Nov. 22, 2021 — Tom Bowen has been in the optical industry for nearly four decades. A founding principal of Williams Group, Practice Coach, Optometric Consulting Systems, and the Silvermark Agency, he is now the founder and CEO of Thrive Practice and Life Development, based in Roca, NE. To learn more about Thrive, head to October’s #EBConvo.
 
EB recently checked in with Bowen for his tips for landing and keeping great staff. Now, here, Bowen shares part one of strategies for establishing and maintaining a winning team culture.
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In the last two posts, we’ve discussed the terrific challenge of attracting and keeping great staff. I’ve shared my belief that we’ve reached an all-time apex in the extent of this challenge, and we likely realized this in private practice a good year before other industries and certainly the media seemed to notice. I’m paying really close attention, friends, and by all indications, this is the new and likely lasting normal.
 
That well established in our discussion, we remember one of the great truisms of achievement: Challenge always equals opportunity. Although it sometimes takes a little creativity to see it, it is literally an equation. That established, the great challenge, and therefore opportunity, of our day is to make a paradigm shift from the traditional task of hiring (filling a position) to a here-forward and always present, never not doing, effort of recruiting. It’s a time to shift our thinking from getting candidates for a position to creating a pipeline that’s always there.
 
We’ve also established that we recruit based on purpose and deliberate culture. Then when it’s time to hire, we do so based on a person’s alignment with that purpose of culture. We hire for purpose first, position second. Clearly, this is the new—and I think lasting—normal.
 
So, colleagues, we’re on a mission to deliberately establish, and be always building, the winning practice/team culture (the reason people stay or go in the end) and steadily, continuously recruit into that culture—pretty much every day from now on, not just when hiring.
 
I’d love to share a few specific strategies clients are implementing recently to do just that, as opposed to just trying to outbid Raising Canes, Costco, and the others in the news of late for their starting wages. (Not to say wage and wage inflation isn’t part of all this, but for us in small business, it will to have to be more.)
 
So, let’s have a look at what colleagues out there are doing in real time:

• A colleague brought her team together for lunch to brainstorm the adjectives they would choose to describe their most desired workplace. The workplace of their dreams, we called it (as distinguished from the job of their dreams—the latter is likely a unicorn in my experience!). From this, we formed the practice’s first ever “Culture Statement,” and what a difference this is making! We know people support what they help create, and we’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy here!

• A colleague’s bonus structure had been in place for years and had resultingly lost its luster. It had become an expectation rather than a motivation, as stagnant bonus systems always do, which is clearly not what we intended. (Sound familiar? Make no mistake, the idea of a bonus system is now and always was incentive, not expectation!) So, we decided to shake and stir, and with team input, established a greatly improved bonus system where 50% of the allocated bonus going forward is based on our team-selected three production metrics, and 50% is based on “conduciveness to culture.” Yes, we actually pulled that off, and the practice mood is (forever, I think) different. People have actually come in to ask if we’re hiring based on what they’ve heard about this practice’s team culture from its team members! WHAT? Yes, in this new normal. It’s going to be harder and harder, colleagues, to outbid the hourly wage of all the businesses (local AND national!) coming after your staff. Let’s pay as well as we possibly can, of course, but let’s be more creative than they are!

• We’re designating a new organizational position in client practices we’re calling communication coordinator, and focusing on better, clearer, more upbeat team communication as a distinct leadership team role (this as distinguished from their “regular job”). This person is also posting quotes from patients and team members every month on social media channels. Rather than posting something about National Coffee Week (frankly, a complete waste of everyone’s time—leave that one for Starbucks!), they’re posting about changing lives through vision! Communication is like all subject’s management—it’s a decision first.

• Some of our teams are doing a monthly team newsletter featuring information about the life and times of a given team member (we actually brand each practice’s team letter after some fun team input strategies!). Another colleague team is highlighting a patient quote of the month and a team member quote of the month, generating all kinds of positive “I like working here” energy!

• We’ve been implementing quarterly team events where we try to split knocking off a little early (say on a Thursday) and going an hour or two into the evening to do some fun team events. One practice recently had a Top Golf event, and even the non-golfers had a blast just hanging with the team with the “off duty” light on!

• A number of colleagues have also implemented during the strain of the “Virus Era” a “Love the Effort Award,” which they’re giving to team members when we, well, love their effort! One group is calling this the “Crushed It Award.” This is exactly the kind initiative that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for culture!

• An oldie-but-goodie we’ve dusted off and rekindled in many client practices is a monthly potluck lunch in the office, and we’re having a ball with this. The practice supplies some kind of main dish, and it’s crazy how creative people get with what they bring. By the way, patients coming and going in the practice during these times love seeing this, and on several occasions have commented that they’re going to do that at work. Great culture is contagious, colleagues!

Stay tuned for part two, where Bowen shares additional strategies for establishing and maintaining a winning team culture, via EB's The Week newsletter.