Improve the onboarding process by making sure information flows two ways. When employees start work, ask them about their own concerns, whom they wish to meet, what they wish to learn, and what motivates them. After a few weeks, ask for feedback about the onboarding process and what other information or approaches might be incorporated to improve the ability of new employees to do their jobs well. Employees, particularly front-office staff, typically receive on-the-job training for their positions.
This training is highly variable because it depends on the knowledge and proficiency of the trainers. To reduce the variability, training should follow a structured list of tasks and subjects to be covered, the estimated time needed for training in each area, and performance standards to be achieved. Continue training for employees throughout their tenure. A misguided belief shared by many managers is that if you hire competent people and pay them competitive wages, they will perform well indefinitely.
Managers often do not understand the connection between performance and personal development. Do not limit training to new employees. Provide ongoing training programs in areas such as customer service, conflict resolution, and effective communication. Make cross-function training a standard part of your practice.
In addition to the obvious advantages of providing leave-time coverage and continuity in case of abrupt departures, cross-training offers employees a chance to see what others do and gain a greater understanding of the overall practice. Just as the billing staff must receive regular updates in coding changes, and changes in the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments are critical to the laboratory, it is essential that managers keep abreast of the constantly changing field of employment regulations.
Too often, physicians and managers rely on common sense or what they learned about the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and equal employment law in seminars they took 10 years ago to guide them in human resources practice.
Employment law is constantly changing, and small missteps can have grave ramifications in the areas of hiring, firing, performance evaluations, and documentation.
Be sure that the senior management in your practice participates regularly in education in workforce regulations and that both physicians and employees are kept informed about current requirements and best practices.
Many educational opportunities that can benefit your staff are free. The following are a few examples:. Journal clubs: A staff development option that incurs no cost is a journal club, which can include both books and journals. Consultant Hertz encourages medical practices to include books and journals outside of the health care industry, noting that publications like Business Week and Harvard Business Review can offer provocative topics for discussion.
Assign specific chapters or articles, and meet weekly or biweekly for discussion at a lunchtime event or right after work. Hospital programs: Local hospitals may offer free seminars, workshops, or Webinars on topics of interest to your staff. Vendor-sponsored education: Sometimes vendors offer workshops on topics such as customer service or dealing with generational differences, in addition to their product-related training sessions. For example, a group of four companies in the Kansas City area created an innovative consortium that has been offering educational programs for medical office staff for 5 years.
For the price of lunch, employees from medical practices gain insights and perspectives they can apply on the job. The consortium also works with practice administrators to present in-service sessions on topics of special interest to practices. Government-supported programs: Government grants may also be available for staff education. The grant supported a hour customer service training class presented over 8 weeks.
Presented at one of the group's facilities, the interactive class included opportunities for employees to talk about issues they encounter at work. The grant also paid for a week conversational Spanish class offered once a week after hours. To find out about education or grants that may be available to your practice, look for state and county programs funded by the federal Workforce Investment Act. In-house education: Providing regular in-office educational programs offers a way to improve efficiency and remediate problems.
One example is a 1-hour educational session held by the Piedmont Health Group every Thursday at two different times. Taught by staff from the billing office and presented at the corporate office, these educational sessions focus on problem areas the collections staff have noticed in the patient registration process. The participants learn shortcuts and receive retraining on correct procedures. Another benefit, notes practice manager Bradberry, is that the employees appreciate the opportunity to get out of their own offices and meet staff from other offices.
Paying the annual dues for membership in professional associations is an excellent way to support staff development. The benefits of membership in a professional society—such as free publications and education, access to industry surveys, and, perhaps most important, networking opportunities—will accrue to their performance and the success of your practice.
Paying for dues in professional organizations such as the MGMA or Oncology Nursing Society is one of numerous benefits provided by the Kansas City Cancer Center Overland Park, KS , an organization with approximately staff members and five comprehensive cancer centers. The group also promotes certification and pays for education needed to attain and maintain it.
For example, all nurses are required to be certified in oncology, the billing department has certified coders, and the practice manager at each location is certified by the American College of Medical Practice Executives. Swayne notes that support of education is not reserved just for professional staff. Training and coaching are distinct, although, certainly, there is some overlap.
Training involves imparting knowledge and skills about processes, equipment, or services the employee will use on the job. When these items have already been covered, management and coworkers need only to help reinforce the concepts.
Expectations should be clearly set and new employees should be excited about becoming productive members of the team. To map out the orientation process to get the maximum payoff, try following the steps below to get started:.
From the time the new employee walks in the door, the focus should be on easing their anxiety. Having an agenda outlined for the first few days will help the employee know what to expect. They should be escorted around the office to be introduced to everyone on their team, and their direct supervisors should have some one-on-one time with them, preferably an off-site lunch, where both parties can feel more at ease.
New employees should be made aware of rules and policies right away to help them avoid the blunder of accidentally doing something embarrassing.
Basic topics to cover should include parking, signing in if applicable , breaks, etiquette and any other policies that are super important for every employee to follow. During their first week on the job, new employees should meet with their supervisor to have an in-depth discussion about job responsibilities and objectives.
The employee should be prepared to ask questions to gain a clear understanding of their expectations, tasks and priorities. Related: Documentation in the Workplace. Starting a new job is exciting. Here are a few tips to make the process as anxiety-free as possible:. Or, better yet, early. The first impression is the lasting impression. To ensure your timely arrival, plan accordingly. Note any available secondary routes in case of a road blockage.
You're on your own to learn all the ins and outs of the job and the organization - who your co-workers are, who does what, what the pitfalls of your position are, where to eat lunch Do you think you'd be likely to be able to do your best work - or any work, really - in the first few weeks or months?
More important, how would you feel about working for this organization? Would you have confidence that these folks had things under control, that they'd thought out what they were doing? Fortunately, most organizations don't operate this way.
New staff members are generally given at least some idea of what they're supposed to do, introduced to other staff, shown around, and made to feel welcome.
Most organizations find it useful to conduct a short informal orientation, or - if they have the resources - a longer, more formal one, for all new staff, so that they'll learn much of what they need to know to do their jobs before they actually start working. Yours can do the same. The word "orientation" literally means being turned toward the east, i. Orientation to a new job should give a staff member the basic information about the organization, her position, the target population, and the community, so she, too, can understand how to get where she wants to go.
All or most of an orientation, therefore, should best take place before the job starts. In reality, however, many organizations find it hard to schedule orientations right away, and new staff members may flounder for several days or weeks before they get any official introduction to the organization.
It's worth it to make time for an orientation when it's needed - before and while the new staff member actually begins working. Conducting an orientation at the right time makes more sense not only for the staff member, but for the organization as well. You'll save much more time in the long run, through the staff person knowing what he's supposed to do and how to navigate in the organization, than you'll save by putting it off.
Staff orientation programs may look either formal or informal, may be as short as a day or may continue through a month or more, may or may not include some training.
The organization should think out beforehand what a staff orientation for that organization should look like. None of the answers to these questions should be left to chance; they have to be included in the orientation. The point here is that a staff orientation program is more than simply telling people a few things about the organization. It's a coherent, planned introduction that combines information, experiences, and a transmission of the values and culture of the organization more on this later , all of which are aimed at giving new staff members the foundation they need to do their jobs and to integrate themselves into the organization and the community as easily as possible.
An orientation for new staff can be a boon to both those staff members and the organization. Some specific advantages to such a program include:. A well-conceived and well-run orientation can thus address all the factors - logistical, professional, social, and philosophical - that can help a staff member fit into the organization and do the best job she can.
A note: The folks at the Community Tool Box are aware that most small - and many larger -- organizations don't have the time or resources for a formal orientation. An orientation may encompass a look at the organizational manual, a few introductions, or even less. What follows is a picture of the ideal: what you actually do will depend on your resources and the demands of your situation.
The main point here is that the more information and comfort you can provide to a new staff member at the beginning, the better. If your organization's current orientation consists of "Come on in and look around, and we'll put you to work," you might think about what you can do to make a new person a bit more at home.
You don't have to run a full-day orientation to do that. So you're convinced - a staff orientation program is a great thing, and can really benefit your organization. Now you're faced with the question of what such a program should consist of. Orientation to just about any position needs to include introductions to the organization, the target population, the community, and the position itself. The following are some elements that might be included in each of these introductions.
Much of the material suggested below can be conveyed in numerous ways - in person through conversation or discussion, in a workshop, through an activity, in printed form either as a hard copy or on a website , etc. Since the effectiveness of various methods of presentation varies from person to person, the ideal is probably to try to communicate information in different ways - some face-to-face, some independent reading, some observation, for instance.
Even if the organization is brand new, it has a history: the conditions that made it necessary, how it was started and by whom, how it garnered support, and how it got to the point of hiring staff. If the organization has been around for a while, its history includes, in addition, those who have worked in it, its accomplishments, its past challenges and how it overcame them or didn't , changes in direction, etc.
You may want to do some thoughtful editing here, both for length and for content. A new staff member doesn't need to know every minute of the organization's history to get the picture, and she doesn't necessarily have to know every negative or stupid thing the organization or its employees have ever done.
At the same time, the history shouldn't be sanitized: if you've gone through tough times, that's part of the character of the organization, and employees should know about it.
All of this is important to understanding the organization as it currently exists. Equally important, it gives new staff members access to the references to people and events that are part of the common language of the organization, and that allow one to be an "insider". Your organization has - or should have - a mission statement , and new staff members should have a copy of it and be given a chance to discuss it and digest what it means.
They should also understand clearly what the real mission of the organization is if it's not stated directly in the mission statement. The mission statement may explain what the organization does , but not necessarily what it stands for or vice-versa, but that usually comes under the heading of organizational problems. What it does may be community health promotion or adult literacy, for example, but its real goals may be social change or economic development.
If your mission includes an unstated agenda, it's crucial that new staff members understand that from the beginning.
Often tied in with its mission, an organization's philosophy guides its structure; the roles of various people within it; the way it treats its employees, volunteers, participants, and colleagues; the methods it uses in whatever programs or services it provides; and its ethics. In an ideal world, an organization's philosophy is a conscious choice, arrived at through careful thought by its founders, or through discussion and compromise by a larger group.
In reality, many, perhaps most, organizations express philosophical foundations that are simply assumed or that have developed unexamined over time. If you haven't thought out or examined your organizational philosophy, this might be a good time to do so.
If your work is to succeed, your philosophy should be consistent with the goals of your organization. An organization that strives to help a community become more democratic, or to empower a disenfranchised target population, is likely to find itself running in circles if it treats its own staff members in ways it wouldn't treat members of the target population, for instance, or places a high value on job status.
Philosophical consistency is a necessary foundation for an organization comfortable with itself and equipped to do its work effectively. While some organizations leave it up to staff members to decide how they'll do their jobs, others have set ways of accomplishing their goals.
A particular drug treatment program may advocate an individual approach for all participants, while another may rely only on therapeutic groups. One adult literacy program may use phonics exclusively, a second only as one of a broad range of techniques. An organization's choice of methods may be based on research, past successful or even unsuccessful experience, experimentation, intuition, conventional wisdom, philosophy, inertia, or some combination.
If your organization employs a particular method or technique, it's important that new staff members understand both what the method itself is, and that they are expected to use it.
Learning to use the method itself should be part of staff training , but at least a brief explanation of it and the reasons for its required use should be included in an orientation. An organization is actually no more than the people who do its work and give it life.
Perhaps the most important task of a new staff member is to become familiar with those people and to understand what each of them does. To the extent possible depending upon the size of the organization, whether people are full-time, etc.
It's also necessary for new staff to understand whom to approach with specific problems. Who handles affirmative action? Is there a union, and, if so, who are the officers? Who administers the benefits program? Who's in charge of payroll? This area covers the "rules" of the workplace, and the small pieces of knowledge that make it possible for everyone to function in the course of a day much or most of this information might be conveyed in print that new staff members can read on their own :.
There are two facets of supervision that new staff members need to know about: the basic information about who supervises whom including whom the new staff member supervises, and who supervises her , how often, and in what areas of practice; and the more complex issue of the organization's attitude toward supervision. There are at least two ways of looking at supervision.
One consists essentially of the supervisor as watchdog, making sure that the staff member does her job right, and follows the rules of the organization. Too often, this has been the model followed in education, the one that generates horror stories of teachers being fired because their skirts were too short, or because they were critical of an assigned text.
The other view of supervision sees it as a mentoring relationship, aimed at improving performance through constructive feedback, suggestions, and discussion of situations. This is the model used most often in counseling and psychology, and more frequently now in education, medicine, and other areas.
It is, in the writer's opinion, far more effective and useful than the other, and more likely to lead to real improvement in performance. It's important to have a clear set of policies and procedures that explain and govern the various tasks and relationships necessary to keep the organization running. You may even have a handbook that lays out the ways in which the organization operates and explains how to file a grievance, how to deal with a personal conflict, how to handle a participant complaint, hiring and firing issues, etc.
Even if you have a handbook, however, it's a good idea to call new staff members' attention to important issues as part of their orientation. Then, at the very least, if they find themselves in difficult situations, they'll know that there are policies that cover them. Every organization has its own culture, developed over its life.
The culture is the result of the organization's history and of the thinking and behavior of its founders and former and current staff. It may change a small amount with each departure from and new addition to the staff, but is generally fairly stable, and includes not only standards for behavior, but the in-jokes and references that everyone in the organization is expected to know and respond to.
If your organization is new, you and those you hire are forming its culture even as you read this. You can just let that happen, or you can discuss the issue and make some choices about what sort of culture the organization wants, and what would reflect the character it wants to have.
How it treats both staff and participants, the formality or informality of its style, its openness, even its furniture Does it choose to spend its money on expensive furniture or on its mission? Understanding the organizational culture will help a new staff member become "one of the bunch" more quickly, and reduce the uncertainty and the stress of a new situation.
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