4 steps to create a vet clinic culture worth celebrating – 098
When you – or your team – show up for work at your vet clinic, what is it you want them to feel and think about working at your clinic?
Update on #LoveYourVetNurse Vet Nurse Awareness Week competition
Vet clinic culture always is
Culture exists whether you like it or not.
Whether the culture at your clinic is positive or negative, you’ve still got a cultural vibe happening.
Signposts indicating whether the culture at your clinic is positive or negative include employee turnover, absenteeism (eg, sick days), productivity and engagement levels.
A positively-cultured vet clinic will have low employee turnover and absenteeism and high productivity and engagement levels.
A negatively-cultured clinic will have the opposite – high turnover and absenteeism and low productivity and engagement levels.
People leave workplaces because of the people.
Five preliminary questions that need answering first
Before you can start working on the four steps to celebration-worthy clinic culture though, you need to answer five preliminary questions first.
These questions are:
- How well does your team enjoy their work? You want them to be excited about turning up for work on Monday mornings – not dreading the end of the weekend.
- Are there levels of accountability and responsibility in place for each team member? Allowing individual team members to take a level of ownership helps them feel connected.
- How engaged is your team – collectively and individually? Do they believe that what they do matters to the clinic they work at – not just the lives they save? Is your clinic’s mission one that is inspirational and commit-worthy?
- What is your team’s sense of camaraderie and respect? People like to be involved and know their word and work are trusted.
- How does your clinic invest in your employees? How do you show recognition for jobs well done and people who’re valued?
Four Steps to Having Culture Worth Celebrating
#1 – Lay the foundation – determine your clinic’s:
- Your clinic’s MISSION statement: This tells the entire world – yes, everyone – your employees, your clients and your suppliers – why your clinic’s in business. It’s a brief statement.
- Your clinic’s VISION statement: This is an aspirational statement of what your vet clinic envisions to be down the road. It should be emotional and motivation.
- Your clinic’s VALUES: These are what everyone on your team believes and wants to uphold. Your clinic’s values hold everyone to the highest, or let everyone get away with the lowest, acceptable behaviour. These are the foundation of your clinic’s culture.
#2 – Take your clinic’s culture temperature
- culture / engagement survey
#3 – Get Buy-in
- focus groups
- Do you have the right leadership team in place that models your clinic’s values?
- When you recruit, does your clinic naturally attract like-minded, high calibre veterinary professionals? People you want on your team?
- Do your values challenge everyone to perform at their very best?
- What opportunities are there to be more involved with your employees?
#4 – Roll it out / implement it
- keep monitoring with (at least) annual temperature checks / employee engagement surveys.
Love Your Vet Nurse competition
This is the third year VetStaff is holding its annual #LoveYourVetNurse competition in honour of Vet Nurse Awareness Week.
This competition is open to all New Zealand Veterinary clinics and runs through to 30 September 2022.
Leader Board at the end of Week 4
<strong>Vet Nurse Awareness Week Leader Board Week 4<strong>
Vet Clinic Employer of Choice Accreditation
A world first (as far as we can tell) initiative from VetStaff – we’re looking for pilot veterinary clinics to be part of our Beta Launch.
You know how finding and keeping good veterinary professionals right now is hard… there’s always the fear another clinic is going to poach your star performers…?
Here at VetStaff we’ve designed a programme to help vet clinics – anywhere in the world – recruit and retain their star performers.
Not only does it help you retain the star performers already on your team, it also helps make recruiting easier because as a participating clinic, you’ll receive the VetStaff Seal of Accreditation.
Having this Seal instantly identifies your clinic as a VetStaff Employer of Choice. Because it’s VetStaff polishing your clinic’s halo from the outside and we can back up our claim – it’s not you on the inside beating your chest about how great you are – our third-party endorsement gives your clinic the VetStaff Employer of Choice Accredited tick.
Right now, we’re launching our pilot programme and if you’d like to be considered as one of our beta clinics, please let me know by sending me an email to julie@vetstaff.co.nz.
If you want to participate, the process is very simple and totally affordable – it’s less than the cost of an average small bitch spay.
We’ll ask for some proof of verification – which is easy to get and that’s it!
Easy Peasy!
Because very few clinics right now are fully staffed, it means most clinics are competing for the same high calibre staff. Every little thing you can do to identify your clinic as being more attractive to work out, will make a difference.
If your clinic’s not recognised as a VetStaff Employer of Choice, you’ll miss out to the clinic down the road that is.
Today, it’s the clinics that are retaining and rewarding their staff in meaningful ways that get to recruit the best staff.
If you’re not doing this in a way that’s easily recognised and verified, you’ll miss out to those clinics that are.
Being recognised as a VetStaff Employer of Choice Vet Clinic is something to be proud of.
Imagine having the edge when it comes to recruiting high performers.
Imagine having a waiting list of high performers who want to work at your clinic.
Because this is what can happen once the word starts to get out that your clinic is an Employer of Choice! Imagine how many headaches you’ll save when it comes to hiring new staff!
VetStaff’s Seals of Participation are a completely independent and recognised way for your clinic to stand out as a Vet Clinic Employer of Choice.
If this sounds like something you’d like for your clinic then email Julie South today to start the ball rolling at your clinic. And just to clarify – this is designed to help clinics who’re already clients of ours – ones where we’re doing the recruiting AND for those that want to DIY their own recruitment.
You don’t have to be an existing VetStaff client to participate. If you want to DIY your own recruitment then this new initiative is perfect for you. To find out more email julie@vetstaff.co.nz.
VetStaff’s two core beliefs
Everyone and everything we do at VetStaff is underpinned by two core beliefs.
The first is that we believe all veterinary professionals deserve to work at a vet clinic job of their dreams where they’re respected and valued.
The second is that all vet clinics deserve to have engaged and motivated employees working for them who love Monday mornings.
If that sounds like the type of recruitment agency you’d like to work with, then please check us out at vetstaff.co.nz
OTHER EPISODE LINKS MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Paws Claws Wet Noses at Facebook & Insta:
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VetStaff.NZ at Instagram
#ChocolateTuesday podcast listener competition
First published at Paws Claws & Wet Noses – reproduced here with permission
