Maintaining a strong physical therapy team can be difficult sometimes. Not only do you want to offer the best service to your patients, but you want to manage a team that flows together without flaw. Retaining a strong staff across multiple clinics can both alleviate your labor from getting too comfortable while helping them grow and encouraging strong relationships. Read on for a few tips on how to manage your physical therapy staff across multiple clinics.
A Happy Patient Makes a Happy Team
Start with your patients. Decreasing the patient churn rate is a great method to encourage your staff. When patients return that shows a positive outcome from their sessions. This also dictates whether your team is providing quality care, and can motivate labor to return. When your staff feels like they’re making an impact with patients, they’ll feel good and happy about continuing to provide that great service.
In addition, patients that feel comfortable and happy with the service they’re being provided will voice that. Hearing that they’re doing a good job will not only create a healthy environment for patients but will make your clinic the one that everyone wants to work at. By offering superior care to your patients you’re simultaneously offering a ‘superior’ work environment for those trying to decide which clinic they’d like to work for.
Encourage Team Building
Having a team that flows together is imperative to preventing work drama from overflowing to public eyes. You can’t make everyone like each other, but you can help create a safe workspace that encourages everyone to do their best and work through difficult moments. Team networking can help you provide that level of comfort for your physical therapy staff. From private continued education meetings to planning an out-of-clinic work event, making an atmosphere of positivity can help provide room for growth and teach your team how to discuss issues without causing a fight or bringing it to work the next day.
2 great team building examples are:
- A staff dinner or outing to an adult-oriented arcade (like Dave & Busters) or a golfing experience (like Top Golf) – this can be great for strengthening staff relationships and making them feel rewarded for all of their hard work.
- A private CE class that keeps them up to date with clinic changes, encourages them to keep expanding on how they can provide great service, and allows everyone the chance to give feedback on how they feel or what they’d like to see done differently.
Stay Up to Date on Staff Feedback
Listening to your physical therapy staff not only nurtures them and shows that you’re seeking improvement, but it makes them feel as if their opinion matters. Having quarterly 1:1 meetings with them or giving them an outlet to leave feedback on things is a great way to understand if they’re happy working at your clinics. This can be beneficial and highlight when your physical therapy staff may be struggling as well as provide you with great suggestions on improving team relationships for the future.
Technology is Your Friend
We all see how quickly technology is advancing, and there’s no telling how different it’ll be 10 years from now. Implementing it into the workplace can help create that easy workflow. Utilizing appointment reminders via phone call or text message can assist in keeping your staff up to date and help them manage the clinic schedule. Not only does this help decrease lost time due to no-show patients, but it can help provide a more organized method of documentation for your team to work with.
Another great way to make technology your best friend is by using it when it comes to scheduling. Apps and programs allow you to input the schedule each week, or however often you’d like, and can relieve confusion in understanding which clinic somebody’s scheduled to work at should they be bouncing between multiple clinics. Other than viewing their schedule virtually, many programs also allow you to set up easily accessible request options. Things like requesting time off, switching shifts with another team member, and more can be requested from the convenience of their phone.
Rewards
Everyone loves to feel appreciated, and rewards are the quickest way to express somebody’s great work. Setting up milestones for achievements can be a great way to express your gratitude to a hardworking team. When somebody feels appreciated for their hard work, they often tell other people about how great their job is. This not only can bring in new patients, but it keeps your staff returning for more solely because they understand their importance to the clinic and feel valued.
You don’t have to do anything major for rewards, but acknowledging big moments and celebrating achievements with the team can go a long way. Whether that be having a staff board to highlight the top worker of the month, sending out a personal email highlighting their achievements or anything that can make your staff feel as important as they are – feeling rewarded has shown to be one of the top ways at retaining labor.
For a full analysis of how you can improve and manage your physical therapy staff across multiple clinics, contact us. Our team is dedicated to helping you develop physical therapy operational policies, understand your staff’s current productivity, and can suggest ways to constantly improve your provided services. A2C Medical can also help with the hiring process, accounting/billing, and more. We look forward to helping you create the best physical therapy team that provides the greatest service. From happy patients to happy labor, we’re here to help ensure success across multiple physical therapy clinics.
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