Bob Levoy
By making work enjoyable, you help create the kind of organization to which your employees will want to make a long-term commitment and where turnover and burnout will be minimal. This insight comes from the book, Managing to Have Fun at Work (Simon & Schuster, 1996). Matt Weinstein, the author, also says that the intentional use of fun can have an enormous impact on team-building, stress management, employee morale, and the way patients are treated.
Here are some low-cost, no-cost ideas others have used to lighten the mood at their practices and add a sense of fun:
- Brief, start-of-the-day, "Good News" staff meetings to review the things that went well the previous day; repeat patients` accolades heard about the practice or share a personal anecdote.
- Everyone brings homegrown, homemade, or store-bought food to work on a rotating basis. In many cases, a budget is established for the purpose. Snack food is fun and promotes camaraderie.
- Parties, celebrations, and plenty of public pats on the back for achieving practice goals, employee birthdays, anniversaries, going away or "welcome aboard" occasions.
- A staff lounge where employees can take a break, renew their spirits, have a snack, a group luncheon, or simply let their hair down. Decorate with humorous posters, cartoons, and stress toys.
You don`t have to be elaborate. Fun activities need only provide a change of pace, a way to unwind, if only for a few minutes, a way to celebrate and appreciate each other. The mood of a practice is important. If your practice is an upbeat place to be, your patients will respond better - and you and your staff will be better for it.
To summarize this four-part series: the willingness of employees to accept ownership of their responsibilities and go the extra mile to do whatever it takes, depends, in large part, on how well their job-related needs are met by the work itself. Five such needs were discussed: interesting and challenging work; having a say in matters pertaining to work; autonomy; performance feedback; and a sense of fun. There are numerous others. Identifying and addressing those job-related needs is more than a "nicety" for employees. It is, in fact, a necessity in order to have a productive, high-performance practice.
Bob Levoy is a marketing consultant, seminar speaker and writer based in Roslyn, NY. His new book, "101 Secrets of a High-Performance Dental Practice," is available from PennWell Books. To place an order, call (800) 752-9764.
