Introduction

Hiring new employees is one of the toughest things to get right.

You try to recruit the best possible talent but it may not turn out to be the right decision.

You might wonder why it’s such a big deal. You may argue that one poor hire cannot hurt the overall performance of the team and the clinic.

You may want to think twice.

The cost of a bad hire is way higher than you may be willing to admit or imagine.

Not clear yet?

Here’s how it works:

#Affects Clinic Culture

You value your clinic’s powerful work culture, don’t you?

Would you ever allow anything to affect it?

No, you wouldn’t.

But a bad hire can adversely affect clinic culture.

Here’s how it will turn out:

• Your clinic culture comprises a set of key attributes. You want your employees to display these attributes and follow some basic principles. But a bad hire may not care about your vision and behave recklessly.

• Let’s say you believe in punctuality. You want your employees to come to the clinic in time. You want them to complete their tasks in time. But a bad hire will not follow this basic principle that you hold so dear. So you will have a situation where he/she will not honor any deadline that you set.

• You want your employees go the extra mile and put in their best possible efforts. In the case of a bad hire, you may face a tough challenge. He/she may not be willing to go the extra mile. He/she may simply follow instructions and complete the task. He/she may merely do the bare minimum and may not do anything extra.

• You believe in achieving outcomes. You expect your employees also to follow this dictum. You want them to focus on achieving outcomes. However, a bad hire may only do the job and forget about it. He/she may not focus on achieving outcomes but only focus on doing the job from 9 to 6. Apart from giving his/her time, he/she may not care much.

• You want your employees to show urgency. You want your front office staff to pick up the phone in two rings to demonstrate that you care. But a bad hire may display a kind of lazy and casual attitude to work. He may or may not show the urgency you expect. It can affect the clinic culture because others may also follow the bad hire’s example.
• In all, a bad hire can cost you in terms of the way it affects the clinic culture. You have spent years trying to create such powerful work culture but a bad hire can easily and quickly dilute this culture. Therefore, you must bear in mind how a bad hire can affect your clinic culture and accordingly put in place effective recruiting processes and norms.

#Affects Team Performance

You make all the efforts you can to lift the performance of your team.

And then a bad hire can spoil it all.

Wondering how it affects your team’s performance?

Here’s how it pans out:

• You believe that your team is your greatest asset. You believe that your dreams and goals can be achieved only if your team works together and performs well. This is where a bad hire can ruin it all.

• When you make mistakes in hiring, you allow an individual to be a part of your team who is not conducive to team work. So you will find that such a bad hire will not be able to work with anybody else. Moreover, as he/she will not enjoy working with others. In fact, he/she will only have complaints about the process or people.

• Eventually, others will also not be comfortable working with such a member of the team. This will lead to differences and conflicts among your team.

• When there are conflicts within a team, they cannot work together. They cannot achieve the goals either.

• In such a toxic situation, the idea of working together as a team suffers. They put their egos first instead of the team. When that happens, you can be sure about decline in their individual performance.

• With decline in individual performance declines, the team performance also declines. Besides, such a team cannot innovate or come up with creative solutions.

• In all, the team will focus more on these disagreements because of a bad hire and will fail to live up to your expectations.

#Affects the Growth of Your Clinic

You hire new employees with a vision that they will bring in new ideas, fresh perspectives and a lot of energy.

You expect to see a lot of buzz at your clinic because of the new employees you have recruited. You expect your clinic to grow at a lightening pace with the help of their energy and enthusiasm.

But it may not turn out that way if you fail to hire the right kind of talent.

Here’s how it affects the growth of your clinic:

• You hire new employees and expect them to perform at their best. You expect that this will be infectious and others will also be energized and motivated to perform better.

• But a bad hire can spoil it all. If you have a bad hire, you may not see the energy and enthusiasm that you expected. Instead, you will find that the new employee lacks the positive attitude necessary for the kind of work that exists at your clinic.
• It leads to not just poor performance on his/her part but also affects the clinic’s performance. Imagine such an employee dealing with a patient! A patient is most likely to be upset by the behavior of such a bad hire.
• 
• It would be risky even if such a bad hire communicates with patients over the phone. Most patients would not want to visit your clinic after talking to such an employee on the phone.

• Even if they do come, they may not be satisfied by the kind of treatment they get from such employees. Eventually, patient satisfaction which you consider as the key to your clinic’s growth will suffer.

• You know how a single patient can affect your entire practice because this is a profession based on word-of-mouth. A single patient can spread negative word-of-mouth and stop many others from visiting your clinic.

• In all, it can cause a decline in patient satisfaction, leading to decline in the number of patients. In this way, a bad hire can adversely affect the growth of your clinic.

Also Read : How to Enhance Service Standards at Your Clinic to Boost Patient Satisfaction

#What’s the Way Out?

You need to carefully carry out the process of hiring new employees otherwise it can backfire on you in the ways shared earlier.

Here’re a few tips while hiring a new employee:

• Make sure you look for team players rather than individuals who cannot mix with a team.

• You should devise a way to include marks for attitude and emotional intelligence in your interview and recruitment process. This will give you a better sense of whom to hire.

• Look for people who are humble. Humble people would be willing to learn and change. They would be willing to work with a team as well.

• Identify those who are hungry for doing innovative work. Those who are not motivated enough for their work will become a burden for you.

• Look for smart individuals. People who are smart can find a way in any situation. You need exactly that kind of employees at your clinic because you will not be able to guide them in each and everything. They need to handle situations on their own so go for smart ones.
• Once recruited, train them well. Enroll your employees in Teamspire. This will enable you to provide them constant inputs in terms of motivation and engagement. This will refine their attributes and align them to your long-term goals.

• You should also devise a completely different and customized recruitment process compared to what exists today. Don’t waste your time studying their qualifications and certificates. You must design a recruitment process that can screen the attributes vital for team work.

Conclusion

You have spent years building a great team. You expect that a new employee should strengthen such a team and contribute to the growth of your clinic.

But it can go all awry if you have a bad hire.

It can prove costly in a variety of ways.

Therefore, it would be advisable to exercise caution while recruiting new employees. Periodic reforms in recruitment process will save you from any possibility of a bad hire.

So hire well and strengthen your team in order to accelerate the growth of your clinic!

Parting Note

Did you like the blog? Do share your feedback with us!

Post your valuable thoughts in the comments section!

If you have a robust recruitment process in place, do share your case study with us!

Let all benefit from the ideas contained in this blog. Do share it with your friends and colleagues on your social media account!

Have you got any suggestions regarding blog topics? Just write to us. We would be happy to explore those topics and write some amazing blogs!

If you have something to share in private, leave a message on my personal social media account. I will definitely get back!

Listen to the article…

Infographics – The Cost of a Bad Hire