Would you hire them again?

Do you want your hospital to remain nimble and relevant? Well, staff matters. Staff is the face that greets your customer, the face that sticks the thermometers where the sun don't shine, and the face that helps create client compliance. Your staff handles the pet in the back and ensures a smooth work flow so you don't spend your whole day in a state of hysteria. Lastly they are the glue that holds the culture and vision together. They're the people who remember the birthdays and bake the cakes, remember which clients have kids in soccer matches and which just lost a spouse. People personify your hospital's vision, they embrace it and move it forward. Their actions lets your vision shine through to your clients.

We all know when a hospital begins to fall apart, when people begin to bump up against each other instead of gliding past, when back biting and eye rolling become normal, and you begin asking people to just show up, shut up and do their jobs.

How do we keep this from happening? It doesn't happen all at once. It happens slowly, incrementally. In happens with the addition of one employee, or a sea change in attitude in another. Then before you know it you think you want to fire the whole staff burn the place to the ground and retire to the Bahamas.

Again, how do we stop this from occurring in the first place? Obviously, start off by hiring well, and by well, I am not talking about skills. Most staff skills can be taught quickly to an eager and intellegent pupil. What you want are not skills but attitudes. This is covered in depth here.

But what about afterward? How do you know if it's still working? People change, they slide into bad habits, bad attitudes and mistakes happen. What now?

Well, before you bring out your blow torch, sit down with the names of your entire staff in front of you and ask yourself this very simple question, would you hire them again?

If the answer is No, replace them, if the answer is ambivelance, then speak with them, counsel them, help them better succeed. If the answer is yes, then this is your core team. This is where excellence starts.

I suggest you do this at least every 6 months. I also suggest you make no excuses and give yourself no outs. If you wouldn't hire them again, then you're wasting your time and theirs keeping them on. Let them go. This goes for everyone, staff and doctors alike.

Once your staff knows that you will weed out the slackers and malcontents they will be happier. No one wants to work in a hospital riddled with bad behavior and laziness. These people unfairly punish your best workers who will work extra hard picking up their slack, putting up their broken fences and 'jollying' them along.

It's not easy, but I assure you. If you wouldn't hire them today, then they shouldn't come in tomorrow. It is as simple as that.