Will Humphreys explains why physical therapists leave their jobs and what actually keeps them. The answer isn't money. It's helping them find their long-term goals and feel connected to something bigger than the daily work.
Chapters
The number one reason why people leave, they've done studies and studies on this over and over again. The number one reason is that people don't feel like they have a path forward in their business. So what you just said around how to create those paths is brilliant. What I would add is that, you know, when we're creating paths, we oftentimes, like, assume that the people who are that we're working with, they know what they want. And that's really the bigger problem. People don't progress, but they don't even know what they want. So as owners and leaders, our job in part is to help them discover that. So I do this thing called a vision meeting. I do it once a year with the employees. I try to make it separate from the review, but I'll combine the two. And it's like, what do you want to be when you grow up? Is the theme. It's like, all right, so you're a PT now. What is it that you really want? It always starts the same way. I just want to be somewhere where I'm happy and treat patients and that I'm like, okay, but let's say you're doing that. What do you want to do beyond that? I don't know. Great. Well, let me give you some ideas. Do you want to open a clinic one day and be your own leader? Do you want to be specialized in something? Do you want to go into education? Is there something outside of physical therapy that's really important to you that you want? And then I'll say, and when you dream, have you ever wanted, like a cabin in the woods? Or, like, do you want a beach house or do you want to have, like, early retirement? Like, what do you want? Do you want to travel? And that's such a fun discussion to have. And no kidding for me, in terms of technique, that's the number one tool I use for retention. My goal is to have them see what it is that they want long term for themselves and how what they're doing in my company is going to get them there. You know, the thing that you're touching base on is like this thing called making what we do at our company like a movement. And by the way, this is a huge technique in the interview process to get people to join the company in the first place is to really be clear on your stance. For us to be clear on our stance. So listen. So just for an example, you know, helping people know what they want and their vision and how their company's going to get there is one of the biggest techniques we can to retain them. The other thing is to provide something that no one else can, which is clarity on the movement of the company. So in the black, I use my billing company a lot just because it's the organization that I have leadership in that's the most relevant. In the black, we don't hire billers, we hire financial therapists and we hire mercenaries. And the reason I say that is because we are fighting insurance. We talk about this intentionally in our team meetings, and I would invite you to do the same is what is your cause? What are you taking a stand for or against at your company? I'm taking a stand against the fear that governs physical therapy. That's my personal stance in the black, is taking a stand against the suppressive nature of insurance companies. And I talk about that in every monthly meeting. Here's we stand together. Remember, if there's one word we could say to describe retention, it's connection. Connection to their vision, connection to a team, a community. We feel connected. We. They will never leave unless you really screw up the money and the stats and that stuff. Like, it's. The stance is really important and the verbiage is so valuable around that. So what do you stand for it at your company? And it doesn't have to be this like, we're changing the profession, but it can be. We're taking a stand against inadequate care in our rural community. Right. We're taking a stand for the patients in these rural communities that they can get just as good, if not better care out here than anywhere else. So when you think about hiring someone and using that verbiage, like, how powerful that is and how that can really use them, like, hey, listen, we're looking for PTs who not only love how to care, but they want to take a stand with us to provide the best care in these rural communities that usually they don't have access to. It creates emotion. And remember, we make decisions on emotion, whether or not we're going to pick a company or whether or not we're going to go somewhere else.
