By Diane Palombi, OD
Sept. 2, 2015
One of the most important skills you need to learn as a practice owner is how to effectively delegate. In addition to ensuring those you delegate to are competent enough to do the assigned tasks, you also have to ascertain the level of trust you have in them.
I owneda small practice, and even in a small practice, delegation is essential for operations to run smoothly.
Delegation Do’s & Don’ts
DO document employee strengths and weaknesses, also jotting down for yourself which tasks those strengths and weaknesses best align with.
DO assign those with outsize personalities, and who enjoy interacting with people, optical sales roles.
DON’T necessarily assume a great optical salesperson is also a great optical bookkeeper.
DO allow a skilled optician to make frame purchases, but double-check the financial day sheets.
DON’T delegate practice bank transactions–except to a close family member (you trust), like a spouse or a child.
DO pay all bills yourself, as practice owner. The fewer people who have access to your bank account, the less chance there is of embezzling.
DO keep the cash drawer in your office under lock and key.
My practice, from which I am now retired, Palombi Vision Center, was very much a mom-and-pop operation, with just me and one employee in the office on any given day (different employees would be in the office with me on different days). However, despite our tiny staff, I still had responsibilities to delegate.
I based tasks on the individual strengths and weakness of my employees. It’s unusual that one employee will be good with people, plus competent with technical skills, as well as responsible enough to trust with money.
For example, one staff member was an excellent optician, and had a wonderful rapport with people. Her weakness, though, was math. I allowed her to make frame purchases–with additional work for me required at the end of the day. I knew that I was going to have to balance the day sheet after work on the days that she was present. She was capable of doing insurance EOBs, but I always checked her work afterwards.
Sometimes the most trusted person to delegate to is your own flesh and blood. My daughter was excellent with math, so I allowed her to do the day sheets, insurance EOBs and go to the bank.
Being (trusted) family, I had her make deposits and get petty cash. If she was there when a frame representative was present, I encouraged her to give me her input on which frames she thought teens and young adults would like. She was my most versatile employee–and my longest running one, helping out at the office from my earliest days in practice.
I felt so strongly about the trust I had in my daughter that I created my own rule: If you are not family, you are not handling my cash. I kept the cash drawer in my office, and paid all the bills myself, so no one outside my family had access to my checking account. As a result, I did more office work than many optometrists, but doing these extra tasks myself allowed me to keep my finances secure. It would have been extremely difficult for a staff member to embezzle from me.
You can’t always take people at their word, including your most trusted employees. No matter how much faith you have in your office or optical manager, or other employees in your practice, it is important to provide strong guidance, and to closely review their work–especially if it involves monetary transactions.
How closely do you monitor your employees? What is your system for double-checking that all monetary transactions handled by staff are legitimate?
Diane Palombi, OD, now retired,owned Palombi Vision Center in Wentzville, Mo. To contact her: dlpod1@hotmail.com
