What NOT To Say To Your Staff When They Ask For A Raise And You Can’t Afford It

How do you get more new patients or hire more clinicians at your clinic and yet still remain profitable? This is the question, and I'm on a journey to get you the answer. I'm going to interview the best marketers and clinic owners across the world to give you access to their winning strategies from recruitment, marketing, operations, finance, and more. So you can easily take action on the secrets to grow your clinic. I'm Rick Lau. Welcome to Clinic Boss Secrets.

Hey, y'.

All, it's Rick Lau here. You're gonna love this episode. We talk about what not to say when your staff asks you for a RA because you can't afford it.

Check it out. All right, so, hi. I wanted to pull you in today because I know that you've expressed that you were interested in having a wage increase, and I want to sit you down. I want to sit down with you and explore that a little bit more. Yes, perfect. So, first of all, I just wanted to get your expectations around what that looked like.

Well, I've been. It's been a year. I think I've done a good job. And, you know, with inflation, the cost of living, I think I a. My understanding is that after you've been here for a year, you get a wage increase. So I think I'm deserving of that and would like to see that happen.

That is. I hear you, and that's completely fair. And I understand where you're coming from in terms of feeling like you've been here for a year and that you're providing value to the clinic. And first of all, I want to recognize that we do see your value and the work that you've put in here, and we appreciate that you're part of our team. No problem. We at the moment. So looking at wage increases, I do recognize that there definitely is increases in cost of living at the moment and that it has been a year. I think at this point, we know that we're in a little bit of a vulnerable position in the clinic, and at this point, we don't have the finances to be able to increase your wage at this moment. That said, I want. We. You also know that we've kind of been working together as a clinic, really, to work on marketing and working on increasing our assessments and caseloads and all that kind of stuff. And that's kind of our big goals over the next six months. And so what I want to do with you is, as I said, we don't necessarily have those finances at the moment to pull, even though we recognize your value. But I Want to look at this in another few months, and as this transitions over the next three to six months, I want to set a time in a few months where we can look at where the clinic is and be able to reassess this again for you. How does that sound to you?

Well, not great. Like, I feel like I've brought a ton of value to the clinic and I've helped keep it running over the year. And have I not done a good job? Like, is there something I haven't done?

No, I don't think there's. I think you have been really valuable to the clinic and where. Your honor said, with this, we recognize your value, but the issue right now is not necessarily around what you're bringing into the clinic, but more that we won't. If we continue to. At this moment, if we increase wages that we can't support as a business, we actually won't have a business to come to. And so we need to be really conscientious right now about the decisions we're making around that. And we value you, and we value your job. And unfortunately, this is why we have to make some of those decisions, is because we want you to have a job and we want you to have a safe and secure workplace. And so it's not that we don't want to give you an increase in wage, but we need to be able. We want to make sure that we're financially supporting every single clinician, every single. And every single admin team member in this clinic, and we're not in a position right now to be able to increase that, or else the whole business and every single clinician and every single admin team won't have a job to come to. So at this moment, this is not just you, but this is across the board that we need to pause this at the moment and come back to this in three months when we start tracking the numbers and seeing those numbers change.

Yeah, I just. I'm not sure I can wait for three months. Like, I. I looked at other places, and I'm getting paid much less for the same position in other places. And I know I'm doing a good job and bringing value, so I. I don't think I can wait 3, 6 months for a wage increase at this time. And that's not what was indicated when I started here. And I understand. But I. I have. You know, I have to live as well. And I'm willing. I'm committed to this company. I've done a good job. I've shown up, prove myself, and I'm willing to do more to help grow the company, but I can't wait six months.

So maybe let's explore that a little bit more in terms of. So you're absolutely right that we need to be able to grow this company. And thinking in your role, maybe we can think of some things that you can do that will help us actually increase what, increase the overall business. Being able to pull in more assessments or being able to keep our caseload a little higher. And if we can use your expertise and your knowledge around that and we are able to use that to be able to increase numbers, then maybe that's something that we can look at. Do you have any ideas around what you can bring that can enable us to look at that again?

Yeah, I do. I have lots of ideas and I'm happy to do the work, but I want something. I don't know what was the expected raise that you were going to give me? What was the number?

So at this. So maybe we can work together.

There was none of the financial things. And what amount of raise would you give me if that wasn't the case?

Yeah. So maybe we can talk about this from a little bit of a different perspective. We had just talked about kind of things that maybe you can bring to the table. And I think that's the first step is to maybe explore that a little bit more. So I know you said you have some ideas and you don't necessarily. I want you to have time to sit and think and bring those ideas forward with that if you can. Maybe if you can think about those ideas and write them out for me, maybe we can schedule another one on one meeting or we have our meeting next week or we could even if you need a little bit more time, the week after and we can actually go through what your ideas are in terms of being able to support the business and what roles you can look on. Take. You can look at taking on. And then with that, we can then look at. Because you're bringing in that little bit more business and supporting that business end, then maybe we can look at that change in wage.

Yeah, no, I'm happy to do that. I just want to know what I'm working towards. So I, I have a number that I know. Like, you know, if you're. If it's like a $10 wage increase in six months, no problem. If it's. If it's a dollar in six months, I don't know. Yeah, I'll have to think about it.

Yeah, our typical thing. Our typical wage. Yeah.

This is this is great.

I'm so sorry.

I was.

No, no, it's great. This is exactly the conversation I'll be having.

Oh, my gosh.

I felt for you because you're doing such a good job, like, you really were. And I was being nasty.

I felt awkward. Oh, no, but this is real. This is 100 real of, like, what you would go through.

Right. But that's the thing. You got to be ready for that. Yeah.

For somebody to come at. So worst case scenario, they're going to come at you. What's the number? What were you going to give me? What am I working towards?

Yeah.

So you got to come. If they don't go there.

Awesome.

If they're like, okay, no problem. Oh, good. Best safe scenario. Plan for the best, plan for the worst. If you end in the middle. Awesome.

Yeah.

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