What a time Dane and I had with the Partners who made the trip to Helena for the SUMMIT SUMMIT last weekend. In the event you didn’t make it for the gathering, you were missed to be sure! The weather was literally perfect, the topics were HOT, the conversation was engaging, and the company and colleagueship were as good as it gets! 

As more and more colleagues have adjusted to a shorter-staffed workplace in the post- Covid era, we find ourselves in more and more conversations about maximizing team efficiency with more deliberate organizational structure.

We were thrilled to accept the AOA’s invitation to provide the keynote lecture at the first ever AOA Center for Independent Practice Symposium at Optometry’s Meeting in D.C. this past June. The venue seemed a fantastic opportunity to help re-establish the private practice narrative, which has disturbingly trended in some circles of late as not the thing to do.

As employers, we’ve been navigating changing waters of employee benefits for decades. In that span, as mentioned in Part 1, I don’t know that we’ve witnessed a more pronounced and rapid evolution in workforce and worker thinking than employee benefits in the Post-Pandemic Era. What a challenge this has been and is, Colleagues. 

That said, we’re discussing in this two-post series a couple particularly recognizable developing trends within the broader post-pandemic benefits conversation which are evolving even as we speak. In Part 1, we discussed healthcare benefits and the growing importance of significant and even full health insurance coverage as a core practice benefit and the mounting challenge of retaining employees long-term without this. Here in Part 2, we’ll cover the other, which as you’ve likely already guessed, is time off.

It’s remarkable how the Pandemic Era has impacted workforce and workplace thinking, and likely nowhere more considerably than how workers are valuing employee benefits. In my decades of colleague and practice team interactions, I don’t know that I’ve witnessed a more pronounced and more rapid evolution in thinking.

How many times have I heard it said by a wiser-for-the-wear colleague in their own words? ...Something to the effect of, “I can’t believe the difference it’s made for the team with so-and-so gone…it’s like a weight has been lifted and all the tension’s gone. I just wish we’d have let her/him go sooner…” 

Hundreds for sure. Maybe we’ve said it ourselves, or perhaps will be saying it shortly with all the “make it perfect for me” job hoppers touting optical or other skills and experience to hold short-handed practice teams hostage in the post-Covid world. 

With 54 million Millennials, including some of the twenty-somethings, composing the largest segment of today’s American workers, it’s high time we strategize specifically to attract and retain these workers.

And why wouldn’t we? Today’s twenty-somethings are more educated than ever, they’re tech savvy likeno other group in history, they have great work ethic when motivated, they’re oozing with energy that favorably impacts people of all ages and they value and want to be part of a great work culture.

I’ve been working at for Thrive for nearly two years now, and being recently out of college, find myself frequently answering the question, “What are you doing for work?” When I answer this question and explain what we do and with whom we work, I get a response fairly frequently that makes me cringe a little… something along the lines of, “I can’t remember the last time I went to the eye doctor.” I should also clarify that the people responding this way almost always belong to a similar demographic, specifically young and with no prescription/correction for heir vision. Regardless, it got me thinking about this age class of patients in our practices, and how great and important an opportunity they present.

As we roll into the final month of Q-1, Help Desk conversations with partners are reflecting two distinct trends in “changing of the tide” fashion. 

One, we’re seeing a good many colleagues seeking additional doctors to keep up with appointment demand (as well as plan succession) and generally having a harder time getting someone hired than in times past. To be sure, this reflects the high tide of the past decade-plus. 

Since posting Part 1 on a Real Live Marketing Plan last month, I had the fantastic opportunity to speak at a leadership conference during which the audience and I made an exciting discovery together. It was a simple discovery, but not a small one, and one I’d characterize as a team-changing epiphany.