9 Simple Ways to Improve Motivation and Staff Performance

Working in a fast paced, high stress, healthcare environment can take its toll on your employees. As the leader of your team, it’s important to occasionally look for simple ways to improve motivation and staff performance.

Don’t neglect caring for your staff in the same way that you care for your patients. After all, a great staff makes all the difference in running a successful practice.

Here are 9 ways we came up with that can help boost morale and productivity among your staff.

1. Give positive feedback

A regular dose of positive feedback is probably the most effective way to increase motivation and staff performance. Positive feedback helps communicate your standards for everything from business correspondence to patient care.

When you praise an employee, let them know that they’re doing something unique that you and the other staff members can’t do. Try to have this kind of interchange at least once a week with each employee, picking out some specific thing that you appreciated.

2. Engage your staff in regular meetings

Plan regular staff meetings at least once a month.

Staff meetings are necessary to keep everyone on the same page. You can use the time to review specific projects and initiatives, address concerns, or set the vision for the future.

In addition, some practices adopt a morning huddle each morning before patients arrive. These brief meetings help align the staff on the day’s agendas and anticipate problems before they arise.

Don’t get too caught up in the busy day-to-day that you don’t set aside time to engage your team in planned staff meetings.

3. Take a poll

Sometime during the next twelve months, ask each member of your staff what they like most (and least) about their job—and what needs to be done to make the job more interesting and satisfying.

After all, you can’t improve motivation and engagement in the workplace without knowing what your staff needs first.

4. Restructure job descriptions

By putting some variety and balance into an employee’s job, you can cut down on monotony.

We suggest looking at job descriptions carefully and matching them to the employees’ current capabilities; perhaps others can share in some particularly tedious work done by one person.

5. Motivate by suggesting additional responsibilities

Offer a staff member an additional duty that will increase their sense of usefulness, such as attendance at a workshop or conference that relates to performing their job.

6. Keep a clear chain of command

Each staffer should know that they report to only one boss. Without direct, explicit lines of authority, motivation suffers—especially in the high-tension office situation found in most practices today.

7. Build a great team

Improving motivation and staff performance isn’t much of an issue when you have a great team around you. That’s why one of the best things you can do is focus on keeping the quality of staff high.

When a new team member is hired, check the credentials and experience to see that they fit in with the skill levels of your current employees.

By the same token, support and reward your staff by getting rid of any staff member who proves unsuitable. This will assure your long-time staff members that they won’t have to carry extra burdens or suffer for unnecessary errors—encouraging them to stay with you.

8. Give smart bonuses and raises

Rather than giving Christmas bonuses, make sure that any salary-related “extras” are seen as just that. The bonus should not come around a holiday but should be connected with especially hard work or high productivity; in some cases, the bonus will stem from a staff-wide effort; at other times, it will apply to the work of only one member.

In addition, follow through on promised salary raises. People become discouraged quickly by delays.

9. Review supervision

Periodically, the supervisor, business manager, and you should take stock individually to see that none of you are hindering the office operation by improper exercise of authority.

Too often, a casual comment to a patient by a doctor, such as “Don’t worry about the bill,” or “Drop in any time,” can be taken too seriously by the patient. This often causes difficulties in billing or scheduling.