Ben Blake
April 19, 2019
Since spilling secrets seems to be our thing lately, we figured: why stop now?! We’re going to share some of the best practices that we’ve learned over the years from working with amazing medical practices. Spoiler alert: it’s all about taking care of your team.
Building a strong culture in a medical practice can be difficult, especially if your practice has multiple locations, split across multiple cities. We have seen practices overcome geographical differences to create strong cultures and teams.
After working with a variety of medical practices over the years, we’re sharing a few areas to focus on when engaging your team.
When creating an all-star team, there’s no doubt that it starts with the interview. Our clients that have a strong team culture will emphasize the importance of the interview process. Not only do they assess a candidate’s skills, but also their personality. They want to understand how the candidate will fit in to their current team and how they’ll work with patients. This level of understanding allows management to find people who are a strong fit for their practice.
Some practices will even express that they’ve hired because of personality and culture fit first. They know that skills can often be taught after the candidate is hired, but personalities often don’t change. Allowing new hires to learn on the job also helps with job satisfaction because staff are constantly growing and developing their professional skills.
Every person, no matter their role, should understand the WHY behind their position. Understanding the why comes down to communication. Each role understands not only their responsibilities but also the way in which patients and other staff on their team depend on them. That reason gives staff the power and the ammo to go through their day, passionately.
One of our client’s practices this through a strong chain of communication. They’ll stay proactive with bi-yearly strategy meetings where decisions are made that affect the practice, staff, and certain roles. There’s a formal structure in place so that every person, no matter their role or location, is aware of and understands any high-level decisions that have been made.
Some of the industry leaders we work with have worked incredibly hard to build culture within their team. At these practices, they’ve instituted formal practices like training and coaching. There’s a slight difference between training and coaching. Training is often in a group setting, where new skills are learned. Coaching is personalized. It’s a one-on-one experience where a manager can help an individual with specific goals.
Both go a long way to contributing to a strong culture, but they’ve also built a culture that goes beyond professional experience. Planning activities outside of the work day, utilizing personality testing, and more to build bridges between team members, no matter the role.
Successful practices view the group as a whole: administrators, nurses, and doctors, with mutual respect for one another. When each group maintains equal stature, is cohesive, and works together as a true team, that is when a good practice becomes a great practice.
Teams that emphasize mutual respect will always have each other’s back. One practice that we spoke with even said that it is well known that staff do not ever criticize another’s performance. This helps the team maintain a strong level of understanding for other’s roles.
Now that you know some of our secrets for creating strong and successful teams, assess your practice. We always want to hear from you – what has worked best in your practice to strengthen team engagement? Send us a message or tweet at us: @systeemmedical to share your team engagement tips!
Becca comes to Systeem after earning her M.A. and M.B.A from Southern Methodist University. She has a passion for writing and sharing ways practices can find peace with technology.
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