What’s up with my staff? They never seem to be very happy to see the patients or each other for that fact. They just come in and do their job without any enthusiasm. If you are hearing yourself say these things about your staff you might be suffering from “Low Employee Morale.”
As a physician business owner or manager you have the opportunity to set the tone each day for your staff members. Over the past few years’ surveys have shown that employee morale is ona steady downward spiral.
If we can understand what is causing this to happen, hopefully we can prevent it from invading our medical practices. Here is a list with a few of those workplace downers that have been reported.
- The Physician(s) or management staff is more concerned about themselves and how they are doing than they are of the welfare of their staff members.
- Physician(s) or managers are not accountable for their actions and when things do not go, as they should, instead of accepting the blame themselves they blame their staff.
- Physician(s) or managers do not give staff the information they need or enough training, which makes staff members look incompetent in doing their job.
- When Physician(s) or managers send mixed messages to their staff. They change the rules to fit the need, their need, and the staff starts to wonder what the policies are going to be each day. They never know because things are always changing on a whim.
Working in this type of environment makes people feel out of control because there is no set standards or rules, which lead to confusion and disillusion.
Whether you are the Physician business owner or a manager, you have a responsibility to the staff in your practice. You must make sure you are not leading them on a downward spiral because it will be pretty lonely at the bottom for you.
