Are your admin team expressing a need for more hands on deck, or decreases in their tasks, responsibilities and workloads? Have they indicated more stress recently? Perhaps they’re seeming less enthusiastic, or they’re taking more personal leave days than usual…?
There can be many indicators of admin staff experiencing higher than usual pressure, and it can be tricky to identify if this is due to workload, or transitory external factors in their personal lives, such as family events or university exam time.
Working out the right actions, including adding to your admin headcount, will require you to home in on the cause/s. Of course, you want to support your team so they’re happy and successful in their roles, but adding more staff and increasing your wages expense isn’t necessarily the right approach.
We find that adding more team members is a common go-to, and you might be under some pressure to take this option. However, determining what’s appropriate requires some investigation and analysis. This approach will result in you being confident in the decision/s made, and support subsequent discussions with your team.
Gather and analyse the data
Understanding when to onboard a new team member requires an element of objective decision-making, like any business-related decision.
Following are some strategies to help you make an objective decision and understand if your healthcare practice really does need a new team member, or if other strategies for supporting your current team might be more appropriate to achieve the outcomes you’re seeking.
Talk with your practice manager, and individual team members, if appropriate, to gain an understanding of the specific challenges being experienced. Is everyone struggling, or some more than others? Is it every day of the week and all day, or are there particular times or days that are an issue? Are there particular tasks people are consistently not getting to?
Collate your phone call data, including the number of incoming calls each day and at different times, time on hold, call duration and the number of abandoned calls (where the caller hangs up). Compare this data to that of a month/year/2 years ago. Have these figures changed? Review also the number of admin team members you have managing the calls compared with the same period/s in time.
Are your admin team currently servicing the needs of each type of stakeholder effectively? This goes beyond your patients or clients and may include your directors, clinicians and practice managers, and what they’re needing from the team.
Does each admin team member know your expectations in terms of their role? Do they have a comprehensive and clear position description? Has this been explained to them and referenced in their induction and training process?
Have all admin team members been comprehensively trained, and are they capable of fulfilling the requirements of their role?
When was the last time you recruited admin staff? How long are your team members staying with the practice? Do you conduct exit interviews to capture feedback about team members’ experiences in the role? Did they feel as though they were overworked/unable to continue in the role? Are suggestions acted upon?
Has your practice expanded, resulting in more clinicians and, therefore, patients? Have you offset this by recruiting more admin team members, or do your team members have more tasks required of them than previously?
Has the role or operating environment become more complex? Changed processes, such as Telehealth consultations, and screening measures during a lockdown, for example, can add considerably to the admin workload for each appointment.
Does a review of your start and end-of-day checklists show that admin tasks are consistently completed?
For more tips and information about tracking and recording data, check out our article “An Action-Focused Approach to Reporting”.
Review your options and compare the costs
Depending on what your data analysis uncovers, there are many potential actions from here – in addition to or instead of recruitment. These include things like:
Further training of the whole team or individual team members.
Coaching on phone call management.
Development of position descriptions.
Exit interviews and performance reviews, with actions flowing from these prioritised.
Adoption of software to streamline operations, for example, call online bookings or eFax.
Outsourcing some functions, such as bookkeeping or getting your clinic groceries delivered.
The options will, of course, be specific to your circumstances, but to be sure of the right steps for your practice, you’ll need to compare the costs of the actions versus the gains. This will include consideration of the cost if you don’t take substantive action (staff turnover, loss of IP, more pressure on remaining team members), as well as the costs of sourcing a new admin team member. Recruitment itself brings expenses – advertising, conducting interviews, onboarding, induction process and training, which should be considered.
If you’re finding it difficult to complete your analysis and cost comparison, Get in touch with our team – identifying the root causes of challenges and presenting you with evaluated options is right up our alley!
If, after completing your analysis and review you’ve decided to recruit more admin assistance, you might find our article “Helpful Tips for Hiring the Right Team Member’’ useful.
With your decisions made, keeping your team members in the loop will be key to getting their buy-in and support and helping them to stick it out until the necessary steps are taken and have an impact!
The Augmentum team provides a broad range of consultancy and management services, supporting healthcare business owners and decision-makers in key areas, such as strategy development and action planning, building effective foundations and teams, keeping your finger on the pulse, and driving growth and success.
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