What is the Most Important Question to Ask Yourself When Evaluating an Employee?

Holding regular employee evaluations is a required part of managing your practice. For employee performance to be monitored and employee growth to be tracked more frequently, we recommend that you have smaller reviews that take 10 minutes four times a year. 

If you are not having frequent reviews, there is one question you should be asking about your employees all the time. Though every job description is different, this one common question works for any job title and every employee. Before I tell you the question, let me share with you the back story. I was looking to be hired by Albertsons as their payroll controller. If I remember correctly, the payroll was hundreds of millions a week, so it was a huge job. So big, in fact, that the VP of Albertsons who had an office in Chicaco, Phoenix and Boise flew in to personally interview me. During the interview, I told her that I preferred the 60 Feedback Technique over the 360 Feedback Technique. The 360 Feedback Technique is a common tool used by human resource groups to ask internal and external customers about the employees performance. She hadn’t heard of the 60 Feedback Technique and was curious. I told her it was this “If I had the opportunity to hire this person again, would I?” She loved it and asked, where I learned about it. I told her that I just made it up right then and that impressed her even more. They did end up offering me the job, but I declined it for something better.

As a practice owner, the 60 Technique works for you. Often you should be asking about every employee, “If I had the opportunity to hire this person again, would I?” This is a guttural question and that is why it is so powerful. Some employees are very good at interviewing and telling you what you want to hear in the beginning but when it comes to actually performing their duties, they are lacking in skill or will. Your truthful answer to this question, indicates if this employee should stay or go and how they should be rewarded when raises come around.

Your raise budget should be the same for every employee. We will talk about that next time where we will discuss the Doctors CFO Employee Salary and Raise Planner to implement a strategy for employee compensation.

How do you determine the answer?

Punctuality

• Can you count on them to show up to work?
• Do they show up on time?
• Can the employee keep their family and social life separate from work so they do not interfere with each other?

Performance

• Are they good at what they do?
• Can you trust them to do a good job with little to no supervision?
• Do they follow proper office protocols?

Communication

• Are they easy to communicate with?
• Do they use constructive criticism to better themselves?
• Do they submit suggestions to better the practice?

Team Compatibility

• Do the rest of the employees get along with them?
• Do they treat team members with respect?
• Would your team struggle without them?

Patient Acceptance

• Do your patients like this employee?
• Do they treat the patients life family?
• Would patients be unhappy if this employee was gone?

Employee Goals

• Does this employee’s personal mission statement fall in line with your practice mission statement?
• Do they continue to grow and help the practice grow?

To participate in this week’s poll, please subscribe to our mailing list ad follow us on Instagram. “What Do You Commonly Base Your Employee Raises On?”

Prior Article Poll Results

Our previous article asked the question “What is better, more or less patient treatment options?”

We recommended that fewer options with better quality and outcomes is better. Our poll asked “How Often Do You Alter Recommended Treatment Based On Patient Finances ?” Fifty percent said “About 25% of the time.” and 50% said “About 50% of the time.”

The reason we are publishing these articles is so that your office can increase its success. We appreciate your feedback on how we can help you more and love it when you pass these articles along to other practice owners and office managers. 

Developing a management report is not easy and Doctors CFO currently has a robust model for most practice types that is customized for our monthly and bi-monthly clients. If you have questions on how this model applies to your practice or you are interested in applying the Doctors CFO model in your practice, via one of our annual, bi-monthly or monthly assessments, please contact us.

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