As you know, we often center the blog posts around the coaching HELP DESK conversations of the month. And WOW, have there been a few of those of late on challenges keeping up with and getting our arms around the optical.
My guess is you know exactly of what we’re speaking here. It’s almost to “broken record status” in the current normal as we experience the on-going challenges of the Virus Era. After hearing of the epic unemployment we’d be experiencing, upwards of 40 percent we were told, we find ourselves farther and farther into a trend exactly opposite of that; and the challenges of getting and keeping good help in small business, and specifically optometric practice, and more specifically in the optical, are downright frustrating. Anything here sounding familiar?
If it helps you feel better, it’s not just us, Colleagues. Over the weekend, Dane and I stayed in a hotel while traveling, and the first thing I noticed checking-in was that there were very few hotel employees around. Second was the big sign at the front desk apologizing for any inconveniences resulting from their being short of staff. As you could have guessed, our rooms did not get serviced either night/day of our stay, nor did we see signs that anyone intended to do so. You might be wondering, as was I, if they would extend a courtesy savings accordingly. Nope, full price. It seems to just go with the times – have you noticed that as a consumer as you experience today’s service shortages?
So is this ‘employee shortage’ thing going to get better? Yes, I suspect it will. I suspect the pendulum will swing as it typically does with things. As we experience more and more small businesses either unable or unwilling to continue in these times, and once significant employers no longer there and employing, I suspect we’ll see a time when people are vying for jobs, rather than jobs vying for people. And although a tighter or looser employment market has its own challenges, we in small business could use a bit (just a bit, mind you) an employment seller’s market sometime soon.
In the meantime, Colleagues, it is incumbent on us that we get pro-active. And creative. For the moment (and foreseeable future it seems), it’s likely time for some significant steps (perhaps even drastic in some situations); some of which break with historical norms and even some of the benchmarks we’ve followed for decades. I’m glad to share below some real-life and real-time information regarding “the help,” along with examples of measures colleagues are successfully taking of late to cope with the times … in hopes such a dialogue helps you get the creative juices flowing on the home front. So let’s go.
First, consumers (patients, clients, customers) get what’s happening, and many are experiencing similar “help challenges” in their own workplaces (like the hotel aforementioned). But if being regularly short-staffed in optical is significantly and consistently negatively impacting the patient experience in your practice with little end in sight, it may be time to back off a bit at the “manufacturing level” (generating prescriptions) for some catch-up at the “shipping level” (optical selection and dispensing).
Clients who have leveraged this strategy have mostly done so by blocking out certain doctor hours (or in extremely demanding situations, full days) as “Admin Time” (which of course we can always use and has lasting positive practice impact), rather than changing the actual way we schedule. We’re designating both a start date and a planned end date when we’ll return to the “normal schedule” (which is forecast relative to cross training efforts in place, hiring as it occurs, team member job shifting of current staff into optical indefinitely, etc.). For the most part, we’re finding production from this measure is not dropping proportionately to doctor hours reduced, as we’re able to focus more on fulfilling ALL the needs of the patients we ARE seeing (not unlike during reduced schedules for COVID that were surprisingly productive for most practices). So Revenue-Per-Patient (and other metrics) trending up along with volume trending down is largely making-up for necessary manufacturing decreases of lower Rx volumes. (Side note here – this is definitely a time to be tracking and doing weekly team reporting of those metrics and responding to those trends as a team!)
• We’re doing as much cross-training as I’ve seen over the decades, and for good reason. We may be particularly short-handed in optical, but we have a team of employees outside of optical that already know the industry, are familiar with their co-workers (doctors AND staff) and practice systems, even know the patients (which is a big help when jumping into the fire -- customers tend to give a bit more benefit of the doubt when they know the person helping them).
I recommend blocking out cross-training time at least monthly these days (and perhaps from now on), and more often weekly or even daily when circumstances demand. We’re getting as creative as we can to accomplish this, including training shorts (thirty or even fifteen minutes) before hours by virtual gathering, scheduling longer lunch periods a time or two a week; whatever it takes. Remember the sign I mentioned at the hotel front desk – customers understand in this day-and-age that their providers, and they in their own workplaces, need to be and are doing what they can to adapt. Oh, they’ll still bang on the door and peek in the windows when we’re doing our training (some things never change), but perhaps with a bit more understanding if we have to close for training on Wednesday (best to have someone receiving them during that time when we can – perhaps a former retired employee coming in to cover phones/front office when we’re training until we get up to speed).
• In addition to cross-training for calling on help in optical (or up-front or in the clinic as well), we’re also seeing a good bit of what I call job shifting to the optical in these times. So in addition to helping more of our overall staff be capable of “jumping in” when we’re calling for help in a given time and circumstance, we’re asking some staff to actually make what we might call a career change. Given that these team members typically have the familiarity aforementioned with team, systems, patients, etc. (although not always – sometimes in these times we have to just go with what we have!), we can have them ready to roll in a fraction of the time of a new person completely unfamiliar with what we do. As my good friend Jay at Summit Optical likes to say, keep your aces in their places! And to that I’ll add, we don’t have to change the aces or order to change their places now and then!
• We’re encouraging clients in these times to lean on our reps to help with this cross-training. This is a time for doubling-down on good partnerships, and to the extent we have those, we want to be fully leveraging them. These people have some of the best training out there in the industry, and they’re typically enjoyable people well-liked by your staff. I’ll wager a fine Nebraska steak that when you invite reps to come in and help you train-up your people (new AND established, staff AND doctors),
you’ll get a full-on “YES!” every time. They might even bring Subway or pizza for the team while they’re at it (there is such a thing as a free lunch from time to time)
By the way, this isn’t just the case for private practice in health care. Over the weekend I was invited to speak about Team Culture at a wealth management advisors meeting, which was terrific fun, and a number of their speakers were reps from companies with whom they do business.
• Speaking of reps, this is likely a good time to sit down with your reps and redefine their participation in your inventory management. As we bring-on more and more of an e-commerce solution for patients (remember, just because they want to buy on-line doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy from YOU – and doing so can save your team a boat load of time inside the bricks and mortar ), so it may be time to examine the current paradigm of your frame inventory.
Once upon a time, as we learned the importance of selection in consumer choice-making on frames, the inventory thinking was more is more. We certainly don’t want to forget lessons learned on the importance of a killer selection (which is a top-three reason they buy where they buy), but given our need for efficiencies to offset staff demands in the new normal, it may be a time for many colleagues where less is actually more. Funny how things change.
That said, we’ve made deliberate decisions with many clients of late to evolve inventory to be a bit leaner and meaner; with less willingness to waste time and space on frames outside of the “what sells in our practice” categories. And we’ve asked reps to take a much more active role in managing that alongside us, including providing metrics reports for our team on what’s selling in OUR PRACTICE relative to the geographical area and throughout the country. We’re leaning on them to be market researchers and advisors and putting incentivized thinking in place for this to go well for them. This is a time when it can be helpful to leverage companies vying for our business, with fewer of those companies trying harder rather than more of them trying not so hard.
Well this seems a good stopping point for Part 1, Colleagues. Let’s pick it up right there in Part 2 and continue our dialogue about Getting Our Arms Around Today’s Challenges in the Optical!
Like all THRIVE content, the purpose of BOWEN’S BLOG and SUMMIT TALK Podlecture conversations is to keep us driving together toward IMPACT. If something here has struck a chord, shoot us an email or give us a call and let’s talk it out! Tbowen@mythrivecoaches.com or 402-794-4064.