivate employees to perform better by maintaining honest and open lines of communication. Employees feel more comfortable, more confident in their job, and more motivated when they know that they can have honest and collaborative conversations with you when need be.
3. Thank Employees for a Job Well Done
A simple thank you goes a long way to help motivated employees to want to continue to succeed and beat expectations. Acknowledging a job well done is easy to do, and it’s something that all people in leadership roles should make a habit of.
In addition to acknowledging strong performances, acknowledge strong behaviors.
For example, if you notice one employee pitching in to help another or overhear one staff member complimenting another for a job well done, acknowledge their good behavior. When “thank you” and “great job” are frequent phrases heard in your practice, the practice becomes a more enjoyable place to work.
4. Ask Your Staff for Feedback
Collecting feedback from your staff is both a way to improve motivation and gain valuable insight into potential issues or problems within your practice. Employees tend to be more motivated when they know that their opinion matters. To collect those opinions, conduct routine team meetings or ask staff members to partake in an employee survey.
Your employees want their opinions to be heard, and a survey is an easy way to gather feedback, learn how engaged your employees are with the practice, and feel more motivated to work harder. Just be sure to act on the feedback collected, otherwise your employees might feel as though their opinions don’t matter.
Check out this article from Survey Monkey to learn how to create an effective employee survey for your practice.
5. Assign Goals to Individual Roles
From fellow physicians to medical assistants to front desk staff, everyone on the team should know that their role is critical in the overall operations of the practice.
Let your front desk receptionist know that their individual goal is to check in patients promptly and schedule follow-up appointments in a timely manner. Let your medical assistant know that their main goal is to collect and record accurate patient medical histories. Let your nurses, PAs, and other physicians know that their key goal is to provide top-quality patient care.
When everyone at every level understands that their role is tied to a particular goal, they become more motivated to achieve those goals.
6. Make the Work-Life Balance a Priority
Maintaining a work-life balance is critical to every employee in every role at every stage of their career. But there’s more to the work-life balance than just about taking vacation days and scheduling time off.
To encourage a better work-life balance you’ll want to minimize stressors within the workplace that can put employees under pressure.
One way to do so is to encourage your employees to focus on their mental health. Another way to do so is to hire more staff so that employees feel as though they have more support and feel less stressed on the job.
Don’t have the time to post a job opening online and sort through endless resumes?
Checkout this article to learn how physician recruiters can be useful in finding qualified, competent candidates to add to your team.
7. Make it a Fun Place to Work
In a business as serious as medicine, the word “fun” rarely comes into play. But there are some ways to make your medical practice a fun environment to work in.
Little things such as offering free drinks and healthy snacks in the breakroom can help motivate the team at all times. You can also throw seasonal holiday parties, host or partake in charitable events as a team or buy the team lunch once in a while. With little perks like these, your employees just might start to think of your medical practice as a fun place to work.
In Conclusion
Motivated employees work harder and are more productive, so make motivation part of the practice culture now.
Encourage a work-life balance. Keep open lines of communication with your team and ask for their feedback. Give every staff member a goal. Make the workplace a fun and positive environment, and thank your employees when they go above and beyond their duties or exhibit exemplary behaviors.
The more you motivate your team, the better patient care they will provide — and that is every great physician’s goal.