Six steps to hiring great practice staff

Investing time and attention in the medical practice staff hiring process can reduce costs and boost staff retention.

In a busy medical office, an empty staff position can be a real problem. Days that were already full and often hectic are even more so. Patients are complaining. The instinctive response is to fill the slot ASAP. Resist the impulse! Any short-term relief will almost inevitably produce long-term aggravation and higher employment costs.

The data vary widely, but it is generally agreed that filling a staff position costs more than the associated annual salary. Most of these costs are “soft costs” that have a real impact on productivity and operating costs but do not require the practice to write a check to cover them. They include

• Lost productivity and increased overtime while the position
  is vacant
• Time associated with interviewing candidates
• Even more lost productivity and increased overtime while the new hire is learning the ropes

The biggest soft cost, however, is making a hiring mistake. Hiring carefully is worth the investment. Here are six steps to significantly reduce hiring costs:

Step 1: Define your requirements

Experience and credentials are important but they are the easy part of describing requirements. The more difficult requirements are the ones not apparent in a résumé or transcript. They include

Personality. For instance, should the individual be cheerful? Optimistic? High-energy? Empathetic? Independent?

Work ethic. Do you want a self-starter? Team player? Leader? Someone who is detail-oriented?

Appearance and manner. Should the individual speak up? Look people in the eye? Be poised? Youthful? Mature?

Step 2: Describe the ideal candidate

It will be useful to flesh out the attributes by actually describing how your ideal candidate would respond in two or three hypothetical situations. (You can use these hypotheticals in the eventual interviews.)

I also recommend describing the ideal candidate from the candidate’s point of view. To whom would the job be most appealing? To whom might the appeal be short-lived? Your best source of this information is your impression of staff, current and past. What type of person at what age and stage has performed well, been happy and stayed a long time? What are the attributes of people who have not worked out well?

The object of the exercise is to have something definite against which to measure candidates. It is unlikely that you will find an ideal candidate, but you will get much closer if you know what you want and hold out for a reasonably good fit.

Step 3: Make adjustments

You may discover that the highly professional, well-turned out, mature person you would really like to hire has no interest in the duties of the job and finds the compensation inadequate. A long-term solution requires adjustments to your requirements, the job, or both.

Think about more than adjustments in monetary compensation. More flexible hours, the opportunity to learn, educational benefits, a pleasant workplace, and discounts on care and services are all examples of perks that have real value to candidates without necessarily increasing costs. Once you know the desired attributes, it becomes relatively easy to tailor the job to attract the ideal candidate.

Step 4: Establish a process that weeds out candidates for you

Before anyone looks at candidate submissions, have someone respond to every one with a request for some action on the part of the candidate. The action should be related to the position so that the request maintains your credibility, but the task itself is unimportant.

The objective is to let casual candidates self-select out of the process. If you still have too many candidates to seriously consider, assign another task. About 90% of the pool will drop out with each request.

Step 5: Verify selected résumé and application information

If something on a résumé or application is important to you, independently verify the assertions. Otherwise, ignore the contents of those documents.

Step 6: Give new hires an easy way to quit after a short trial period

It is not at all unusual for a new hire to discover that accepting the job was a mistake. The sooner the new hire can admit it and move on, the less you will have lost in integrating the new person into the practice.

A bonus is that your second choice may still be available and willing.

Hiring is a necessary evil. Investing time and attention in the process so that your hires are smart ones reduces the costs substantially.