While doing end-of-year employee reviews, it occurred to me that I’m a big hypocrite. All day long, I tell pet owners to reward good behavior and ignore attention seeking behavior. Actually, my exact words are usually “If she gets it right, throw her a party.” But I don’t treat my employees that way, and they’re quick to point that out to me. I’m ornery. I’m gruff. I can be a little rough around the edges at times. And I am very Very VERY quick to point out that something is wrong.
I suppose I can blame my parents for this. I never got rewarded for getting a 100 on a math or spelling test. If I got a 98, I knew I’d have to answer the question “Where did the other 2 points go?” I was expected to do a good job. And I was punished if I did poorly. No, they never beat me -they just gave me more work. Since my mom’s an accountant, it was pretty easy for her to whip up a weekend’s worth of math problems for me. And I recall some nights of memorizing sections of a dictionary.
Despite all of this, I think I turned out relatively OK. But I still admittedly have a hard time wrapping my head around praising my staff for doing their job. Isn’t that what I pay them to do? If they didn’t do a good job, they wouldn’t be working for me. About a year and a half ago, I hired a nursing supervisor to help manage my medical staff. While I was hoping for someone to complement my “flawed” management philosophy, I ended up with a fantastic technician who expects perfection from all of her staff. Surely there is no abundance of warm fuzzies here.
I’ve also told my staff many times that I HATE the phrase “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” We get paid to sweat the small stuff so that our clients don’t have to. Instead I like the phrase “The devil is in the details.” I don’t run laundromat or a shoe store -small errors and oversights can mean the difference between life and death. All of my staff needs to understand that every single one of their decisions and actions (or inactions) can affect patient care. Every action carries a consequence, and some consequences are more significant than others. So if a receptionist misspells diarrhea, or a kennel assistant checks off the wrong box on a checklist, or a technician reached for prednisolone instead of prednisone …I will continue to react quickly to point out their mistakes. If they can’t handle that, they can certainly try to find a job working for a veterinarian who doesn’t care.
That being said, I have a pretty happy bunch in the hospital and not very much turnover. Would it kill me to say “good job” more often? Probably not, but it’s so against my nature to do that. And wouldn’t it mean a lot more if I did praise someone when they really went above and beyond the call of duty?
