Staff Management

Training the New Hire: an Action Plan

By Trudi Charest

In an optometric practice, training often is overlooked and under-provided—but it is critical in maximizing job performance and practice profitability. Here is an action plan for training the new hire.

Optometrists often tell me they don’t have time to adequately train their new employees. In fact, many do not even know what new hire training is. Most say it happens in a haphazard manner–with the out-going employee having the new hire follow him or her around for a day. For other ODs, training may mean nothing more than a new employee learning by trial and error on-the-job.

On the contrary, new hire training should be a systematic, well thought out introduction to each job role in your practice. That introduction comprises a structured curriculum that should be multifaceted with written materials such as instructions for troubleshooting left by the out-going employee, demonstrations of lessons in the form of materials like DVDs or live role-plays and practice, which can take the form of new hire participation in role-play exercises or job shadowing and assisting a star employee.

Failure to provide adequate training leads to staff that is unprepared to fulfill their job roles and employee disengagement and attrition. What employee wants to stick with a job he is told he is under-performing in yet is given little guidance on to improve? To efficiently prepare staff to provide superior service I recommend drawing up templates, or ready-made training action plans, for each stage of the employee lifecycle.

Top Staff Training Web Sites and Free Resources

www.ecpuniversity.com

www.transitions.com (click on “Transitions Professional”)

www.thevisioncouncil.org (click on “Members – Training”)

www.2020mag.com (click on “CE”)

www.totallyoptical.com (click on “Education”)

www.opticiantraining.com

www.opticianonline.net (click on “Continuing Education”)

www.opticampus.com

www.quantumoptical.com

www.seikoeyewear.com (click on “CE”)

Your effort in developing ready-to-go training materials and learning plans for your staff will pay off–literally. Better prepared and engaged employees equal greater practice revenues. According to the American Society for Training and Development, investment in employee training enhances a company’s financial performance. An increase of $680 in a company’s training expenditures per employee generates, on average, a 6 percent improvement in total shareholder return. Based on the training investments of 575 companies during a three-year period, researchers found that firms investing the most in training and development (measured by total investment per employee and percentage of total gross payroll) yielded a 36.9 percent total shareholder return as compared with a 25.5 percent weighted return for the S&P 500 index for the same period.

Assess Your Training Resources
First you must decide who will conduct the training. For example, you might decide that you have large enough practice to spare a star employee for a few days to train the new hire in her department. If you can spare that star employee for one to a few days, there are benefits to both the new hire as well as the employee conducting the trainer. The star employee feels recognition for being chosen to train and also will have her skills reinforced by teaching those skills to the new employee.

If you decide that none of your staffers are prepared for this task, investment in a third-party trainer such as an optical sales training consultant may be a good idea. Training consultants charge fees that vary wildly–from as little as $500 or less per day to well over $1,000 per day for a full-scale program for multiple employees. Get recommendations and comparison shop to make sure you make an intelligent choice.

Staff-Written Guidebooks for New Hires

Generic training manuals for job roles are available from some of your vendors. For example, you can get ready-to-go online training called “Quick Start” from Essilor’s ECP University for new-to-optics employees. Supplement that generic job role information with job role instructions specific to your office. Enable new hires to guide much of their training by putting together self-training binders filled with materials such as office protocols like how to answer the phone, how to explain policies like warranties or how to open and close the office. You can do that by making it part of each staffers job to document once a year the tasks that comprise their work days. There should be a section that includes common issues, such as a patient difficulty with insurance processing or eyeglasses ordering that frequently comes up and what some of the solutions are to those common issues.

Beware: Don’t Let Disgruntled Out-Going Employee Train New Hire

Job shadowing can be a no-cost, effective way to train new hires, but not if the person the new hire is shadowing is leaving your practice under unfavorable circumstances. If the employee who is leaving was laid-off, or is leaving of his own accord, but following a dispute with you or one of the other doctors, do not ask him to train your new hire. The unhappy out-going employee may be honorable, and do a good job training the new employee, but it is not worth taking the chance. The risk is the new hire will not be taught the skills she needs to be successful, or will begin her tenure at your practice with a bitter taste in her mouth.

When Possible, Learn by Shadowing
A great way not only for new hires to learn, but any staffer transitioning into a new job role, is to have that newbie shadow the out-going employee or another employee who is doing the tasks she will be expected to do. It’s one thing to read through a guidebook of information and another to watch and help out as an apprentice in the new job role before fully taking over. For example, the guidebook may explain how to assuage a patient who is irate that her eyeglasses took longer than expected to be ready for pickup. But until the new staffer sees for herself–in person and perhaps as an assistant–how the staff-patient conversation plays out, they will lack a full understanding.

Providing systematic training for new hires will enable you to provide better service to patients and create a happier, longer-lasting staff.

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Trudi Charest is director of training, human resources and events at Eyerecommend. To contact her: tcharest@eyerecommend.ca

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