continuing education

The Best Employees: How to Hire and Keep Them

Hiring, training, and retaining good employees in today's marketplace is a key business challenge. The economy and available job pool, the quirks of the professions, and the nature of optical—fashion and function, medical and retail—require diverse personal and professional skills. Developing a useful hiring, training, and retention program is essential to any optical business that wants to do good business with good people in place.

The health of your practice now, and your practice growth in the future, depends on good people. Here's how to find, keep, and nurture the best employees.

HIRING, HAPPINESS

Hire right and you hire personal and professional happiness. Hire wrong, and you, your staff, and your business will suffer the consequences. The following points will help you hone your hiring skills by developing a fool-proof system for hiring that can save you time, money, and sanity.

1. Make lists. Write down the tasks required for the position that needs to be filled. A basic job description is around 90 words; an advanced job description is about 150+ words.

Ideally, the practice has a job description for each position that is reviewed and revised on a regular basis. Also, develop a list of interview questions for each job description.

2. Create a hiring budget. This should be an annual budget for salaries and recruiting costs. Conduct salary surveys using similar local business models to determine how much to budget for salaries.

3. Know what you're looking for. It goes beyond "I need an optician." Address practicalities and hire demographically. If your practice can't offer career advancement, for example, consider hiring an older workforce that may not require the same advancements as a younger, career-oriented workforce would.

4. Source candidates. Be aware that potential candidates can come from many sources, from personal and internal to external.

a. Internal: Ask friends, family, colleagues, and current employees for their candidate recommendations. Post the position for any internal candidates to apply.

Benefits of hiring/promoting from within include working with a known entity. You know their ethics, performance, and capabilities already. They know how to work well within your system and with other employees. Hiring from within also boosts employee morale.

b. External: Newspaper ads, internet job boards, trade publications, clubs, organizations, and job fairs can be key methods and sources for obtaining candidates.

Word-of-mouth can be a powerful tool in determining who to hire and not hire.

c. Employment agencies: Another external resource can be useful for outsourcing those things you don't have the time or expertise to do.

An employment service can help you write job descriptions, source candidates, screen applicants, and conduct background investigations. Discuss costs up front, and read and understand any agreement before signing.

5. Review resumés and select interview candidates. Red flag resumés that include grammar or spelling errors, large gaps in employment history, or several jobs within a short period of time.

A red flag candidate may prove to be a good employee, so these three considerations may require additional questions during an interview.

6. Do phone interviews first. This can help save you time by reducing the number of face-to-face interviews needed. Refer to your job tasks and interview question list to keep phone interviews concise.

a. Qualification questions: Focus on the candidate's track record, addressing their credentials, technical skills, education, experience, and accomplishments.

b. Behavioral questions: Ask applicants to describe examples of their reactions to situations while at a previous/current employer. Ask them questions about how they handle specific situations with a patient, as well as if the situation were reversed and they were the patient.

Asking them about past/present behavior can help gauge future behavior.

7. Live interviews. For your face-to-face meetings, include only candidates who passed the initial resumé review and phone interview.

a. Individual interviews: A one-on-one interview should include reviews of the candidate's qualifications and track record, and address what the candidate can bring to the practice now and into the future.

b. Consider bringing others into the interview process, including the key person or department the candidate may be working with if hired. This can help you get a handle on how the candidate will respond to more than one personality. This also allows for additional feedback.

c. Observe the candidate's greeting and analyze how they introduce themselves and handle themselves with you and other staff members. Pay attention to their choice of words; can they articulate thoughts efficiently and well, and not overuse catch phrases and slang? They should show respect, yet be friendly.

d. Observe their appearance. They should be clean and neat. Conscientiousness in appearance and hygiene during an interview usually indicates they'll be appropriately dressed, clean, and neat on the job.

8. Check references and employment history. This means making phone calls to former employers. Also consider asking applicants to agree to a credit history check, criminal background screening, and drug screening.

It's essential to refer and defer to all federal and state regulations before conducting background investigations or drug tests.

9. Make an offer. First discuss the offer with the candidate; next, put that offer into writing. Specify all the pertinent details of their employment.

Most businesses don't offer benefits until 90 days after hiring in order to get a better handle on whether the new hire can and will be with them long-term or not.

10. Once the new employee is hired, inform other candidates as a courtesy. Thank them for their interest and tell them the position has been filled. This can be done via telephone call or letter.

By keeping your practice professionalism intact from the beginning to end of the interview process, you convey a good reputation that may keep good candidates interested in working for your practice in the future, as well as a desirable buzz in the community.

LONG-TERM TIPS

The cost of employee turnover can be simply determined by calculating 50 percent to 200 percent of an employee's annual salary. This method, however, doesn't address the direct costs of hiring and training a new employee.

A more comprehensive way to calculate employee hiring costs is to include the cost of advertising, signing bonus, relocation pay, time spent interviewing, travel expenses, and pre-employee assessments plus 10 percent for incidentals, like background screening. Add another 10 percent to cover technology, benefit set-up and training materials, trainers, and training time.

When the new employee is ready to begin, start off on the right foot by preparing for their arrival. Make sure there is a workspace prepared for them that has all the supplies and tools they need to successfully perform their job.

An orientation session will introduce them to company policies, protocol, procedures, and personality. Walk through the practice with them and introduce them to each staff member. Write out and present a plan for their first few days, so they can learn their new job with appropriate guidance, whether in-person supervision or lists of steps to achieve early goals. Exhibit a photo and bio of the new employee in a community area of the practice, like the break room bulletin board.

Consider a "welcome to…" announcement on the practice website. Send a press release to the local newspaper along with the new employee's photo.

The more quickly a new employee feels like a valued part of the practice and recognized member of the community, the more likely it is that employee will find common ground with other employees and patients, and the more likely they are to stay with you.

How are they doing? After the employee has been with your team for a while, assess them and their work to see if the match is a good one. Their talents and skills may be better utilized in another part of the practice, where their personal job fulfillment may make them happier and the practice thrive even more. For example, an optician dispensing eyewear may be a better contact lens technician.

Stay vigilant to signs of unhappiness, unrest, and mediocrity, and take action when detected.

Teamwork. A simple way to foster team spirit is to ask employee opinions and use some of their ideas. This is best done during monthly meetings and can be facilitated by a suggestion box between meetings.

Discuss the direction of the practice and practice goals often, and ask employees what improvements can be made. Meet one-on-one with employees at least once if not twice a year to get their input on what's good and bad about their work environment, including supervisor reviews.

Confidential surveys can also be used to facilitate open feedback.

Management matters. Consider management when evaluating employee satisfaction and turnover. Are you and your managers managing employees the way you would like to be managed? If not, it's time to revamp management style. Some employee turnover—around 15 percent—is natural and normal, but a high degree of turnover indicates that the business does not know or value what's important to employees.

Train, train, train. Train employees well and often. The optical industry has a plethora of available training opportunities from manufacturers, wholesale laboratories, professional organizations, and during local, regional, national, and even international conferences.

■ Local schools and colleges offer business/professional courses, and online courses are available for professional development.

■ On-site staff training is also available from vendors on new products and procedures. Encourage career development by paying for employee training, be it setting aside a "scholarship fund," or rewarding a top performer with attendance at a national optical show.

■Take all staff members to trade shows whenever possible.

■ Pay for all or part of college courses that relate to job topics.

■ Consider paying for employees' professional organization memberships and certifications.

By investing in employee education and career development, you're making your practice a go-to and stay-with destination for good employees who want to improve their professionalism and worth to the practice.

Recognition. Create an Employee of the Month program and celebrate employment date anniversaries.

Recognize employee birthdays and other special events in employees' lives like anniversaries, a new baby, a new home, or a personal achievement, such as winning a marathon.

While there may not be time or inclination for office parties, a timelier and, some would argue, a more elegant way to handle these events and achievements is to simply send a card, gift, or gift certificate/gift card.

In addition to a formal recognition system, serendipitous recognition is a key to keeping good employees happy. When a noticeable achievement occurs, reward the achiever with a bonus on right the spot.

In addition to cash, gift cards, event tickets, or a day off are appreciated. Ask what types of perks and benefits employees would appreciate most and use their suggestions as rewards.

Balancing act. Balancing their professional and personal lives is the goal of every employee. This balance is often hard to achieve, and may be different for each person.

For example, one employee may be able to work later hours, while another may have to leave work at a specific time each day to pick up their children from day care.

Consider giving the employee who's working later hours a half-day or day off here and there, but make sure this doesn't become part of the expectations of the job.

A practice can be like a small community or family, and it pays to foster those bonds of common growth to keep the best employees.