You are here: Home / Archives for employee relations

SILKIN MANAGEMENT GROUP: SUGGESTIONS ON STAFF CORRECTION

August 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment
silkin management group

Part 4

Silkin Management Group’s blog articles on staff correction, parts 1 and 3 can be found on this site: http://silkinmanagementgroup.org/ while part 2 can be found on the Silkin Management Group blog site you are presently on.

The initial Silkin Management Group article discussed what to do on a first offense with a staff member, parts 2 and 3 went over what to do on second and third offenses. We emphasize again here, as we did in the earlier Silkin Management Group articles, the incredible importance of having proper office policies and job descriptions in place in order to properly deal with staff. You can easily put yourself in a legal quagmire if you attempt to discipline staff without these in place.

As mentioned in the earlier Silkin Management Group blogs, new Silkin Management Group clients infrequently have proper job descriptions and office policies in place. Therefore Silkin Management Group clients are provided with Silkin Management Group’s 400 plus page manual of office policies and job descriptions for each position in the office as part of their Silkin Management Group program.

What do you do with a staff member that you have corrected three times? You’ve already given them a written warning, discussed that continued violations could result in suspension or dismissal and you find them doing it again. At this point Silkin Management Group recommends to Silkin Management Group clients to check their production record (although you should have done that already as part of correcting earlier violations). Silkin Management Group institutes with all new Silkin Management Group clients simple statistical methods to keep track of key production metrics for each staff member and the office as a whole.

If the person is a high producer (which is unlikely given that they keep messing up), then you might consider the next step to be a suspension without pay for a certain number of days. If the person has a poor production record, dismissal may be in order. There are some key guidelines Silkin Management Group consultants go over with Silkin Management Group clients to take into account when making the decision to terminate, and we will discuss them in our next Silkin Management Group blog.

Bill Hickey
Silkin Management Group Consultant

You can follow Silkin Management Group at http://twitter.com/silkin



Filed Under: silkin management group Tagged With: , , ,

SILKIN MANAGEMENT GROUP: SUGGESTIONS ON STAFF CORRECTION

August 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
silkin management group

Part 2

Silkin Management Group’s initial blog article on staff correction, posted on August 19th can be found here: http://silkinmanagementgroup.org/?p=18.

As mentioned in yesterday’s Silkin Management Group article, we are continually helping Silkin Management Group clients with a variety of human resource type issues. We have found that clients new to Silkin Management Group have high on their “help wish list” training in dealing with staff, including hiring, training and correcting staff.

Yesterday we discussed that one of the most important things that Silkin Management Group implements with new Silkin Management Group clients is written office policies and job descriptions since clients new to Silkin Management Group rarely have proper job descriptions and office policies in place. Silkin Management Group clients are provided with Silkin Management Group’s 400 plus page manual of office policies and job descriptions for each position in the office as part of their Silkin Management Group program. It is vital to have these policies and job descriptions in place to properly correct staff.

As mentioned in yesterday’s Silkin Management Group blog, on a first offense you should show the staff member the policy and/or job description violated, have them re-read it and go over it with them to make sure they understand it and how their actions violated it.

On a second offense we recommend to Silkin Management Group clients to review the situation with the staff member and have them sign a copy of the policy or procedure that covers what was violated as an attestation that he/she understands and agrees to the policy and/or job description. Silkin Management Group clients are instructed to put a copy of the signed document in the personnel folder of the staff member and give a copy to the staff member to put in their staff binder. One can consider that this constitutes a warning.

We will cover additional offenses in our next Silkin Management Group blog.

Eric Korb
Silkin Management Group Consultant

Find out more about Silkin Management Group at http://www.ikarma.com/id/38354



Filed Under: silkin management group Tagged With: , , , ,

MORE ON MEASURING PRODUCTIVITY

November 23, 2009 By 5 Comments
silkin management group

After reading last Thursday’s blog How do you measure the productivity of all areas in an office? by one of my fellow consultants at Silkin Management Group, Bill Hickey, I thought I would carry on the theme he started and add my own insight to this subject.

I can’t emphasize enough how important statistical monitoring is to the management of a practice. As clearly elucidated in yesterday’s blog, without proper metrics, you can’t really see what is going on throughout the business side of a practice.

The first question you might ask yourself is how one determines what the correct monitoring statistic is for an area or job position. The answer to that is something more basic, and that is determining what the actual product is that should be produced by that position or area.

In sales this is usually easy to see. For example, the product of a car salesman is a sold car and his statistic would simply be the number of cars sold.

That one is easy. But what about a receptionist in a health care office? What’s her product? And what statistic measures that?

Here are some ideas you can use for this position in terms of product and statistic for a receptionist:

  • Product: A patient who arrives at the agreed upon time
  • Statistic: Percent of patients kept to schedule
  • Product: Sufficiently full appointment book to keep the office at or above its needed production target.
  • Statistic: Percent of the appointment book filled

I hope this example gives you an idea on how this basic management tool works. If you want to properly manage your practice, you must be able to easily see the productivity in any area or job position and not operate on “feel” or “how it seems”.

Please note: this does not mean that you take the important human element out of your practice. I’ve heard people say that watching statistics takes the “humanity” out of a practice. These are not mutually exclusive activities! The “human element” is more important than anything else as it is people, working together as a team in a mutually created enjoyable work place that makes a practice a fun, pleasant and productive place to work. But, at the same time, you must also be able to logically see how the productivity of each area and job position of a practice is doing or you won’t be able to manage the practice as a whole and take care of your staff.

Letting a staff member flounder around, not really knowing how they are doing, is not a fair way to treat any staff member. Neither is letting a poorly producing staff member attack in subtle or not so subtle ways a good producing staff member. Having a proper statistical monitoring system in place takes helps your staff know how they are doing and protects the good producers. That makes a happy and productive place to work.

At Silkin Management Group, we have researched and worked out nearly every product and statistic in a health care practice and, where we haven’t, we know exactly how to figure them out. If you are interested in more information about how to do this, contact us at info@silkinmanagementgroup.com or visit our website at silkinmanagementgroup.com. View our other blog at practicemanagementblog.com

Eric Korb
Technical Director



Filed Under: Small business Tagged With: , ,