Hiring new staff members always presents a challenge, regardless of the size and scope of your practice. Whether you’re a new clinic owner hiring your first staff member, or you manage multiple locations and you’re expanding your roster, finding the right office manager doesn’t get any easier. That’s why we’re taking a moment to reflect on 5 things that will help ensure your clinic is hiring the right office manager.

 

1) Ensure they’re friendly

 

They say that first impressions last a lifetime. Upon meeting someone, a judgement is made within the first seven seconds, and then the rest of then the rest of your time spent knowing them will either reaffirm, or refute this judgment. But the key takeaway here is that their first impression will be fresh in your mind for a long time. This makes it crucial to hire an office manager that radiates positivity and can create an outstanding first impression not only with yourself, but also with your staff, patients, physicians, and everyone else they may come in to contact with through the course of a day.

 

2) Ensure they’re comfortable with technology

 

Technology continues to impact the way that PTs, OTs, and SLPs run their clinics. If a therapist from the 90’s was to wake up in 2017 and walk into a clinic, they’d be taken aback by all of the computers, tablets, and smartphones floating around the office. And as the years progress, technology will continue to evolve and become further integrated with the workflow. Ensure the office manager your hiring is proficient, or at the very least, comfortable with the use of technology.

 

3) Hire someone who demonstrates loyalty

 

Bringing on a new staff member is a big deal, regardless of the size of your practice. Part of the hiring process involves sifting through resumes and reviewing candidates’ past experience. You’ll want to avoid individuals with resumes that fail to demonstrate a consistent track record or a sporadic work history. If the person has held five different jobs with five different companies in the past two years, it’s unlikely that they’ll be willing to spend a meaningful amount of time with your company.

 

Did you know EMR software can automate your workflow? Click here to learn how. 

 

4) Don’t hire based solely on experience

 

Conversely, experience shouldn’t be your only consideration when hoping to hire the right office manager. Recent university graduates lament the fact that most companies are only looking to hire individuals with experience; but the irony is that they aren’t given an opportunity to acquire said experience in the first place. Many former students in this position possesses a wealth of technical knowledge. Their minds are fresh and ready to adapt to a new work environment—so don’t be so quick to write them off.

 

5) Invest in their growth

 

Your new office manager will be occupying an integral role in your PT, OT, or SLP clinic. Ideally, you won’t be hiring then to be the office manager for a few months—you’ll want them there for years to come. So if you see an opportunity to invest in their professional growth, whether it be a webinar, a conference, or a course you can send them to, then don’t hesitate to spend that money and help your office manager ascend to the next level.

A telltale sign of a successful practice is the fact that it’s growing, and practice growth can occur in a number of different ways. On the low-end, it may mean that your therapists are seeing more patients. This will eventually lead you to hiring more treatment providers to help to deal with the influx.

 

Ultimately, you may find yourself with too many patients and treatment staff for one facility, thus, you’ll be prompted move to a larger facility, or open an additional facility—this is the goal of practice growth. But at the heart of growth is staff, and in this article, we’ll be sharing some tips for how to hire the right treatment provider staff.

 

Leverage the web

 

With the proliferation of social media platforms like LinkedIn, it’s become incredibly easy to look up your potential hire’s work experience. LinkedIn is kind of like Facebook for your CV. By checking it, you’re likely to see all of their past employers, career highlights, and testimonials from colleagues and managers.

 

Hire experienced treatment providers

 

When searching for the right treatment provider, it certainly helps to hire one with experience. This doesn’t mean that you should go out and hire the treatment provider who wrote the book on patient focused care—it just means that you should look for someone who has demonstrated a couple years of commitment to the field. A treatment provider with several years on the job will be able to handle themselves in a variety of situations, and can even serve as a mentor to therapist with less experience.

 

Form partnerships with local post-secondary institutions

 

Speaking of therapists with less experience, it’s advantageous to connect with the faculty at local post-secondary institutions and introduce yourself to the next generation of treatment providers. What these students lack in experience, the make up for in drive.

 

Some of these students might be interested in shadowing your therapists or learning more about a day in the life of a clinic owner. And whether you allow these students to volunteer at your clinic, or you even end up hiring one, there’s a lot to be said for someone who’s willing to learn.

 

Hire coachable staff members

 

No matter how experienced the treatment provider is, a good team member is willing to take feedback and criticism. When you’re looking for a new treatment provider, it isn’t always about finding the one with the most experience or prestigious references—it’s about finding an individual with the right attitude.

 

No matter how much training and experience they received at their last place of employment, things might be a little different at your facility. You’ll want to be sure that this individual will be able to easily adopt your processes and acclimate themselves to your clinic’s environment.

 

Put training systems in place

 

Is there someone in your office who plays a crucial role that you’d be lost without? It might be your office manager, your managing provider, or even your front desk staff. But regardless who it is, you can’t allow your business to grind to a halt just because they unexpectedly left your clinic.

 

If you need to find a replacement quickly, you’ll need to train them equally fast. This can be easily achieved by creating systems and processes that can be used by your new hire, or anyone required to fill their shoes for a day. For example, you may want to create a training manual, or ask your staff members to write out their daily procedures for you.