Practice Management: The Employee Experience - Practice Owners Manual Series, Part 7 (2nd of 2)

[00:00:03] Hey everybody, we finally did it!

[00:00:05] Finally we're doing our first in-person event, the Private Practice Owners Club First Ever

[00:00:10] In-Person Conference, September 20th and 21st in Clearwater Beach, Florida.

[00:00:14] Adam and I are super excited.

[00:00:16] Really can't wait to finally meet you in person.

[00:00:18] This entire time I've been preaching Reach Out, Step Out, Network, and I can now provide

[00:00:23] that to you not just virtually or via podcast but in person.

[00:00:27] We'll have speakers that speak on leadership and growth.

[00:00:29] We'll answer questions to your current issues.

[00:00:31] We'll provide you opportunity to network with like-minded individuals and obviously gain inspiration

[00:00:36] and energy from being in the room with the same people.

[00:00:39] You'll be able to literally reach out, step out, and network all in one weekend.

[00:00:44] September 20th and 21st at the Hyatt at Clearwater Beach, Florida.

[00:00:47] I would really love to see you there.

[00:00:48] In order to register go to ppoclubevents.com, P-P-O, clubevents.com, and register to sign up for the event.

[00:00:58] Also, early bird registration ends July 31st.

[00:01:01] So to get a discount on the registration fees, make sure you sign up, get your room between

[00:01:06] now and July 31st.

[00:01:07] Otherwise prices will go up.

[00:01:09] So go to ppoclubevents.com.

[00:01:13] Thank you to all of you who have listened for so many years.

[00:01:15] I would love to finally meet you in person.

[00:01:31] If you start hiring people and you're having production issues,

[00:01:35] then it's typically, you gotta go upstream, right?

[00:01:38] If they're already on your team, it's because they went through your onboarding process and

[00:01:42] they weren't prepared.

[00:01:43] Like their expectations weren't managed.

[00:01:45] So if you're hiring people and you're hitting a bunch of home runs and all of them are great

[00:01:49] in their hit and production, then I wouldn't fix that thing.

[00:01:51] But if you're having those types of issues,

[00:01:53] then that's a very good indication that that needs to be built into your onboarding

[00:01:57] or training process.

[00:02:02] Welcome.

[00:02:02] You've entered the Physical Therapy Owners Club podcast,

[00:02:05] where your host Nathan Shields and other successful PT owners and leaders

[00:02:09] share their experience and insights on how to build successful PT businesses.

[00:02:14] They'll share the stories of their paths to success

[00:02:16] and show you how you can also obtain greater freedom and more profits from your business.

[00:02:21] That's what the PT Owners Club is all about, greater freedom and more profits.

[00:02:26] There's plenty of room for you as well.

[00:02:28] So come on in and join the club.

[00:02:32] Hello, everybody.

[00:02:33] And welcome back to the next episode in our series of the quintessential bullet proof

[00:02:38] practice owner's manual for success.

[00:02:41] Hopefully you appreciated the previous episode, took lots of notes, did some homework.

[00:02:46] Now get ready to do some more work on your business.

[00:02:49] Get out, pad and paper and let's go.

[00:02:53] Hello.

[00:02:53] And welcome back to the podcast.

[00:02:55] Nathan Shields here with my buddy Adam.

[00:02:57] How are you doing, man?

[00:02:57] Charged up.

[00:02:58] Let's roll.

[00:02:59] All right.

[00:02:59] We are in the practice owner's manual series.

[00:03:02] This is part seven, second half.

[00:03:04] So last podcast we talked about job practice management in terms of creating values, vision,

[00:03:12] org boards, SOPs, standard operating procedures, employee handbooks and policies and procedures,

[00:03:19] all that stuff.

[00:03:20] Job descriptions, did I say that?

[00:03:22] We talked about all those things to establish the foundation of your company,

[00:03:26] especially if you're considering growing in any respect in terms of size within one clinic or

[00:03:32] multiple clinics.

[00:03:33] So go back and listen to that prior to this one, but this is part seven of the owner manual series

[00:03:37] which we, in totality, should be a good foundation for anybody who is building their

[00:03:43] clinics, starting a clinic, looking at the fundamental parts of the business and growing

[00:03:48] it from there.

[00:03:50] So go back and listen to that.

[00:03:51] It's been a few weeks since we released an episode, so apologies for that.

[00:03:56] If you don't know, I moved my family from Alaska to Arizona, a little bit distracted,

[00:04:00] all the things that we got to do to...

[00:04:02] We've been busy guys.

[00:04:03] ...halfway around the world essentially, at least that's what it felt like when I was driving it.

[00:04:08] Anyways, man, let's get into it.

[00:04:10] So today we're going to talk about practice management.

[00:04:12] The first part was establishing that paperwork, right?

[00:04:15] The grind of putting your thoughts down on paper, how we want to do things.

[00:04:19] This time we're talking more about the employee experience, right?

[00:04:24] We're going to talk about hiring, onboarding, retaining.

[00:04:29] We might get into exit stuff as well considering the employee life cycle

[00:04:35] and we are going to save recruiting for a separate episode because we know everyone

[00:04:41] needs to work on that and that can be a whole different process

[00:04:44] unto itself that needs some special attention.

[00:04:47] So today we're just going to talk about the employee experience, right?

[00:04:50] Is that how you envision this going, Adam?

[00:04:52] Yeah, how I have it in my head is chapter one or step one is we've built the foundation of what

[00:04:59] it looks like to manage your practice with your org board, your job descriptions,

[00:05:02] key statistics on each role, that kind of thing.

[00:05:05] And now if you can imagine we've got this template, right?

[00:05:08] And so now we just have to find the right who's to plug into each of those roles

[00:05:13] and we have to manage them appropriately.

[00:05:15] And that takes...

[00:05:15] That's a skill set that needs to be learned, it needs to be organized,

[00:05:17] it needs to be systemized in order for you to get the outcomes that you're looking for.

[00:05:21] And to say it ahead of time, I think it's really important that as we're looking at the beginning

[00:05:27] of an employee life cycle which usually starts in the hiring stages and what would you call it?

[00:05:33] The not recruiting but even posting the ads or working your networks to find that next employee.

[00:05:40] Being clear as to the personality type that you're looking for each position,

[00:05:45] the certain value traits that they have, the values that you have, number one.

[00:05:49] And how do you see that in the potential employees that you're going to bring on?

[00:05:54] Being clear as to what kind of experiences life cycle is it?

[00:05:58] We've talked about avatars in the past for your ideal client, your ideal patient.

[00:06:04] And it's also to think there should be a particular avatar as it relates to these

[00:06:09] certain positions within your company, would you say?

[00:06:11] 100%. I would invite you to turn back to I believe it was Chapter 2

[00:06:19] and we talked about developing your culture, developing your purpose,

[00:06:22] developing your values, developing your story, your identity.

[00:06:25] This is the perfect time for you to pull it back out and remind yourself of what that is.

[00:06:30] And basically you're just looking for the right people who align with that,

[00:06:33] who have similar beliefs, who hear your story and are like,

[00:06:37] man, that's really cool. That really excites me. So you want to hire the people on your team

[00:06:42] who are value aligned. Exactly. So considering the hiring process, I'll start there.

[00:06:48] When we were looking for people in the certain positions, tell me a little bit,

[00:06:53] you tell me a little bit about how you built out those ads,

[00:06:56] how you advertised for positions in your clinic and what seemed to work best.

[00:07:02] Yeah. So getting a little bit into recruiting and job boards is a big piece of that.

[00:07:07] Right. So it's one of the buckets of recruiting, but if you're going to hire somebody,

[00:07:12] it's probably a good idea to have a job ad out somewhere on either Indeed and LinkedIn,

[00:07:17] Monster.com, all those APTA job board, that kind of thing. And the thing is,

[00:07:22] you want to write that ad in a way that represents the values of your company.

[00:07:28] Who are you? What do you believe in? What are the types of people that

[00:07:32] had these beliefs? Like you want those people to click on your ad.

[00:07:35] So the job ads is a huge piece of it, but not only that, but just networking,

[00:07:39] doing some networking, communicating with some of the schools, sending out emails and connecting

[00:07:44] with other therapists on LinkedIn. The point is you just want to let people know that you're

[00:07:48] hiring so that they'll raise their hand and say, hey, I'm interested in talking to you about

[00:07:51] what that position looks like. Yeah. And I think it's imperative to leverage your network

[00:07:57] a lot because I don't think we do that enough. And really knowing what you're looking for

[00:08:02] really helps because then you can write an ad that is targeted directly at them.

[00:08:07] Because the last thing you want to do on ad is say, we need someone who's licensed and can type

[00:08:12] 50 words a minute and knows Microsoft Word and capable of building out spreadsheets.

[00:08:17] No, that's the kind of stuff you talk about later on down the road.

[00:08:22] You first want to find the person who do they love working with people? Do they love

[00:08:26] helping people overcome physical disabilities? Have they had experiences with physical

[00:08:31] limitations on their own? Have they had experience with physical therapy in the past?

[00:08:35] Have they had experience in any kind of realm that you're working in so that they can be promoters

[00:08:42] of exactly what you're providing at least and know the product.

[00:08:47] Part of it is good with money, especially if you're at the front desk. You better

[00:08:52] be really good talking about money and find ways during the hiring process to figure that out.

[00:08:57] Anyways, we're talking about ads. So talking about that and our ads specifically did highlight our

[00:09:04] values. So we would say we believe in professionalism, accountability, growth and empathy. It shows up

[00:09:11] in these ways and this is our vision. And if you want to be a part of that, then reach out to us.

[00:09:17] Or if any of this rings true to you and you think you're a rock star,

[00:09:20] we want you to send in a resume.

[00:09:22] That's right. It's bait that's on the fishing pole, right? Maybe 100 people look at that ad

[00:09:28] or 50 people or whatever, but you really only want the two people who read that who say to themselves,

[00:09:33] I definitely want to talk more about that. Like, I don't care what they're paying.

[00:09:38] I don't care when the interview is. I just want to like, I want to hear more about what this

[00:09:42] person is talking about. Those are the two people you want to talk to, right?

[00:09:47] Yeah, you'd rather have those two people who are excited versus 100 resumes just

[00:09:52] because you have the ad up. Yeah, I'm just looking for anybody who could pay me a check.

[00:09:55] You don't want those people. You filter them out and you are talking specifically to them,

[00:09:59] so you are going to get fewer resumes. However, the resumes should be much better qualified.

[00:10:04] Speaking of resumes, if you're doing any type of job posting, all right, like the whole point

[00:10:09] of it is to get a resume or to get a lead or to get somebody who applies an applicant.

[00:10:14] And going through that hiring process, step one is reviewing the resume, right? Making sure

[00:10:20] that somebody put together a decent resume. It's got everything that it needs on. It's got a cover

[00:10:24] letter. It's got all the credentials. And so like, you would want to do a resume review.

[00:10:27] That's the first step. Yeah, and you tell me, but usually when resume,

[00:10:32] quick phone call, when I say phone call, usually wouldn't last more than 15 minutes.

[00:10:37] Get a sense of them pretty quick. Right. Phone screen.

[00:10:40] Yeah. And then maybe even a Zoom call if you can, it'd be nice to see them and like

[00:10:45] their face and whatnot and how they present themselves before you bring them in person.

[00:10:49] And is that kind of how it went? At what point did you ask for references,

[00:10:53] not until after the interview in person? Yeah, maybe after the interview. Yeah.

[00:10:58] If they were go. Yeah, if you can imagine like on your owner's manual, it says

[00:11:01] hiring process, right? You're going to post a job ad. You're going to do some resume reviews.

[00:11:08] Maybe a few criteria on what you want to see on a resume. What would disqualify them?

[00:11:14] What would qualify them? Of those qualified resumes, part,

[00:11:17] the next step would be an initial phone screen, 15 minute phone screen.

[00:11:20] Who are you? Why'd you apply? If you like what you hear and they sound aligned with you, follow up,

[00:11:27] invite them to an in-person interview. Right. That would be the next step of the process.

[00:11:31] And during that interview, you would have to have a series of questions that you would want to ask

[00:11:35] specific questions. So write the interview questions down and come prepare what these

[00:11:39] specific questions for your company. Right. From there, a working interview and then

[00:11:44] potentially an offer if they get through the process. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty much,

[00:11:47] that was our exact same process. And I found those interviews initially as a new owner to be

[00:11:53] nerve wracking. I didn't know what to ask and I would ask the same silly questions like what

[00:11:58] are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? And got the same stupid responses. And there

[00:12:03] were a couple of times where I wish I had the guts when someone showed up. And these

[00:12:10] would show up like in jeans and a t-shirt. And I wish I had the guts at the time to just say,

[00:12:15] yeah, this isn't going to work today. Thanks for driving over here, but we're done.

[00:12:20] Not a good fit. It's not a good fit. Sorry. And one other thing that I know people have done

[00:12:26] in the past, and we did it occasionally, but especially if we're getting a lot of

[00:12:29] resumes for a particular position towards the end or of the ad, we would say put an asterisk

[00:12:37] in the upper right corner to show that you're serious about applying for this position.

[00:12:41] And if they didn't have an asterisk in the upper right corner, then immediately their

[00:12:45] resumes got tossed out. We didn't even read them. So there are some filtering processes that you

[00:12:50] can use to weed out so many of those resumes if you need to. Yeah. So you can increase the

[00:12:56] barrier to entry, make them jump through a few more hoops. And the phone call,

[00:13:00] the 15 minute phone call is just a screen. And there's no commitment to the in-person

[00:13:04] interview during that phone call. It's just like, Hey, just you send in your resume doing a follow-up

[00:13:09] call. Just wanted to talk to you a little bit, gauge your interest, what made you interested,

[00:13:14] what do you like about the potential position, what got you interested in the ad.

[00:13:19] And then like you said, if it feels good, move on to the in-person.

[00:13:23] And I really appreciate you saying like writing out the questions out ahead of time.

[00:13:27] I'm assuming you have some examples in our vault for answers questions.

[00:13:31] Yeah, of course. But many of them, again, I would recommend being value related.

[00:13:36] It's you might have to be a little bit creative instead of saying if your value is professionalism.

[00:13:41] Saying how did you demonstrate professionalism in the past? But maybe consider bringing up an

[00:13:46] actual situation where, Hey, sometime in your past, did you or another employee act

[00:13:52] inappropriately and how did you guys handle that so that it was, it didn't devolve into

[00:13:56] something dramatic, right? How did you handle that and see how they respond and see if it falls in line.

[00:14:03] Also, as we talked about values, I was watching their body language gauged. Are they sitting back

[00:14:08] with their arms crossed? Are they looking up at the ceiling? Look at their fingernails,

[00:14:12] checking their phones, watching the body language to see if they're engaged and

[00:14:15] interested in the position and me and the company.

[00:14:18] Yeah, I think it's important to objectify and standardize that whole process like

[00:14:24] write the questions down, write down the specific criteria that you ask on the phone screen and

[00:14:31] in the interview process. Because if you don't then the hiring process will typically or tend to drift

[00:14:38] towards an emotional decision. If you don't standardize it and if you objectify it, then

[00:14:43] you can improve it or if you end up making a bad hire, then you can look at the process and

[00:14:48] change the interview questions or change the resume screening process to improve the outcome.

[00:14:52] But if it's all over the place and it's just however you feel at any given day,

[00:14:56] then you're going to have those types of results. You're going to have some,

[00:14:58] it's flipping a coin. You don't know what you're getting into.

[00:15:01] I love how you pointed that out. Did you ever do or do you do group interviews at all?

[00:15:06] We just started that actually. I think you gave me that idea a couple of podcast episodes ago

[00:15:11] and we built out a policy and we're going to start doing some group interviews for admin.

[00:15:14] Oh, that's cool.

[00:15:15] Techs in front desk positions.

[00:15:16] Yeah, that's exactly for the higher turnover positions where they might drop out on you

[00:15:22] on a dime and just not show up at the clinic. We wanted to have a stack of resumes to call it

[00:15:27] any given time. And we found that to be really fruitful. We found some cool people and I actually

[00:15:32] enjoyed it. So we would post the ad and say, if you're interested, we are hiring and we're

[00:15:40] going to have an interview process on such date at such time. If you're available and

[00:15:45] interested then apply, send in your resume. And inevitably we get a certain number of them.

[00:15:50] We knew if we had 15 resumes, we'd show there'd be between maybe five to eight who would actually show.

[00:15:57] We had that, like you said, we had a little agenda to it. We had them come in. We like to have fun.

[00:16:04] So we actually paid a dictionary with them to break the ice.

[00:16:07] Really?

[00:16:08] I must have been Will's idea.

[00:16:10] Totally.

[00:16:12] We do about two or three dictionary things and see how they handled that and being a

[00:16:16] bit like, yeah, that is cool. I like that.

[00:16:18] We would talk about values and have a discussion with the group. These are our values.

[00:16:22] We also shared a little bit about our story. We opened up at this time and it's been three to

[00:16:27] five minutes just talking about we opened up in 2002 and we have these clinics and this

[00:16:32] is what we're looking for. And then we had that discussion about values. We actually had

[00:16:37] them take a little test as well. It was, I think it was about 10 questions and it was

[00:16:42] just a logic test. There was certain, I don't know where we got it, but we had them take this

[00:16:48] test and we would score it to see how they did. Never give them the results, but we just score it

[00:16:53] and then ask them for any questions that they had. And so usually take about,

[00:16:57] I would say 30 to 45 minutes and within that time, usually a couple people would stand out.

[00:17:04] And those were the people that as we're walking out, we'd say, hey, thanks for coming by.

[00:17:08] We appreciate it. These are the positions that we're looking to hire if we're interested

[00:17:12] in working with you, you will get a call from us to do that 15 minute phone screen.

[00:17:15] And then some people would catch on the way out and say, hey, we really like you

[00:17:18] and do the in-person interview right then. It really helped with those positions to save time.

[00:17:24] Yeah, it's all about the process, right? Bullet points on your piece of paper,

[00:17:28] hiring process, step one, resume review. What exactly does it look like? What does a good

[00:17:33] resume look like? Write it down. They have to meet certain criteria. Number two,

[00:17:38] that initial phone screen and what questions are like, how is that conducted and what questions do you

[00:17:44] ask? And right. And what are some of the criteria that would qualify them for an in-person interview?

[00:17:51] They'd have to answer it in a certain way, a certain tone, a certain, right? They schedule

[00:17:56] the interview and then we have a process for that. Certain questions that are specific,

[00:18:02] that are documented in a certain way or like you mentioned, maybe it's a test or maybe it's

[00:18:06] some type of format. And then we do a working, maybe some type of working interview,

[00:18:11] whether that's an hour or two hours and that has a format as well. And then from there,

[00:18:16] if they get through all of that and they meet all the criteria you're looking for,

[00:18:19] then you can extend an offer. Right. The beauty of everything that you laid out right now

[00:18:23] is that now that you have that system, you don't have to do it anymore.

[00:18:28] That's right. You can hand this off to someone else.

[00:18:30] And you can manage the system instead of all that stuff that's rattling around on your head

[00:18:35] all over the place. It's right there on a piece of paper. You can just manage that and it's so

[00:18:39] much easier to manage once it's out of your head. So you can do that in three hours,

[00:18:44] like two, three hours. You could put all that together very simply.

[00:18:47] I love it. And I can't emphasize it enough and I'm not sure enough owners do it,

[00:18:51] but the working interviews, huge game changer for us. Some people can really fly through those

[00:18:59] interview processes, especially one-on-one and do great. But we missed some serious red flags

[00:19:06] until they got to that job shadow or that working interview where we're like, oh,

[00:19:11] they showed really well, but once they were on the floor, didn't work.

[00:19:15] And really glad we did the job interviews at that point.

[00:19:18] Yeah. And it's just makes it so clean. My team is like, and I'm guilty of this.

[00:19:23] What do you think about this candidate? Should we hire them? And it's just

[00:19:25] follow the process. Just follow the process. And if we make a bad decision, we'll fix the process.

[00:19:31] And I think the team really appreciates being part of that process.

[00:19:34] And they know what kind of person works well in the culture of the company.

[00:19:40] Maybe better than we do because we're on the outside sometimes, but they know what

[00:19:45] the dynamic is in the clinic and they can say, oh, this person, yeah, they might have

[00:19:49] a rough time or hey, this person just spent a lot of time on their phone the entire time.

[00:19:53] And I think that's an issue. Or the person that hit a home run were the people that

[00:19:57] showed up to the job shadow with like notepad and pen ready to take notes.

[00:20:04] And hey, we need to make a call to confirm this appointment.

[00:20:08] Well, you want to make it this time? They're like, yeah, give it to me. Let's go.

[00:20:12] Those are the kind of people you want to see on the job shadow.

[00:20:14] That's right. Show up with a pad. They ask some good questions. They have some goals.

[00:20:17] They have some direction with their life in their career. They're interested in what you're

[00:20:20] doing. They want to be a part of some of the serious stuff you're doing.

[00:20:24] Right? Like I want to be a part of some of the strategic initiatives of the company, right?

[00:20:28] Like I want to like what are you guys doing? How are you guys going to grow?

[00:20:30] How many people are you hiring? They're asking those types of questions.

[00:20:33] You want to see those types of people for sure.

[00:20:35] So what do you want to say about the job offer and bringing them prior?

[00:20:40] We were talking about hiring process and the onboarding process, but in between,

[00:20:45] what do you want to say about the job offer and procuring?

[00:20:48] I think there's a good way and a bad way to do it. I don't think there's a right or wrong,

[00:20:54] but I can tell you what we do is we always get a verbal offer first.

[00:20:57] We want to get a verbal agreement on what that offer looks like.

[00:21:02] Compensation, benefits, all the whole nine yards, right? We want to get a verbal offer.

[00:21:06] Once we get a verbal yes, then we'll extend something in writing

[00:21:09] that outlines the details of our conversation. We'll give them a day or two to

[00:21:13] approve it. We'll have an expiration date on it. Once we get that signed and approved,

[00:21:18] start the onboarding process.

[00:21:20] Nice. Yeah, pretty clean. We're going to save recruiting for another time,

[00:21:26] but part of the interview process specifically for providers, do you bring up production

[00:21:30] expectations during that interview process as well?

[00:21:33] You'd hate to have the production conversation during the onboarding process and they're like,

[00:21:37] wait, do you want me to see 100 patients a week? I didn't sign up for that.

[00:21:42] It's a little too late to bring it up then.

[00:21:44] I think yes. I think it's a good idea to bring up the production, especially if you

[00:21:48] start hiring people and you're having production issues, then it's typically,

[00:21:53] it's you got to go upstream. If they're already on your team, it's because they went through

[00:21:57] your onboarding process and they weren't prepared, like their expectations weren't managed.

[00:22:02] If you're hiring people and you're hitting a bunch of home runs and all of them are great

[00:22:05] in their hidden production, then I wouldn't fix that thing. But if you're having those

[00:22:09] types of issues, then that's a very good indication that needs to be built into your

[00:22:13] onboarding or annual training process. I loved how you set up your onboarding process.

[00:22:19] Ours was, we'd actually spend a full day going over the employee handbook and some of the values of

[00:22:24] the company and some of the important policy and procedures portions. That would be whether you were

[00:22:29] provider or front desk person or technician. It didn't matter. You were going to go through

[00:22:34] that one day of onboarding. This was usually done by our leadership team. Initially,

[00:22:38] it was handled by me and Will, but we are also systematized that and handed over to our

[00:22:42] team. We knew they were going to spend a day going over what it's like to work for Ryze Rehab

[00:22:47] day and get them onboarded that way and then work them into maybe working with their clinic directors

[00:22:55] to get them involved into the clinics. But you tell me a little bit about your structure.

[00:23:00] We've got ours built out in three phases. It's a 90-day onboarding process. This is just

[00:23:07] a simple zoomed out version. But in the beginning, phase one, I think the biggest mistake you can

[00:23:13] make is hire somebody and then the next day give them 50 patients to see. I think you're setting

[00:23:18] yourself up and them and the patients for a really bad time. So show them where the bathroom's at.

[00:23:24] Where do they put their stuff? Yeah, what are your bigger stuff?

[00:23:28] Where do they park? Give them some freaking time. Let them get some more oriented.

[00:23:33] We usually give them a good week. Not that they're not going to see any patients for a week,

[00:23:38] but we're going to give them some space. We're not going to jump into that.

[00:23:41] You're going to give them time to sit down with the EMR webinars, right?

[00:23:45] Correct. Watch a few trainings. Yeah. Schedule some time in their day so they can actually

[00:23:49] spend an hour or two, three hours, whether it's front desk, tech, or provider. Just sit down

[00:23:55] with the EMR and get used to it. Stuff like that. I think it's really helpful to just,

[00:24:02] on that first day, it's just like, Hey, Nathan, I am so excited to be here with you today.

[00:24:07] Let's just hang out. Come on back and just give them time to just walk around the clinic and

[00:24:11] introduce themselves and go to the bathroom and see where that's at and go find the hydroculator.

[00:24:17] You don't have to jump down their throat and start getting them busy. The main thing is during

[00:24:20] that first week, you want to get all your HR and admin stuff onboarded, right? Get the

[00:24:24] credentialing stuff started, get a copy of the license, get their logins, make sure you're

[00:24:29] going through that employee handbook, going through that job description, going through the

[00:24:33] org board that we just made and we polished up for everybody. This is where you're at.

[00:24:37] This is where you fit in the company. Here's some of the expectations, right? So that's

[00:24:40] got phase one for your first seven days. Phase two is going to be your roles and

[00:24:45] responsibilities. That's going to be a three week process, right? Your roles and

[00:24:48] responsibilities. So that's where you're going to go through the EMR. Watch them do an

[00:24:53] eval, make sure they're documenting on time. Make sure they know their KPIs and how to measure them,

[00:24:59] how to report them, how to participate in the weekly meetings, how to do their job,

[00:25:03] like a technician level, basic level. Would you be essentially using the job description

[00:25:08] as your checklist? Yeah. So it's like EMR documentation, policy procedure, time off,

[00:25:14] billing KPIs and meetings. That's what you need them to learn. You need to learn

[00:25:20] those things. This is how you do your job. Okay? First 30 days on board, they've shadowed,

[00:25:26] all their admin stuff is together and they know how to do the basics of their job.

[00:25:30] Then the second or the final phase is a two month process where we focus on performance.

[00:25:35] Now that you're oriented and now that you're getting, you can go through this clinic on a

[00:25:40] day by day basis and not kill anybody, good bathrooms out, got to log in. Now let's talk

[00:25:44] about the sales program, the internal marketing program, patient experience, production,

[00:25:48] all of those things. What do we expect out of you?

[00:25:51] Correct. This is how we really contribute value to the company.

[00:25:54] Just a thought that came to mind, do you guys do much role play during this 90 days?

[00:25:58] Not a whole lot of role play initially, but what we do is we sit in on their eval, evaluations,

[00:26:06] right? You're talking about providers specifically there.

[00:26:09] Providers specifically, right? And we do a checklist on making sure they're hitting

[00:26:13] certain metrics during the evaluation or the intake process or whatever their role is like.

[00:26:17] We did a little bit during the onboarding process. We also found a lot of fit from it

[00:26:21] during the weekly meetings, but I could see how role playing and especially if someone's new to

[00:26:28] say the front desk position and they haven't asked for co-pays before and they haven't come up with

[00:26:34] up against objections to co-pays and stuff like that before, that role playing would be an important

[00:26:39] part of this. So they're not doing trial and error on real patients.

[00:26:43] Now we do have a role play process. What we do is we do that once a year with the entire company.

[00:26:48] So it's not part of that initial onboarding process, but every year everybody in the whole

[00:26:52] company does it. That's how we have it set up.

[00:26:54] Yeah, super cool. And what do you see the benefits are of having this onboarding

[00:26:59] process mapped out like this and taking 90 days to do that? What have you seen the

[00:27:03] benefits of that be?

[00:27:04] So I just got off the phone with a client earlier today and he was onboarding.

[00:27:09] We've done a lot of work over the last six months and we built out his onboarding

[00:27:12] process as clinical sales training, purpose values, the whole thing.

[00:27:17] And we said, hey, I said, what's your onboarding process going to look like?

[00:27:21] Because you're not the same company you were when you hired your last person.

[00:27:24] You're a different company and so that means the process is going to be different.

[00:27:28] And so we went through that. Today I got on the phone with him and I said,

[00:27:31] so how's the new person doing? He said, Adam, it's amazing.

[00:27:36] He said, it's actually working. It's his first week and he's already trying to

[00:27:40] figure out ways to maximize his units and try to get people bought in.

[00:27:43] And we just started cracking up laughing because it was just like,

[00:27:46] it's such a awesome experience whenever you put all that work into this type of thing

[00:27:52] and you deliver so much value to the employee and to the patients and to the team.

[00:27:57] It's like you're pouring so much energy into them and to watch it come to life and

[00:28:01] see everybody win. It's just so freaking cool.

[00:28:05] I remember there was a point in my career when I stopped and looked around and I just

[00:28:08] saw everybody doing their job and I wasn't even needed there.

[00:28:12] And that was the point when I really, that was the starting point when I really realized that,

[00:28:17] man, what we do here is pretty special. It's pretty, pretty awesome.

[00:28:21] And I feel really good about who we are and what we do once I saw everybody kind of

[00:28:25] buying into it like that. I can imagine in that situation you felt really confident then

[00:28:31] as you were hiring and recruiting other people would be like,

[00:28:34] we've got an amazing team. We've got a killer team.

[00:28:37] We've got an amazing company. This culture can't be beat.

[00:28:40] Yes.

[00:28:41] And I knew we felt like that as well. There's no reason anyone would not want to work with us.

[00:28:47] Because you're so clear on who you are and what's important to you.

[00:28:51] I feel like this is the first training program you build is that provider onboarding,

[00:28:56] right? And then once you go through that it's like, hey, guess what?

[00:28:59] Now you can do it for your clinic director. Now you can do it for your recruiting person.

[00:29:02] Now you can do it for your marketing team. You can start building out these trainings

[00:29:06] on it. We're going on a different topic, but the point is it's worth your time.

[00:29:10] Yeah. And the team members that came on to our team as well,

[00:29:14] they would start saying things even on the first day. They're like, oh, this is different.

[00:29:19] You guys do things differently here. You guys are really professional.

[00:29:22] We're like, really? Because we just got doing the best we can here.

[00:29:26] But they would really, they notice the difference because they've been in the

[00:29:29] clinics and they've been in the companies where they just get thrown to the wolves,

[00:29:33] right? And you don't want that. And your team members, they want direction.

[00:29:39] They thrive on leadership and guidance. They want to learn.

[00:29:44] And the less of that you give them, the more prone they are to

[00:29:50] figuring it out themselves and not doing it the way you want them to do it and creating

[00:29:55] a culture that's unintentional, right? And that leads to burnout and it leads to stress

[00:30:01] and anxiety. But the more support you can give in those situations, then the more confidence they

[00:30:06] have in what they're doing, they want that playbook, want to be told what the plays are

[00:30:11] in the playbook because these are the plays that will make us successful and they'll follow

[00:30:14] them if you provide it. They really do. And to just continue on that, one of the coolest

[00:30:21] things that I see is, and I don't mean this in like an evil way, but they become indoctrinated

[00:30:27] into your culture. They become deeply connected, emotionally connected. And so you'll see people

[00:30:33] third day, they come in and they've got their company shirt on. It's all Southern Physical

[00:30:39] Therapy proud, you know what I mean? And it's as an owner when I walk in and I see somebody

[00:30:45] representing us like that on their first week, I'm like, I love you here. I mean,

[00:30:49] you're freaking awesome. You know what I mean? I talked about it before, but what's also cool

[00:30:55] about building out all these systems is eventually as you grow and expand, these hiring systems are

[00:31:00] going on and you're not even knowing it and people are getting hired without you even knowing.

[00:31:04] It was so weird for me to come across a new employee in the company that had been with

[00:31:10] us three weeks and it was the first time I'd ever met him. That onboarding process is key,

[00:31:14] man. And they're awesome. Yeah, it's key. It's a system, right? It's the same thing.

[00:31:18] Let's make sure in the beginning, let's schedule out the meetings, like schedule out

[00:31:22] the weekly check-ins, schedule out the 90 day check-ins, schedule out the review, the evaluation

[00:31:27] check-in, like all the check-ins, schedule them out, schedule out the time to do the EMR and the

[00:31:32] NS and that and this and just follow the process. Yeah. Checklists make that easy.

[00:31:37] Yeah. So right under your hiring process, you have your onboarding process

[00:31:41] and you don't have to have it all built out, but it's important for you to at least

[00:31:44] have a framework, right? Phase one, first week HR and admin. Phase two is going to be weeks

[00:31:52] two through three or two through four and that's going to be roles and responsibilities,

[00:31:57] job descriptions, all that stuff. Practice all that stuff. And then the phase three is going

[00:32:02] to be months two and three and that's going to be all about performance. If you break it

[00:32:06] down like that, it's just a really good place. Like it's a good framework to ramp it up,

[00:32:12] get all the stuff out the way in the beginning and just ramp it up and get to performance. The

[00:32:15] goal is fully productive within 90 days without overwhelming your team or the therapist. That's

[00:32:22] a big P. The product is ramping up the therapist as quickly as possible without eliciting any

[00:32:28] overwhelm or anxiety for anybody on the team. That's the product, right? So we went through

[00:32:33] hiring onboarding and lastly, how do we keep them retention? What kind of secrets do you

[00:32:39] have in terms of keeping people, especially A players on your team? Yeah, there's a whole

[00:32:44] freaking episode on this. I don't remember if you guys remember, but we talked about the patient

[00:32:48] life cycle, right? The patient life cycle. Guess what? You have an employee life cycle.

[00:32:54] They onboard. They check in with them every week. We have weekly meetings. We have a monthly one

[00:32:59] on one. We have quarterly annual reviews every year with them. The thing is that

[00:33:06] you have to make time to meet with your team and hold that space for them to be heard and for

[00:33:12] you to communicate clearly with them. And if you can, if you just do that and be a decent leader,

[00:33:17] they'll stick with you. They'll align with you. So number one, I would just say set some goals.

[00:33:23] What are their career goals? What are their personal goals? What are their professional

[00:33:25] goals? And number two, make sure you're having a weekly team meeting blocked off with an agenda

[00:33:31] and you give them time to give you some feedback on like how they're doing every week and

[00:33:35] how they want to be a part of the team. If you just get those two things, right? And commit to that,

[00:33:41] you'll probably keep, you'll really improve your employee experience.

[00:33:44] Yeah. I think those, I don't think we did monthly meetings. Maybe we did.

[00:33:48] I can't remember. I'm getting old. But our goal was, and maybe this is a little bit

[00:33:53] backwards, but our goal was we didn't want any employee to be surprised that they were being

[00:33:57] let go. Like they should know where they stand in the company most of the time,

[00:34:03] either through objective KPIs or enough accountability meetings or one-on-one meetings

[00:34:09] where we've had to talk to them about how they're doing. And so not necessarily based on that,

[00:34:14] but being that being one of our driving factors, we felt it was important to talk

[00:34:18] with our team members on a regular basis and get a feel for where they're at. Now,

[00:34:23] one of my friends, he has a part of his annual review. He asked them a typical Dan

[00:34:30] Sullivan question, which is if we have this meeting again in a year, what would have to

[00:34:35] have happened in order for it to be a success in your life?

[00:34:37] It's a great interview question too.

[00:34:38] Oh yeah, exactly. So we're sitting here in a year. What has to have happened in the last 12

[00:34:43] months for you to say that was an amazing year in Blankety Blank Clinic and talk it out

[00:34:49] and figure it out. And that's a good way to establish some goals for them because you're

[00:34:55] not going to impose the goals upon them, but you're also going to talk about the KPIs

[00:34:59] and where they're standing. You're also going to talk about values and how they're living those out

[00:35:03] and where they can improve. So ours was again, a very value based assessment of where they were,

[00:35:08] how they were doing in the company. And so we tracked that, we talked about that,

[00:35:13] we kept notes of that. We actually had these, the annual review questionnaire,

[00:35:19] we had them fill it out before the annual review and turn it into us before the meeting

[00:35:26] so we could review it. And we filled it out as well. So each of us would fill out the same questionnaire

[00:35:32] regarding that team members performance in the past year. And then I would review it,

[00:35:38] both of those before the meeting and then come to it. And then in those meetings,

[00:35:43] it was the responsibility of the team member to report what they did and report the answers

[00:35:49] to that questionnaire to us. So we established that this is you reporting to us about what

[00:35:54] you're doing and how you feel you did in the past year. When you're done, then I'll share with you my

[00:36:00] perspective as to how you did in the past year. So we liked having that dynamic. We liked having

[00:36:06] a value based assessment process. And I think it's helpful to have the team member do a lot

[00:36:13] of reflection and not just yourself. The one thing that I add to that is I will do an

[00:36:17] annual review on myself and I share that with them as well. Hey, this is what I'm working

[00:36:22] on. These are the values that I'm trying to work on right now. And then also, how can I be a better

[00:36:27] leader for you? How can I hear you better? How can I push you without pushing you too much? How can

[00:36:32] I do better for you? Great question. What more do you need from me? What do I do? What do you need

[00:36:36] for me to help you reach this? Can I listen better? Can I give you something a little different?

[00:36:39] Maybe what am I missing? Some great old generalized questions are like,

[00:36:43] here's what I need from you. What do you need from me and what is your focus over the next

[00:36:48] year? And what does success look like together? And then what we always do is like, how are we

[00:36:52] going to celebrate? Let's plan a celebration. What are we going to do? Let's go to the movies.

[00:36:57] Let's go to whatever. Let's have a piece of party or whatever it is. So the employee experience

[00:37:00] basically annual goal setting with maybe some employee review framework, pretty important.

[00:37:06] Some type of check in, whether that's monthly or quarterly, like what's

[00:37:10] to check in with them and then a team meeting, right? Having a, we do it weekly,

[00:37:14] every week we block off an hour. We're going to have a team meeting with a meeting agenda.

[00:37:19] We're going to review the calendar together. We're going to review the initiatives.

[00:37:22] We're going to give everybody an opportunity to talk and speak and expect them to present

[00:37:26] their concerns. And yeah, we do that. Everybody gets better, right? Gotcha, man. Yeah. It's a,

[00:37:33] it really at that point, when those systems are running, the power of the culture kind

[00:37:39] of takes over. And a lot of that can be felt. Interestingly, the power of the culture is felt

[00:37:45] by the strength of your systems. Don't you feel? Yes. And you know what? And I'm learning because

[00:37:51] those structures are imbued with your values and you talk about it so much. And even if the

[00:37:57] systems aren't living up to your values, it allows you to say, oh, we could do that better

[00:38:03] to show X, Y, Z value. And I think that just becomes the backbone for the culture.

[00:38:09] Yeah, it just comes down to like the systems, this type of system, it's really a system of

[00:38:15] helping people thrive, right? Like it's helping people have open lines of communication, feeling

[00:38:21] heard, get given feedback. And it also helps them with just having clarity. Like I know

[00:38:28] where I'm at, I know what I'm working on. I know what decisions I need to be made.

[00:38:34] I know where I don't need to be and I know where I need to be in the company. And

[00:38:38] that makes me feel really secure and excited and in control of what I'm doing and where I'm

[00:38:42] going. And that makes everybody happy because otherwise it's that I thought I was supposed

[00:38:46] to do that. You didn't say that. It's all that stuff and we're like putting out fires

[00:38:51] all over the place. And that's no fun. That's hard for culture.

[00:38:54] You said that yesterday that confused people don't. So this provides a lot of security.

[00:39:00] I remember doing a podcast years ago, Assemblyman said, he said, my job is to provide a foundation

[00:39:05] off of which the team members can thrive. I provide the foundation and what we're talking

[00:39:10] about today is the foundation for a successful employee life cycle. Understanding that

[00:39:16] not everyone, and we would even say this sometimes in our interviews, was

[00:39:20] we're not expecting you to be with us for the rest of your life. We know this is going to end

[00:39:24] at some time. We just want to make this a great experience for you so you can take the next step

[00:39:29] up in life and be an even better team member with greater skill set that you can

[00:39:35] provide value to your next employer. That was our whole goal. We knew that this isn't the

[00:39:41] end and for most people, we don't want it to be the end. It shouldn't be

[00:39:44] some of those positions. We want to make it as valuable as possible for them.

[00:39:47] Love it, man.

[00:39:49] Cool. Anything else you want to add about the employee life cycle?

[00:39:52] No, I think that really covers it pretty good. I think the main point I just want to remind

[00:39:57] the listeners on is don't skip this. You're not going to keep it in your head. You're not

[00:40:03] going to follow your own rules unless you write them down. Trust me, I've tried that. It

[00:40:08] doesn't work. Just write it down. Just write it down and follow the process.

[00:40:14] I promise you it'll make it so much easier for everybody.

[00:40:18] I know there's plenty of people that are listening to the episode. Maybe they listened to

[00:40:22] past seven parts of this Practice Owners Manual series and they're feeling like each episode is

[00:40:27] like drinking from a fire hose. That's why we're here. We're not only providing value, but

[00:40:33] that's when coaching comes into play. We tell you, this is what's missing. This is what you

[00:40:37] need to implement because now we're talking about seven different parts of the organization

[00:40:41] and you might be sitting there thinking they're all super important. We're telling you,

[00:40:45] you have to do all of them. That's where coaching comes into play and says, this is your weak spot.

[00:40:51] This is where you need to pay attention. This is where your focus should be. You shouldn't be

[00:40:56] over here actually working on policy and procedures because you don't have any new

[00:40:59] patience this week. Maybe let's talk about marketing. Even though you've got the shiny

[00:41:04] object syndrome that all entrepreneurs have, the job of the coach and the services that we

[00:41:09] provide at Private Practice Owners Club coaching is to say, okay, let's look over here so that you

[00:41:15] can attain the dreams that you want and this is why we're there. If you're listening to this series

[00:41:20] and you're getting a ton of value, great. Make sure you're implementing. Please understand,

[00:41:25] we are doing this because it provides a ton of value, but we're also saying you need help

[00:41:29] so you need to reach out and give us a call. Absolutely. If I tell people all the time,

[00:41:34] if you're killing it and you're living the life that you want and you're just on cloud nine,

[00:41:40] I'm your biggest supporter. I'm your biggest fan, but if you're feeling a little stuck,

[00:41:44] if you don't feel like you're really excited about what you're doing and you feel a little overwhelmed,

[00:41:49] give me a call. Give me a call and I promise you if we can help you, we will and we'll help you

[00:41:55] make a transformative difference in your life and in your practice. Yeah, ptoclub.com. There's

[00:41:58] the book of call button at the very top of the page. Just book a call and you and Adam can

[00:42:03] talk about whatever points you're dealing with, but it's imperative. I'm feeling a renewed

[00:42:08] energy to push people into coaching recently because you see too many people just struggling

[00:42:13] for no reason and they don't have to. There's so many physical therapists out there that are

[00:42:17] surviving and I can tell you that 98, 99% of them have some kind of coaching support.

[00:42:23] I talked to a person the other day, almost 70 years old, has been in practice for 20 to 30 years,

[00:42:30] still working 60, 70 hours a week. And I just had to tell him like, man,

[00:42:34] there's so much more possible for you if you would just dare to venture on the other side.

[00:42:41] Like I promise you, there's so much more possible. So if you're feeling stuck,

[00:42:45] I promise you there's so much more possibility. Even if you want to email Adam at ptoclub.com,

[00:42:50] Nathan at ptoclub.com, we're happy to help. All right, man. I think next time, I think

[00:42:54] next episode, correct me if I'm wrong, we're going to be talking about recruiting.

[00:42:57] We're going into recruiting, man. All right. If you're looking for a recruiter or

[00:43:01] if you're looking for providers, you don't want to miss the next episode for sure.

[00:43:05] That's right. All right. Thanks, man. Thanks, brother.