How do you get your team to care again? What does it take to make your team want to show up and do good work at your practice? You might not think of it in terms of employee engagement, precisely, but when employees are unmotivated, slacking off, or starting to feel the beginnings of burnout, that’s when they need you. Employee engagement brings back that spark. It reminds them of why they got into the health, dental, or veterinary industry in the first place. That’s good for both your practice and your patients. Bringing in the right types of engagement tools improves motivation without adding more work.
What the Data Shows about Employee Engagement vs Healthcare Burnout
An astonishing 66% of US workers have felt the effects of burnout in the last year. Some of that stress comes from the current market favoring employers for many industries, but in patient care industries, it’s a continuing trend. Burnout rates are growing, and it’s especially fast in dental practices. You probably already knew that firsthand, and you might even see it in your retention levels.
There’s clear-cut data that shows which techniques helped boost employee engagement and job satisfaction. A recent multi-group analysis shows that:
- Recognition, fairness, and involvement improve employee engagement.
- Better employee engagement improves job satisfaction.
- But burnout undoes a lot of that good work.
Purposeful employee engagement has clear benefits, but don’t go overboard. Research also shows that too much hands-on engagement becomes more work. It tips the work-life balance, blurs boundaries, and can even expedite burnout.
But if you strike the right balance, employees feel valued, safe, and seen. They know their work is worth the effort, and they see your practice as a great place to grow. They’re loyal, they’re enthusiastic, and they take better care of their patients. Start showing them this balance from the very beginning.
Employee Engagement Sounds Great! How Do I Get Started?
Building a better practice culture takes time. You can’t create a policy about it, and you can’t snap your fingers and have it done at once. It’s a vibe shift, and it takes time to develop. These are the steps where we know every health and dental practice owner can create more opportunities for healthy engagement that leads to better job satisfaction.
Focus on Motivation from Day One
You only get one chance to make a first impression, so don’t ruin your onboarding process by plopping a mountain of paperwork on their desk or “dropping them in the deep end.” Automate the paperwork and incorporate your new hires right. We made a checklist to help you start off on the right foot, and of course, HR for Health’s solution and experts can help you at every step of the way. A smooth onboarding process reduces frustration and confusion for your new employee. Now, they’ll start off feeling enthusiastic and energized.
Promote Clear Communication
Open, honest, and timely communication is central to improving employee engagement. Here’s how you can set the standard in your employee handbook:
- Outline your policies and procedures clearly and completely
- Describe the benefits and perks you offer
- Demonstrate your compliance to fairness and employment laws
- Make sure to include answers to common questions
Team meetings are also a great place to communicate important updates with your team. You’re busy, we know, but everyone wants to know that their work is meaningful and adds value to their workplace. If you take the time to let your team support each other, they’ll see it every day.
Need an employee handbook? HR for Health can help! Start by creating your own federal handbook for free.
Provide Performance Feedback Regularly
If you don’t learn anything else from this guide, remember this: if you want to improve employee engagement, you must let employees know where they stand.
Yes, annual reviews can be stressful, especially if this is the only time you give performance feedback. That’s why they need to be a normal part of everyday work. Not that you should treat every day like judgment day. More like treating every day as an opportunity to ask questions, learn, grow, and work toward goals together. Use HR for Health’s performance management tools to track wins, misses, goals, and everything in between.
Don’t Hesitate to Give Recognition
It’s mind-blowing how often this one gets forgotten. Your team members come in to work every single day, keep your practice’s lights on, take care of countless patients (sometimes they literally save lives), and too often, they don’t hear a “thank you.” Recognizing successes, no matter how big or small, goes a long way to a happier workplace.
Have a win to celebrate? Do it! We can’t think of any reason you wouldn’t want to celebrate a job well done or achievement of a practice milestone. These celebrations don’t have to be big, and they certainly don’t need to be expensive. A well-timed thanks can be the difference between a good workplace experience and one that feels like just… work. Research from SHRM shows that a good workplace experience makes employees 68% less likely to consider leaving.
How HR for Health Can Help
None of those steps added a lot of extra work for your employees or cost for your practice. Employee engagement is about making a positive cultural shift more than ticking off a checkbox or taking on new tasks. If you want to kick start an employee resource group or an after work club, go for it. Just know that those things can feel like more work if your team is already worn thin. But a heartfelt acknowledgment of a job well done will never be a burden.
Thinking of other ways you could lighten your workload? HR for Health combines performance management, timekeeping, payroll, and benefits all in one place. Contact us to see how you could save 8+ hours on admin every single week.
