Motivating and Developing People in Practice

Management of Employees
We will first examine the practice employment history to identify the potential issues and patterns that the practice has regarding the management and retention of its employees.
A review of the employment history of your practice will illustrate the patterns of who has voluntarily left the practice, who has been asked to leave, who are your best people and who are your problem people. The purpose of looking at the patterns of practice employment is to identify the specific issues and opportunities which the practice faces.

“Attracting” the Right People
Once you and your colleagues are aware of your practice employment history patterns and you are planning to build the practice team you should consider the concept of ‘attracting’ the right people toward you rather than ‘pushing’ to find them. The first step will be to define your practice mission or philosophy which will help to clarify exactly what the practice wants to achieve and what it stands for. This will then help to guide any recruitment, training and development of practice team members - what attitudes, skills and knowledge is required to deliver the philosophy and what values to hold.

“Liberating the Corporate Soul”
Richard Barrett wrote in his book ‘Liberating the Corporate Soul’ that it is possible to use a simple model to identify people’s motivation by asking individual’s about the values which they hold about themselves and about the organisation. This model is based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with the first level of ‘survival’ where the focus is on having food, shelter and security from money . The second level is ‘belonging’ regarding friends and family and the third level is ‘self-esteem’ where people feel good about themselves, their position in society and in their work. The fourth level is called ‘self-actualisation’ and this is where people gain insights into themselves at a higher level of consciousness. In Richard Barrett’s model, he has combined Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with a view of more spiritual needs from the Eastern perspective and these new levels include ‘personal transformation’, ‘internal cohesion’ with regard to having a clear vision and purpose in your life, ‘inclusion’ with links to the local community and making a difference and ‘unity’ where people feel connected to world consciousness. In a values driven organisation, such as a veterinary practice, there would ideally be balance within the seven levels which Richard Barrett, called ‘survival’, ‘relationship’, ‘self- esteem’, ‘transformation’, ‘internal cohesion’, ‘making a difference’ and ‘service’. [...]