Making Your Practice a 'Best' Place to Work

Every office has something the employees get excited about, whether it’s the summer picnic, bring-your-child-to-work day, or Taco Tuesday. At my office, we’ve never met a party that we didn’t like.

We celebrate birthdays and holidays and promotions and each of the goals we achieve. But no celebration is more meaningful than Fortune day.

Last week, our parent company CHG Healthcare Services was ranked 16 on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list (and here’s how we celebrated).

One reason our company stands out as a great place to work is that fostering a healthy workplace culture is a top priority for us.

Here's why workplace "culture" is so important, and how you can cultivate a great workplace culture at your practice.

Culture Sets You Apart From Your Competition

After the dark days of the Great Recession, the economy has bounced back. In many industries, and especially in healthcare, people have gone from worrying about just hanging onto their job, to having the freedom to be picky about where they choose to work.

In a job seeker’s market, it’s important to ask yourself some tough questions. Why would a physician or staff member choose to work with your practice?  What makes you stand out from the competition? What are you doing to keep your current team engaged?

If you’re doing things right, the answer to each of these questions will be the same: We have, and cultivate, a strong company culture.

Cultivating a Great Culture

Making your practice a place where people want to work isn’t easy. It takes consistent and concerted efforts. Here are some of the things that can help.

1. Hire for cultural fit and train for skills. When it comes to hiring staff, strong skills and an impressive background are nice. But if you really want to hire the right candidate, focus on who they are as a person. Will they fit in with the team? Do they care about the mission of the practice? Will the job help them reach their long-term goals?

Remember, job candidates who are engaged not only make better employees, but they’re much more likely to stick around.

2. Give your team a voice. People want to work for someone they can trust. One of the keys to building trust is to ask for regular feedback from your team, whether it’s through formal channels like surveys or through more informal meetings.

But gathering feedback is just the first step. You also need to be willing to implement some of those ideas and be transparent about decisions affecting the practice.

3. Take care of each other. One of the best parts of working in healthcare is the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those you serve. But that service doesn’t have to be constrained to the walls of the practice. Encourage your employees to give back to the greater community by offering them paid time off when they volunteer.

Creating a strong culture won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. As we’ve implemented these practices at our office, we’ve seen retention improve and engagement increase. Not surprisingly, our success in building culture has resulted in success in building our business.

And that’s something worth celebrating.