Recognizing employees success in the office is an important factor in building their self-confidence in their job and also is a big motivator to encourage work habits in the right direction that will make them successful at their career and enhance your practice. As employers or management we all to often can find the short-comings and mistakes that employees make and focus more on these than their successes, which probably happen more often, but go unnoticed. It is expected that they accomplish their job duties successfully so there is no real reward for doing so. Smart employers know that by recognizing success and acknowledging their employees for these, they are creating “excitement and motivation” in their employees that will pay off ten-fold to the practice. By catching employees “doing good” up and beyond what is expected and rewarding them for it, makes them realize that they are appreciated and they will want to try to perform in a way that will have a positive affect on the practice and on them. For example; several months ago one of our employees realized that there were referrals of patients that had not called to make an appointment yet, but had been referred to the office by their primary physician. She took it upon her own to pull all of these referrals and call them to have them schedule appointments. I had been watching and listening to her do this throughout the day and when she was done she mentioned that the schedule was now filled for the following week and seemed quite excited about it. I asked her what made her make the calls without being asked and she said “well we had some openings next week and I knew that we had these referrals that had not called for an appointment, so I decided that if their primary doctor thought is was important for them to be seen that they sent a referral to us, that I should call them to make sure they get an appointment.” I was so excited that she took it upon her own to do something that was positive for our practice. I told her how great it was that she acted on her own to do something to add to our patient schedule the following week and that it showed that she was thinking about what was good for all of us by doing so. She was very happy that she had acted in a positive way for the practice also. But I didn’t let is stop there, I not only told the doctor so he could thank her and tell her that her actions were appreciated, but I went out and purchased a $25 Visa card and gave it to her the next day with a hand written card thanking her again for seeing a need and figuring out how to fill it. Now this is not something that happens everyday, but I have recognized success in employee actions and rewarded it in multiple ways, such as a thank you card, flowers, Starbucks card, lunch, etc. It has made a difference in our staff because they know we not only are watching and listening to them, but we appreciate what they do and this motivates everyone in the office to do the best job they can to provide the best patient service and care each day. Take the time to look for success and then recognize it in someway, it will make a difference.
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