Post #16: Getting Our Arms Around Today’s Challenges in the Optical (Part 2)

As we discussed last time, there are plenty of challenges keeping up with / keeping our arms around the optical in this day-and-age. Despite the predictions not so long ago that we’d be seeing record unemployment, we’re seeing polar opposite challenges of getting and keeping good help in small business, and specifically optometric practice, and more specifically in the optical, and it’s downright frustrating. We started a good conversation about dealing with these challenges last time, so let’s continue that this month. 

We discussed that the pendulum will eventually swing back, as it always does, and we’ll see a labor market more inclined to value getting and keeping a job. Some of the over-employment (as opposed to unemployment) trends is what we’re experiencing today, however, I suspect we’ll be experiencing for a good while and perhaps even from now on, a good bit of that will likely be attitudinal. The “what have you done for me lately?” attitude we’re experiencing of late in hiring may well be one such case. Although this may take more polite forms than blatantly ghosting a scheduled interview or a new hire simply not showing up for day one (can you imagine such things twenty-five years ago?), it seems at the very least it’s time we shift our paradigm from “getting someone hired” to deliberately recruiting and attracting people based on who they are and how they align rather than by their experiences and what those demand of us. 

So, let’s add to last month’s brainstorming list of ideas for getting our arms around challenges of the times in staffing and keeping-up in the optical. 

• For starters, in quick reiteration of recent Blog Posts 11, 12 and 13 (see the website ASAP if you missed these!), it is definitely time we shift our paradigm from one of hiring to one of recruiting. The times call for running an offense that keeps the practice staffed-up, and these days, that basically means we’re never not recruiting! 

Even when we’re fully staffed? Yes indeed, even then (which is likely the exception and not the rule in optical these past months). And when we are fully staffed in the optical, it can even be sound strategy to overstaff in these times when opportunity knocks – at least for a while – particularly when we have multiple doctors involved in the practice doing our manufacturing (generating prescriptions). When we’re faced with an optical staff person out sick, needing to quarantine, on vacation or leaving the practice (including for the traditional reasons of moving, retiring, working in the family business, career changes, staying at home or what have you), we can have shipping (getting product selection made and those prescriptions filled) problem pretty darn quickly. And given the times, such a thing can leave us too short-handed in other practice areas to pull someone over into optical for the moment or the day. 

• Some colleagues are moving to a system of patients scheduling appointments (with the optical staff) for optical selection, not at all unlike they schedule exams with the optometrist(s). This goes back to our previous analogy of our version of manufacturing (in the exam room) and shipping (in the optical). One client with five doctors (which is a lot of manufacturing!) has gone to this almost exclusively in one of their locations, and although it’s taken some getting used to for patients, they’ve been able to largely position this as a beneficial thing. Most patients get that businesses are having to make adjustments in serving customers these days (as they are in their own businesses). And this has made all the difference for the optical staff (who were overrun by dozens of patients/customers in the optical at once and understaffed in servicing them), feeling like they’re in control rather than out of control most of the day. 

We’ve of course had to accommodate patients wanting to look at glasses now and not at an appointed time (which has been the main focus of their Team Development Meetings of late), but we’re largely winning on this front. In fact, when fully staffed again (for which they’ve been training-up new hires and position-shifting staff from other areas to optical), it appears they like this enough to keep with it indefinitely. 

• Simple as it sounds, we’re taking extra care in the optical (and throughout the practice) to be deliberate about when doctors AND staff take lunch breaks, when they have their regular (scheduled) days off, when they take vacation, etc., and taking strategic initiatives accordingly. Included in these initiatives, we’re doing what we can to make sure optical staff, and other staff with optical experience/capability who can help cover, take lunches, vacations, days off, etc., at different times. This isn’t easy and can require some changes (including doctor schedules), but when we’re consistently short-handed, this becomes all the more important. We’ve seen a number of colleagues for whom this has really helped, albeit requiring some creativity and a willing spirit of rising-up to the times. 

•We’re advising clients to do some old fashioned “smiling and dialing” these days – picking up the phone and calling owner and staff family members and friends, retired former employees, people we know from places who were customers who might want some additional work and anyone else that comes to mind. We’re reaching out to them directly regarding the possibility of part-time help during a time we can sure use it. Some of these have become longer-term arrangements, even bringing a few people out of retirement (who better than someone with a career under her/his belt to come in and contribute significantly day-one). I received this email from a client yesterday, which I think illustrates this action well:

“We brought in both of my nieces, who have some past experience in eye care or reception: Ashley’s sister-in-law, who has agreed to work part-time for now, Jeff’s niece, who starts nursing school in the fall, and we’re still talking with a couple others who might be able to help part-time for a while ...” A few days ago, this colleague was in a bad way for help, and just like that, they have the upper hand on this! 

Also, look to the places good people are available. The hospitality sector has a good many folks still out of work from the pandemic, and some really good people and really good WITH people that are currently out of work. I’ve lost count of how many bartenders we’ve hired of late, and I can’t think of one of them not killin’ it in their new-found career! Don’t get me wrong, I love when we can hire someone who both fits our culture bill AND has experience; but when choosing between the two, even with its inconveniences, I’ll take the former EVERY TIME! 

• Let’s get an Optical Internship up and running as an ongoing current and future help strategy if we haven’t already. I like this as a paid position and investing training time, attention and effort as though we intend that this person will stay with the practice a good while and even indefinitely. Sometimes the biggest differences start as small ones. 

Interestingly, almost without exception, when we’ve sought folks out in these ways, we’ve managed to get some good help. And we’ve been able to put them into real action sooner than we might have considered with the old workplace paradigms. We’re living in times we might have to step-up before we feel like we’re fully battle-ready, and patients (customers) get that this is part of rising-up to the times. 

• This is also a time to be deliberate about efficiencies in the optical. An example is gaining efficiencies with clear, more straightforward doctor recommendations that have patients more ready to roll when they transition to optical staff. This is also a great time to revisit your baton pass (transition of the patient from doctor to staff), with more deliberate actions and verbiage for staff to get the patient headed down the recommended road(s) quicker. I find most practices could significantly improve such things and are often surprised to learn how differently these things are happening with different doctors and staff inside the SAME PRACTICE! 

Invite your optical (and other) staff to be fully engaged in this efficiencies conversation. And if you have multiple locations, this is the time to be bringing those teams together (lean on the ease of virtual meeting, which has become a no-brainer in these times) for such dialogue. It amazes me how one location of a practice has developed a way of doing something that’s made a major difference, but given time challenges of our day, has not exported that to the other location(s) and we waste a fine export opportunity. 

This is also a great time to be leveraging the strategy of product programs rather than just multiple products (i.e., the All-Distances Program with the Light Control Package could be 3 or 4 different individual treatment plan items easily and efficiently recommended and executed as one program). The times call for deliberate, concise process, Colleagues. So let’s have it. 

• Something we likely need to realize about these times, at least for the moment, is we may be managing revenue-and-expense relationships with benchmarks from a former time. The assumptions of the old normal might not be all that dated by the actual calendar (perhaps only months), but none-the-less be completely outdated and even archaic in these times. Wage inflation has moved very quickly of late, and it may be time for some compensation adjustments – particularly in optical where we might well be talking dollars per hour, not quarters. We’ve talked in detail in several posts (most recently Posts 11, 12, 13) about strategies for improving culture in the practice (aside from compensation, the number one reason employees stay or leave is CULTURE!) as a deliberate force in team retention, and a winning culture is absolutely critical to that end. Alongside that, we need to remain competitive with compensation for keeping great staff in optical these days (including a solid, team-wide bonus system to lend incentive of upside earnings potential and inspire teamwork). That can mean, at least for a time, we’re not abiding in some of the traditional expense ratio benchmarks. But I have a feeling, if we’re to be in touch with reality in a new normal, we’re going to see some benchmarks changing forever. 

One thing’s for sure, Colleagues. It’s a new normal regarding staffing, and at least for a while, we need to stop managing it with paradigms of a past normal. It’s time to get creative and shift some of our thinking. 

I’ve long held there are two opposites in taking action. On the one hand, fools rush in. On the other, over-analysis causes paralysis. As with so many things, the right answer lies somewhere in the middle. That said, we’re living in times that have me inclined more toward the “rushing in” end of the spectrum, and that’s not making us fools at all. Not that we’re not taking time to discern and make sound decisions, but I liken the times to overtime in a ballgame … We need quick action to GET UP and STAY UP! 

That might involve some modified game planning for at least the overtime period (not that we can’t get back to running our regular offense, but who knows what we’ll learn in the meantime!). The times in staffing and managing optical, and really ALL the practices’ management centers, require swift and decisive leadership and action; and your team is looking to yours truly for that. Comes with the territory, right Boss? And as we keep dialing-in on the moving targets of these times, let’s keep a creative dialogue going.

Well, Colleagues, that’s a wrap. We’ve managed a pretty comprehensive conversation these last two posts about rising-up to the challenges of our day in Optical. Let’s put some of this to work! 

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.