Working in a veterinary practice presents its own unique challenges. It can be a high-stress environment, just like any other healthcare practice. However you are in charge of caring for pets, and you know what they say… A dog is a man’s best friend.
The capabilities of your employees play a significant role in how efficient, and caring, your practice is. Keep reading to find out about common concerns regarding veterinary team members that can be easily remedied by HR for Health’s all-in-one software.
Most Common Concerns for Employees Working in Veterinary Practices
Inadequate training of personnel is a common issue in veterinary clinics. If team members are not adequately trained, they can slow down the workflow. Worse
this can put your pet patients at risk. In addition, badly trained employees can undoubtedly cause friction among your veterinary practice’s team. Proper training that is thoughtfully planned is critical to a smooth-functioning veterinary practice, so you should ensure that your training is practical.
HR for Health can offer your practice training documents that can be transmitted to your team electronically and software that can be woven into the onboarding process. This article discusses best practices for managing the team members of your veterinary practice, with a specific emphasis on the importance of having an employee handbook. As a veterinary practice manager, you will learn what you need to do to manage employee issues and ensure that you are getting the best out of your team members.
Have a Clear Training Checklist
Invest in a clear and concise training checklist when onboarding new hires, which can prevent issues among your current veterinary team and maintain an excellent standard of care in your practice.
This training checklist can help keep track of employee training and make all aspects of the job and requirements clear from the beginning. It may also help review the employee’s job description to confirm general expectations for the role and job duties. Questions can be answered as needed.
HR for Health’s software can help you with tracking training completion, certifications, and the expiration of certifications. Our software can ensure your employees are always up-to-date and provide the best quality care for your patients and their owners. It can also help establish performance measurements in your veterinary practice. If you use our document storage feature, you can store any documents related to training, including all checklists.
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Deliver Regular Feedback to Your Veterinary Team
Regular feedback can help employees understand their strengths and weaknesses. It can also help you, as a practice owner, see where your veterinary team members need a little more help or more comprehensive training.
Regular feedback can be provided through internal HR software such as HR for Health’s all-in-one software solution. This software allows for the creation of files for each employee and gives you the chance to track all actions the employee takes – good or bad.
You can make a “post-it” in an electronic form and save it to the employee’s file. These notes are only visible to you, but you can review them with your employee at regular performance meetings. Furthermore, the file allows you to record performance violations, thus ensuring that you can maintain a comprehensive record of the incident in question, severity of the issue, and what steps were taken to remediate the problem.
This feature also allows you to comprehensively keep track of certifications and performance reviews, thus serving as an overall HR record for every one of your employees.
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Make Your Veterinary Practice’s Employee Handbook Easily Accessible
To prevent any other issues among team members, ensure all employees are given an employee handbook specific to your veterinary practice. Ideally, it should be accessible for employees at all times.
Consider a digital version of your veterinary clinic employee handbook, so employees are free to access it as needed. Storing your employee handbook with HR for Health can make digital sharing of this document simple and easy.
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Regularly Update Your Veterinary Team on Rules and Policies
Be sure to stay connected with your employees. For example, if you update your employee handbook, go over these changes with your team in-person,
and follow up with a copy of the policy as well. Our software can handle this step electronically. That being said, you should still sit down with them to ensure they have read the changes and are all up-to-speed.
You may also want to consider offering a quick refresher on your veterinary practice’s employee handbook every year or every other year. This is an excellent way to ensure that the whole team is operating on the same page with a solid understanding of any handbook updates related to changing laws.
How HR for Health Can Help
HR for Health offers HR software for your veterinary staff training checklist, document storage and options for tracking coaching conversations and performance reviews. When implemented properly, these practices can all help to eliminate employee confusion in your veterinary practice.
HR for Health can also offer software to store your veterinary staff training checklist or your veterinary clinic employee handbook, and confidential files for practice owners only.
Schedule an HR for Health demo today to find out how our software programs can help you manage your veterinary staff and create a more positive, efficient working environment today.
