High employee turnover hurts every practice. It costs upwards of twice an employee’s salary to find and train a replacement.
What can you do?
- Hire the right people from the start. A lot has been written about the concept of ‘hire slow, fire fast’. Hire slow certainly has its merits. When you hire under pressure and duress, you may overlook something and hire the wrong person. I focus on the three C’s. Character, Commitment, and Competence – in that order. Checking for Character and commitment takes time.
- Right Compensation and benefits are extremely important. Get creative if necessary with benefits – bonus structures, etc.
- Pay attention to employees’ personal needs and offer more flexibility where you can.
- Finally, and most important in my view, is to Develop and Train your people. There is so much going on in healthcare these days. ICD-10, Health Information Technology (EMR, EHR), Meaningful Use, PQRS. This will serve the purpose of developing their careers as well as benefiting your practice by having ‘experts’ around when critically needed.
