Physicians Practice - April 2008 - (Page 36)

MANAGEMENT customer/patient in a manner that is consistent with being professional, and that means looking the part … Give them the exact parameters of what that means. Not just ‘Look nice.’ Because looking nice to me and looking nice to you are two different things.” physicians must give the newly appointed supervisor their “unequivocal support” and recognize her expanded authority. “Because if they waver on that, the promoted person will never get respect from her former peers,” she says. Severino adds that it’s a good idea to follow up staff promotion personnel changes in a way that proactively defuses any anticipated animosity. “We had a staff meeting to announce the change that was going to take place, and instead of focusing on the fact that I was the one who was assuming that position, we focused instead on the position itself,” she explains. By doing so, she says, the limelight was diverted away from her promotion above her peers, and instead spotlighted the roles and responsibilities of the position she was assuming. It made her transition much more seamless, says Severino, and her coworkers did not begrudge her the promotion. BENEFITS BEDLAM BE THE SOLUTION “To buy into change, staff must have a sense that they are part of it.” announcements with memos that explicitly describe the promoted employee’s new duties and lists the individuals or departments she will now supervise. “Tell your team that the practice expects its staff to give this person the same courtesy and respect they would to any other person,” says Severino. “I think that it may be harder on the manager who just got promoted sometimes than it is for other employees,” says Kronauge. “They must learn new management skills and how not to be ‘the coworker’ any longer.” Wishon-Powell agrees: “You are going from someone’s peer and coworker and sometimes friend to supervising them. … You can’t be their ‘best friend’ anymore. You can’t go out to lunch with them everyday, you cannot retain a sense of peer-to-peer relation. There must be some line drawn now that you are the supervisor.” She suggests discussing these issues with the employee you wish to promote before making the announcement. Ensure your new supervisor is prepared to deal with these issues before she learns she may not be up to the task. Serverino holds one of her own promotions up as a shining example of how a practice can announce Becky Kronauge, practice administrator IT’S NOT FAIR! Why was she promoted, and not me? I’ve been here much longer. I always knew the doctors liked her better. Usually workplace promotions are perceived by the employees who earn them as occasions for celebration. But many promoted workers can tell you it’s not the bed of roses they originally thought it would be. In-house promotions can bring to the surface previously concealed feelings of competition and jealousy or even inspire outright resentment and insubordination. In some cases, the promoted person’s peers will be truly happy for her and applaud what they feel is a well-deserved upward move. But in others, staff will feel the promotion was one based on favoritism rather than merit, and they will not mask their displeasure. Becker says that if management has the luxury of truly knowing their ofﬁce’s dynamics — which is more likely to be the case in smaller practices — they may want to take aside and explain to the individual employees from whom they expect the most resistance why their coworker was chosen, and tell them that they expect them to respect the decision. Wishon-Powell emphasizes that when promoting from within, a practice’s management team and 36 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | APRIL 2008 You know your overhead costs better than anyone. You know how much it costs to rent ofﬁce space, purchase new equipment, pay for supplies, and keep yourself marketable. But your staff doesn’t. And you cannot assume that they do. Although they may respect you, they often also think that you are raking in millions compared to their own self-perceived meager salaries. So when your calculations reveal that your practice is in the red and you must cut corners to keep your business — and the livelihoods of those you employ — aﬂoat, don’t be surprised when your staff doesn’t see it the same way. Remember that they do not have access to the bigger ﬁnancial picture that you do, and you must gently enlighten them when belttightening becomes necessary. It’s easier to identify the wrong way to broach these topics with your staff than to plan for the “right” way. For example, keeping your employees entirely in the dark until you’ve made an executive decision concerning their beneﬁts package is unlikely to get a warm response when they receive your e-mail announcement out of the blue. Severino has seen this happen, and she recalls the fallout as “very, very ugly.” The staff with which Severino was working was called into a meeting via e-mail, at which they were WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - April 2008

Physicians Practice - April 2008 Contents The Bigger Picture: Medicare Decision Time Letters Physicians Practice Pearls: Outsource Your Pain Noteworthy Cover Story: Trial Lawyers Tell All Management: When It’s Time to Change Ask the Experts Technology: Do You Know Where Your Data Is? The Tech Doctor: Are Your Discarded PCs Really Clean? Billing & Collections: Playing Hardball The Administrator's Desk: Recruiting for Patient Satisfaction Start It Up: Finance - Mastering the Numbers Game Coding The Great Practice Makeover: Taking Care of Business Associates Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - April 2008

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