Are your employees really important?

I once sat through a (painful) presentation at a veterinary hospital that kept referring to the employees as the hospital's number one customer. The powerpoint presentation (which constantly used 'loose' instead of 'lose' (!!!)) seemed determined to instill in the new hires being bludgeoned by it that employees come first.

I remember thinking, "I think he doth protests too much."

And lo and behold within days the hospital's true colors shone through in agonizing detail. Doctors said things out loud to one another and to staff, things a teenage girl would think twice about writing in even the nastiest note. Morale was in the tank, all staff members blamed all other staff members for failures (which were endemic) and turnover was insanely high.

But they had talked about their employees being their most important clients. How can this be? Most hospitals barely talk about employee interaction at all and are able to remain civil day in and day out. Here, this hospital had put together a Powerpoint saying just how important employees were and yet treated each other almost as bad as rival gangs, what was going on here?

So, what, no doubt, happened was at one point this very large hospital brought in a consultant to fix up the place, and that consultant took one look around, charged them five figures and said, "you need to treat your employees with more respect." I'm sure there was a lot of other consultant-speak and jargon, but in the end that's what it came down to.

So management had a meeting and they all said, "We need to treat the employees better." And so everyone agreed, and they had a few more meetings where everyone said, "Sure, we need to treat everyone better, " put together their spelling-impaired Powerpoint and called it a day.

But the culture of meaness and ugliness where doctors did whatever they pleased still reigned. And if you cannot even get your doctors to treat one another with respect, you have zero chance of anyone else doing so.

We've been here before and we'll be here again; if your company has an issue always look up, not down. Leaders lead, staff follows. As long as anyone in your hospital is allowed to treat anyone else in your hospital in a disrespectful manner your employees will never come first.

And if you believe, for even one-second, that these things do not matter, you are mistaken, clients in the hospital referenced in this post (the real ones, with pets on leashes) were treated as the enemy and with hardly more respect than the employees got from the doctors. The hospital is large, and it does 24 hour emergency, so it may believe that cultivating long-term relationships is not necessary, but unless you're the only game in town, you have a great deal to lose if you don't practice what you preach.

Keeping up momentum

Last month was the AAHA Annual Conference in Phoenix, AZ. If you recall I was so psyched about all the cool ideas that I regurgitated a whole mottled mess of them into this blog last month. When I go to conferences, the hospital employees where I work (who know me) scatter like roaches when I return. This is because I am flying high on a cloud of brilliant ideas that I want to inflict wholesale on whatever hospital will let me.

However, we all are smart enough to know that we can't actually do this. It would create pandemonium, depress morale, and ultimately lead to deflating failure.

Instead, what you (and I) need to do, is come in with our lists and write down the high points. Write down their importance on a 5 point scale, their PITA factor on a 5 point scale, their cost on a 5 point scale, etc.. You get the point. You have to step back from your enthusiasm and into the real world for a second.

You can achieve your goals, you just need to tackle them in a manner that best reflects your longer term goals (you remember those right?) as well as what can actually be achieved.

Imagine you came back with the idea that you need to update your Facebook page more often (you probably actually do) add more photos, and maybe include a cool new contest. You also decided that your hospital needs to become an Accredited Cat Friendly Hospital. You also need to tell your blog readers (who you may have been ignoring for some time now) about all the amazing things your hospital has planned.

That's a lot. But if you take a step back and breathe, you can get them all done in a reasonable amount of time without gutting your hospital, freaking out your staff or driving away your clients. And you can do it in a manner that ensures that inertia is on your side when your initial enthusiasm wears off.

Lets use the Cat Friendly Hospital first. It is unlikely that you have the money or ability right now to gut your hospital and add a cat only waiting room. But what you can do now is get your most enthusiastic team member on board and draw out a three year plan. Today you can use a separate room for cats, dim the lighting, and buy some Feliway Spray. Next year you can tackle cat specific hours or some other solution to stressful cat/dog interactions in the lobby.

While you are moving forward you are studying what other hospitals are doing have done (or better yet, your enthusiastic team member can do this). The list of ideas should be constantly evolving. You can try one thing and if it doesn't work, try another. Declare a Cat Awareness Month and create enthusiasm among the whole staff for the project.

You can have your enthusiastic player write FB posts and pictures for you and contribute to the blog. You have successfully created momentum throughout the hospital, and with any luck inertia will take over in the absence of constant enthusiasm input from you.