By Justin L. Manning, OD, MPH, FAAO
May 26, 2021
It’s tempting to hire for skill first. On paper, the more skills a potential employee comes with, the less time will be needed to train that individual. However, personality and attitude are far more important than skills when hiring a new employee. As they say, you can train skills, but you can’t train personality and attitude. Each employee plays a critical role in delivering that rock star experience to patients that builds a practice.
Here is how to make sure your new team members have the attitude needed to deliver the experience your patients deserve and your practice needs to grow.
Define Your Practice Culture & Optimal Employee Attitude
You can’t seek out in others what you have not defined as most important for yourself and your business.
Before hiring for attitude, you have to understand your practice, your team and the values you espouse. Dive deeper into your business’s values. What kinds of attitude and personality work best in your practice? What is your vision for your practice and what features of your ideal practice are you unwilling to compromise on?
Look at your key, most successful team members. What attitudes and values make them so successful in your practice?
Defining your practice’s culture and what an optimal employee attitude looks like to you will help you identify exactly what you’re looking for in a candidate.
Ask Questions in Job Interviews that Uncover Candidate Attitude
There are many questions that help outline an individual’s attitude. Here are five:
1. Tell us about a time you delivered a topnotch patient or customer experience. What happened and how did it make you feel?
2. Tell us about a time you dealt with an unhappy patient or customer. How did you address the problem and resolve the issue?
3. Tell us why we shouldn’t hire you. (I loved this question when I was in practice because two values I held the team to were humility and an internal desire to improve and grow. Self-aware individuals who had similar values would share their opportunities for growth.)
4. Tell us about the best job you ever had. What made it so great?
5. Tell us about a time at work when you had to admit you were wrong. How did you do it and how did the team respond?
Look for Passion
Look for passion in the potential employee. If they’re excited about the work they do and the previous experiences they’ve had, they’ll be eager to tell you about those experiences, including the role they played in successfully navigating or managing those situations.
In addition, look for how the candidate smiles. Smiling is critical to a superior patient experience. There’s a big difference between a fake smile and real (Duchenne) smile. A Duchenne smile results in a narrowing the eyelids/opening of the eyes and results in crow’s feet.
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Don’t be afraid to ask the same question in a phone interview prior to an in-person interview. Listen for how the story may change between phone and in-person interviews.
Ask Questions Related to Attitude When Speaking with References
Instead of asking whether or not a candidate had a positive attitude at a previous job, ask the reference to force rank the candidate’s social skills. This may give you greater insight into their attitude and the social skills associated with it to drive patient experience. You can ask the reference to describe how the candidate interacted with their fellow team members. You also can ask the reference similar questions to the one you asked the candidate:
1. Tell us about a time X candidate had to resolve a customer experience issue. How did they approach it and what was the outcome?
2. Tell us about a time X candidate had to admit they were wrong. How did they approach it?
Don’t Wait for Job Candidates to Come to You
Be proactive and don’t wait for good candidates to come to you. Look for them in your community, in the businesses you use and spend time at. Customer-facing, service industries are a great place to start. If you have an incredible customer experience due to one person at a restaurant, hotel, or other business, offer them the opportunity to join your practice.
I was in a restaurant bar with colleagues from Healthy Eyes Advantage, where we had an incredible server. She had a positive attitude, was funny, knew how to read her customers and worked out a system with the bartender in which she repeated the orders just loudly enough that he could hear her, without it seeming obnoxious. By the time she finished taking our orders, the bartender had finished the drinks and they were at our table in no time at all. She created a rock star customer experience. The other OD and I looked at each other, and without missing a beat, commented on how quickly we would hire her to work in a practice.
Justin L. Manning, OD, MPH, FAAO, is executive vice-president for professional strategies at Healthy Eyes Advantage. To contact him: JManningOD@hea2020.com
