Nurturing Employee Morale

Welcome to Pelby biz podcast.

I'm Dr. Kelly Alhui.

I have grown and established brick and mortar practice in Northern Virginia called Ortho Pelvic Physical Therapy and also founded Pelvibiz, which is an online business consulting company that helps healthcare providers make more money and be healthy while doing it, especially in the pelvic health realm. So let's get into today's episode.

Today I'm going to talk about how to keep employees happy. Now, it's an interesting topic because, I don't know, something that you probably never think about if you weren't a business owner. And even as a business owner, you don't think about it until you have many employees. I feel like, because you're just like going through the motions, it's like the last thing. You're just trying to fill their schedule, you're trying to give them good work, but you don't really think about what truly makes them tick, what truly makes them happy. And when you get multiple, multiple employees on, it can become harder because what makes one person happy doesn't make the other person happy. And sometimes it could be just a mess. Trying to help please everyone. Well, there's the first mistake. If you're trying to please everyone, just know it is. It will never work that way. You've got to have high standards and be able to uphold those standards while making people happy in quotation marks. Okay. In your company and making sure everyone feels that they've been heard and taken care of. And it is a delicate, delicate dance that you have to walk because it can get a little tricky.

Things in.

What I thought would make people happy was seeing like seven patients a day. And I realized people will still complain about seeing seven patients a day no matter what because they have to work. Okay? And that doesn't necessarily make people happy, even though many of us have been scenarios where we worked 15, 14, 18 patients a day. I mean, I used to see 18 patients a day with three hours of notes at night, making 62K. Like it just like I had to put in the work. You know what I'm saying? And I think, I think this is also a really good point. There's going to be people, and I don't mean to hate on anyone, but there's going to be people that just don't want to put in the work. And when I tell people coming out of school, I've hired a lot of new grads. When I tell people that are coming out of school, you got to put in the work, guys, you Got to.

Put in the work.

I don't care if you think that you're a rock star, that you've had every Herman and Wallace course. I'm sorry, but Herman and Wallace courses are not going to get you a higher salary. Like, they just aren't. Okay. How you get a higher salary is how you're going to have help the clients out more and get the best results. And the fact of how are you going to get patients to keep being excited about therapy? That's what's going to get you the money that you want. Not because the market value, not because you've had every course possible. That's not it. And what I realize is a lot of new grads coming out, they just don't want to put in the work. Now, there are gems, and there are some that really, really want to put in the work. And when I find those people, those people are dangerous in the fact of good dangerous. Those people know that they must put in the work. The best thing you can do is find a mentor that literally will give you the clients and whatever and the skill set to be able to.

Make.

It your own and learn from them and grow from them. And then if you want to go out and start your own thing, go out and just start your thing. But you got to be willing to put in the work first. You got to be willing to put in the work. So I'm kind of tangenting here, but, like, when people come in and I interview and I interview with these employees, and they're like, kelly, my main major thing is I want a work life balance. I immediately say, this is not a job for you. It's just not. Now, I give my. I'll tell you in a second when I give my employees, but if they tell me that I. It's immediate no for me, because they. They have not grasped the concept that already tells me they have not grasped the concept of just life. How do you do an integration? They're already saying, I want to balance. They. That's telling me that they're not clear on what they actually want. They say they want one thing, but they look at things from a different lens and a different perspective than I look at it. And that could be. That could be trouble. And it already kind of tells me, I want you just to kind of pay me, but I don't really want to do that much work. And I want someone that comes in that's eager, that's like, whatever it takes to make. To all make us be able to elevate. I'M here for it. Those are the people I want on my team. Those are the people. So how I try to make my employees happy, I'm gonna kind of go through things. Number one, I've learned to give them lunch breaks together. And this may sound silly, okay, but I used to stagger everyone's lunches because they come in at different times and whatever else. But I've learned to give them lunch breaks together. You know why? Because it builds camaraderie. They're with these people 24 7, not 24 7, but they're with these people for eight hours a day at work. Well, a lot of times the problem in pelvic health land is we're in these rooms for a certain period of time, and then everyone comes out to the gym. Well, you can see each other in.

The gym, but you're like, with your patient.

You're not like, you know, hey, Sally, what's happening over there? What's going on over there? Blah, blah. You're focused on your patient, right? So when you're able to create an environment that people like being there, that they're able to take breaks together and be able to collaborate, that's a win win. And there's all. That's also less that the owner has to do to keep the morale up. Because together, if you have the right people now, if you have the wrong people, it can go south. If you have the right people, then they'll build each other up. If you have a spoiled apple in the bunch, that spoiled apple during everyone's lunch break will take every single person down with them, because there'll be Chatty Cathy over there, and the whole company will go down. So it is a fine line. But as long as your company is running the way you want it to have your employees take. Take lunches together, it really will help, okay? Which is bringing team together and working together and being able to help each other out. So that's a very simple thing that every single one that's listening to this could do. The next thing I do is I do wellness breaks. So I do two wellness breaks a week. It's 30 minutes. And I give them time to, like, go walk outside. Maybe they want to do a gym exercise. Maybe they want to just lie in a room with the door closed and take some breaths, like, whatever their wellness is, but they need to do a wellness activity during that time period so that they take care of themselves and give to themselves. And this is paid, by the way. Okay? So I put that in there to kind of Help alleviate any anxiety that they have or, you know, overwhelm. So I find that to be helpful. I also. Another thing I like to do is ask about the personal life. Now, as a boss, yes, there's rules on so much. Whatever you could ask. But I do, you know, like to know what's going on so that I can be like, oh, my God, you got this competition coming up. Go kill it. Or, oh, my gosh, you got this running. You're gonna go run a 5k. That's freaking awesome.

Let's go.

You know, just stuff like that that, you know, I also care about them. Showing them that you care, that's the other big thing, showing them that you care. And I don't just care about them seeing patients. I actually care about them as human beings, and I want the best for them. So whatever they want in their life outside of work, I also want to encourage that, because what are they? Well, maybe they have goals. Maybe they want to be a potterist. Maybe they want to be some kind of artist. Maybe they want to be a runner and run a half marathon. Like, whatever it is, we're all working together in the office to get a goal. But we're also outside. They have individual goals, and if I could help nurture that or help support that, I think that's huge. I really, really think that's huge. I think the other thing is giving people kudos when they do something that you really like. So let's just say you really like when they book something on the schedule. Like, they fill the schedule immediately. Right away, you should be like, oh, my God, Sally, thank you so much for filling that spot on the schedule. Really, really appreciate it. You're killing it. Way to go. And yes, it's authentic. It's not fake. Okay? You have to be authentic about this stuff. But just thanking them immediately when they do something that you like, I think that's huge. And the quicker that you can do it closer to whatever the action that you want them to take, the more it will resonate with them. That's big. I think also just snacks in the office and good snacks. Not like, crappy snacks. Like, good snacks that are nourishing. Talking about how to fuel not only our patient's body, but how do we fuel our body. Like, I bring electrolytes in, I bring nuts in. I bring dry apricots in, I bring fruit in. How do you have, like, little snacks there? Maybe you bring kind bars in that everyone can kind of, like, munch on to help get their energy up if they're feeling kind of low for the day because seeing patients does take energy. The next thing I like to do is team building events. We would go and do pole dancing classes. You could do self defense classes. Especially if it's an all female office. That's fun. You can do, you know, do a swimming event. You could go to topgolf and do a top golf thing. You could just do, do like a Christmas dinner outing with the team. Right? All that is important for team building and you want to be able to, you know, have friendship outside of just work. And the last thing I would say is mentorship. I find mentorship to be very, very important, especially with people coming on. But I do feel that they get it confused with, with internship. This is not an internship where the boss is going to be hanging out with you all day long and guiding you and giving you feedback. That's not how this works. Mentorship is allowing you to have the resources that you need to do the job that you were hired to do. That's what mentorship is allowing to have access for resources. Whether or not that's on piece of paper, whether or not that's a physical question of like, hey, I have this question. Can you help me answer it? Like, what does that look like? All the different things, that's mentorship. I find when you have mentorship, people do like that. So in summary here I would say wellness breaks are really good. Lunch breaks together. Asking them about their own personal goals, their personal life, where do they want to go in general, like, what is their personal goal? And really getting a deep understanding of that. So, so you as the owner can get them to understand that the business that they work for, AKA your company, is going to get them to reach their own goals. That's huge. Caring about them, bringing them little snacks in the office. You don't have to do it every day, but every now and then, team building events and mentorship, I would say those are the things that make employees the happiest. And if you could do that, well, people will stay on with you for a very, very long time. And your business will only go from here to here because you're not in the training phase of it. You're not having to do a reboot phase. It will take it to the next level. So hopefully that helps, guys, and hopefully you guys have a great rest of your day. Bye, guys.

Thank you guys so much for listening to the podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Jane. They are the people that are going to have amaz. Amazing scheduling system for your patients.

They're going to provide you with a super bill.

They're going to make templates for you. They're going to provide you with the best customer service. And because of that, they allowed us to have a code for one free month for those that are wanting to try Jane for their scheduling, checking out super bills, telehealth, all the different options. That code is Pelvibiz1MO. We'll put in the show notes. But Pelvis1MO. That is the code for Jane. And thank you so much Jane for sponsoring this podcast. If you guys want more information and want to learn how that you can keep bettering yourselves, go ahead, click the link down below and make sure that you book a call. And we love to provide any clarity questions on any follow ups. Bye guys.