Dear Jerry,

It’s me again. I am going to follow the advice in your June 2 blog and take some personal vacation time when my practice slows down in June.

What are some good projects for my staff to work on when I am gone? I am a solo OD and don’t plan to have another doctor in to cover for me.

Thanks again,

Megan Sumrall, OD

Dear Megan,

Good question, as many doctors don’t do a good job planning productive use of staff time while they are out.

Here is my favorite staff project when the practice owner is off for a few days. 

Here are some great insights I got from a recent podcast by Jill Geisler of the Poynter Institute on motivating employees. 

One, while the lack of adequate pay is a de-motivator, once an employee hits their personal level of ‘felt need’ for compensation, higher salary is not a motivator for most people.

Bonuses are a little different because they identify and target specific objectives.  We’ll talk about that in another blog.

Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation

At the point your staff member becomes satisfied with his or her compensation package, intrinsic motivation becomes more important than external motivation such as money.

Three components of intrinsic motivation are:

Dear Jerry,

May and June tend to be slow months in my practice. This year, I am considering spending some money on an ad campaign in effort to stimulate business. Does that make sense?

Or, would you recommend that I take some vacation time during my traditionally slow periods?

Dr. Hayes,

I was curious about your 20% cost of staff benchmark mentioned in your blog of May 11. For any given practice, you are suggesting $25k per FTE based on your one FTE per $125k of production. With taxes and benefits, you are looking at $10-11/hr. I don't see how one can develop and retain a well trained professional staff on that kind of compensation. Are these benchmarks skewed toward rural depressed areas? Even at 25% for labor you are looking at $31k per employee. 

Love reading your insights. Keep them coming. Dr K

Jerry,

I have generally followed your recommended guidelines/metrics for cost containment.  They have been very helpful to make sure we are on the right track.  But I disagree with one employee for every $125,000 of practice income.  This only allows for $12/hr. employees.  It is difficult to find anyone with half a brain that will work for $10-12/hr, especially after a couple of years of employment.  

I think it is definitely better to have higher paid employees that are smart, dedicated, and good workers.

Dear Dr. Hayes, 

This week, Dr. Hayes interviews Allan Barker, OD President of Eyecare Center OD PA and President of the North Carolina Optometric Association. 

Dr. Barker talks from experience about the things private practice owners should look for when selecting and working with a managed care plan.

Here's a great training technique for practice owners who are interested in getting their staff to deliver better "customer service".  

In his new book SWITCH: HOW TO CHANGE WHEN CHANGE IS HARD, author Dan Heath advises business owners to be specific when giving instructions.

He starts by telling the story of a successful entrepreneur who owned a small home remodeling business that specialized in building children's play areas. The company was known for high quality work.  But, the owner got a lot of complaints from unhappy homeowners when

A recent surprise move in Canada has local OD's up in arms. Here's how this could affect your US based eyecare practice. 

This week Dr. Hayes interviews Walt West, OD, well known speaker, author of WHEN YOUR SUCCESS IS ON THE LINE and chief optometric editor of Optometric Management magazine.

Dr. West introduces his new workbook designed to help OD's implement their ideas and talks about Me Q, how to unlock your leadership potential and why developing self confidence is so important to success in practice, and in life.