Introduction

Long-term growth depends on a loyal, dedicated and winning team.

The kind of vision you have for the growth of your clinic cannot become a reality without the extraordinary contributions of your team.

While every employer wants to have such a happily productive team, not many of them are able to nurture such a team.

Nurturing such a team requires a lot of hard work. There are no set rules. You need to innovate and find ways that work.

That’s why every employer has a single question in his mind: how to nurture such a happily productive team?

No worries.

Here’s how you can nurture such a happily productive team at your clinic:

Set Clear Goals and Expectations

While many employers lament about how their employees fall short of their expectations, they fail to see that they never effectively conveyed or set expectations!

If employees are not clear about what your expectations are, how would they ever fulfill or live up to them?

Moreover, they can be more productive if they know what they are supposed to achieve.

Hence, it is paramount that you set clear goals and expectations for your employees.

Here’s how you can go about it:

• Develop a spirit of discussion and dialogue at your clinic. Let ideas be shared freely and easily. Once you communicate freely and your employees ask their questions, they will be far clearer about what their goals are and what you expect them to do. 

• There are various ways to communicate the goals and expectations. Start with written job descriptions. Do you provide clear-cut job description in writing to your employees? If not, start it immediately. There is no better way to make them productive than giving something in writing something that articulates the goals and expectations. 

• Make sure you hold regular team meetings. Regular interaction is necessary to keep them aligned to your vision and the long term goals. Make sure you clearly articulate the goals and expectations for them. Let them know what you expect them to achieve.

• Like team meetings, individual, one-on-one meetings are equally crucial. In general meetings, you can convey general goals and expectations but you can set goals for each individual employee if you meet them on one-on-one basis. You can tell them individually what your expectations from them are. Once they know what exactly you want them to achieve at an individual level, they will be able to happily work hard in this direction.                                                                                 
• Start a Newsletter for internal circulation. Write your Special Message every week or fortnight about what you expect them to accomplish. Make sure you use some periodic means like a Newsletter to convey your expectations and set clear goals for them. 

• Whenever there’s a special occasion like crossing an important milestone for the clinic, make sure you share your thoughts on that occasion. Use that opportunity to convey what your expectations are. Tell them how you visualize the future and what their role is in such a future.

• If you have enrolled your team for Teamspire, you can use the feature “Today’s Discussion” to share and discuss any relevant topic related to the goals and expectations and constantly provide inputs to your team.                                                                                                                                                          

Conduct Period Reviews and Provide Constant Feedback

Many clinics follow the annual appraisal system.

Even the annual appraisal system is meant for increment and nothing more.

Moreover, the appraisal system is not quite transparent regarding the employee performance as the concerned employee never gets to understand how you review his/her work and what your actual review regarding his/her performance is.

Mostly, your employees try to decipher your review by the kind of increment you provide.

That’s not the purpose of appraisal and review.

The purpose of appraisal and performance review is to actually review the performance of an employee in all parameters, identify the strengths and weaknesses and provide necessary feedback for improvement. This is a way to make them more productive. 

Here’s how you can use periodic review and feedback system and nurture your team:

• Start an appraisal system that is well-defined in terms of how the performance of an employee is to be reviewed. It may be clear to you but it should also be clear for the concerned employee as well.

• Once they understand how you review their performance, they can align their work to those parameters and improve their performance.

• Moreover, annual review is not effective as the whole year goes by without any feedback to the employee. Instead, try to follow quarterly or periodic performance review of your employees.

• In periodic reviews, you should discuss the strengths and encourage them to build on their strengths. Likewise, you should point out the areas of improvement and help them overcome their shortcomings. In this way, they will get rid off what is affecting their performance and strengthen what makes them productive.

• Constant feedback is an equally powerful tool of nurturing your employees. You should talk to them more often and share your thoughts on how they can do their work better. Be specific in your feedback and help them improve their work further. Such feedback offered to individual employees can take their efficiency to the next level. 

• Nurturing a happily productive team is all about handholding and lending support on a continuous basis. Review and feedback are the backbone of the support mechanism for your employees.

• If you review and provide feedback regarding what they are doing well, they will be motivated to keep performing well. If you help them see how they can improve, they will be grateful and will be more than happy to improve.

• In short, review and feedback can make your employees more motivated and happy. In turn, they will be more engaged and look forward to performing well. This is how you nurture a happily productive team!

You may also like – 3 Simple Steps to Give Constructive Feedback to Improve and Motivate Your Team

Tell Them Why Their Contributions Matter

At times, employees are not able to see the big picture. The big picture is that of the long-term growth of clinic.

As they are not able to see the big picture, they are not able to understand why they should put in their best possible efforts and go the extra mile.

Hence, it’s imperative that you explain to them why and how their contributions matter and help them see the big picture and their role in it.

Here’s how you can go about it:

• You should always try to put their work in the context. The context is that of patients availing the treatments that the clinic offers. No matter how small the contribution is, it matters because it goes a long way in making the patients feel great when they visit the clinic.

• You need to convey this to your team and help them see the big picture. For instance, you can make use of the team meetings to convey how their work matters with respect to how patients feel at the end of the day. You need to convey that whether it’s the front office staff or the counselor, each one makes a difference to the way patients perceive the clinic.

• You can also use the one-on-one meetings to convey the same message that their work is vital to the long-term and larger vision of the clinic’s growth. You should help them see how their work is pivotal to achieving the kind of growth that you have envisioned.

• Give a small hand-written note every month to each employee regarding how his/her contribution makes a difference to the clinic. 

• Use innovative measures of appreciation and recognition and convey how their contributions matter. For instance, start a Go the Extra Mile program and recognize the employees who go the extra mile. On that occasion, convey how their contributions matter. 

You may also like – TOP 3 EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION IDEAS THAT REALLY WORK

• While reviewing their work and carrying out appraisal, you should make sure that you convey how their work matters to you and to the clinic. Provide constant feedback regarding their work and ensure that they understand why it’s so crucial to improve their work. It’s crucial because how they work and perform will eventually affect the growth of the clinic.

• In all, when employees see the big picture and understand the significance of their work, they will be motivated to work harder. Once they understand the worth of their work, they will perform a lot better and become more productive!

Conclusion

Nurturing a happily productive team requires a diversity of measures. There’s a no single golden rule.

You need to keep innovating in order to arrive at a handful of best practices that actually work.

Once you are able to work out ways to nurture each member of the team in a holistic way, you will see the transformation in them over a period of time.

They will become hugely productive and efficient, and be willing to go the extra mile for you!

Parting Note

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Infographics – How to Nurture a Happily Productive Team