ANOTHER TIP ON EFFICIENCY

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR FOCUS AND ENSURE WORK GETS DONE?

In our last blog, we discussed some ways to make your practice more efficient. Increased efficiency leads to an increased bottom line - more net profit. And we all sure could use more of that in these economic times. Here's another tip to make your office more efficient.

"PUT IT IN WRITING"

Everyone in the practice is very busy and has several things going on at one time. Certainly there is a need for open communication throughout the day to keep things moving and coordinated. However, there are many things that come up during the course of the day that really don't need to be relayed verbally, but rather they could be put in writing.

Stop and think about it for a minute. Have you ever been right in the middle of something that has your full attention when all of a sudden a staff member asks you a question that actually didn't have to be asked right at that moment, but it pulled your attention completely off of what you were doing? Since you are trying to be a good friendly person, you put aside what you were thinking, doing, working on and answered the question. You then managed to get your mind back on what you were doing.

Have you ever had someone ask you out of the blue if you took care of something that they had "asked" you to do or "told" you to do, only to realize that it had totally slipped your mind since you didn't have anything in writing to remind you to take care of it?

There is not one person in the practice that doesn't have their mind on what they are working on at that time, along with the dozens of other things they need to take care of. It is a point of courtesy and efficiency not to disturb people when they are working. Many things can be put in writing and routed to the other staff member who, when their attention is free, will be able to place their full attention on your request, order or communication.

Judgment is called for here. As you are going through your day, stop to think for just a moment before you present yourself in front of another staff person with a request, a "reminder", an order, etc. Does it really have to be relayed right then? Is it a matter of importance that the person needs to address right at that moment? Or could it wait? Consider some of the circumstances involved. For example, the doctor is attentively treating a patient. You want to know if it will be okay for you to take next Friday off. Would it be appropriate to ask him/her that at that moment? Or, another example - a technician is taking inventory and you wanted to make sure she ordered a particular supply item. If you interrupt her verbally to mention this to her, what are the chances she is going to remember the item?

Put those things in writing.

If you need an answer to something as soon as possible, put it in writing with the time frame in which you need to receive a response, e.g. by the end of the day, by the end of the week, etc. Respect other peoples' time, attention and peace of mind. No one can take a bombardment of verbal relay throughout the day and be expected to maintain efficiency on their job.

The office manager often has information that she needs to convey to all of the staff members. It is not a good use of her time to try to remember to "tell" everyone. And she certainly could not then be assured that everyone would "remember." It is more efficient for her to put her staff communications in writing and route a memo to each individual staff person.

And, for this to work, the office manager must provide a place for each staff member to receive written communications and where they can relay written communications to others. Without such a "communication center", written communications will have nowhere effective to go. The communication center could simply be a centrally located administrative area with a stack of baskets with each staff members name on it. The written communications then get delivered to and picked up from there.

This system takes some getting used to, but you will find that it reduces unnecessary and interruptive activity throughout yours and others' day. It will increase efficiency and accurate relay of information.

There is no intention to cut off peoples' "live" communication between one another, but simply to unburden everyone of the bombardment of verbal communications where written would be more effective and courteous.

If a situation arises that you consider to be highly important but you can see that you are going to need to interrupt someone at their task, jot down the communication and write RUSH in red ink at top of the memo. Then simply either hand it to them or place it on their desk. You can then expect a fairly immediate response to the situation.

We also invite your feedback to this blog or previous blogs by participating in our Discussion Forum at the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

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ARE YOU WORKING TOO HARD AND NOT SEEING THE REWARDS YOU DESERVE?

Turn A 40 Hour Week Into 30 and Stay Profitable

During these tough economic times, efficiency can be a significant time and money saver. But, have you ever asked yourself what are the keys to efficiency and what creates inefficiency; or what tools can you use to find inefficiency and become more efficient? This blog might help you along those lines.

Do you ever get to the end of the day and realize you didn't get the things done that you intended to get done? Do you find yourself giving endless streams of orders, and then having to spend time following up to make sure everything was really done? Or, do you often have to redo work because it was not done correctly by someone else? Is scheduling a problem?

Managing time in a health care practice is an art. Unique problems arise because, as the doctor, your main priority is treating patients. But how are you supposed to keep your full attention on patients and at the same time stay on top of the crucial administrative work that is paramount to maintaining a thriving practice? The essence of successful time management is the attainment of a level of organization which facilitates the goal of a health care practice: a high quantity of well and happy patients. Simply stated, how well you organize determines how many hours you work and how productive you are during those hours.

If you are having difficulty managing your time the first action you should take is to keep a time log during a typical work week. While this may seem arduous at first glance, you will find it well worth the time and energy you put into it. Carry a small notebook with you throughout the day and log every thing you do along with the amount of time you spend on each. This is best done by logging the events as they happen and avoid trying to reconstruct the information at a later point in time.

At the end of the week you will be able to look over the information and tabulate how much time was spent on the various activities you engaged in. This exact record will help you isolate areas of the practice that are not being competently handled by your employees and/or are problematic to the point of requiring much of your attention.

The second action you should take is to have each one of your employees keep their own time log, just as you did yours. At the end of the week you can gather the logs and review the activity of each staff member.

Thirdly, compare your personal log with those of your employees and evaluate the data you collected. Notice where you spent your time, and what the other people in the office were doing with their time. Some of the questions you should ask yourself are:

• Is much of your time being spent on a task that you have assigned to someone else?


• Do you have more than one person working on a particular project or job?


• Are you, or one of your staff, constantly covering for another employee?


• Do you experience continuous interruptions throughout the day? If so, is there one particular "offender"?


• Are you interrupted for the same type of issue time after time after time?


• Have you found yourself having to repeat instructions often?


• Does the log show you or your staff are unable to fully complete one task before moving on to another one?


• Does the office have a number of half-done projects that have been abandoned?


• How does the amount of time you spend with patients compare to the amount spent on administrative and/or management duties?


• Do you spend time finding out if your requests have been complied with?


• How much time did you spend solving problems for your employees?

Whether you are in a large or small practice, assigning specific duties to your staff members and training them so they can perform those duties competently is one of the keys to controlling your time and your income. Keeping time logs for a week is a simple way to document the information you will need to reorganize and streamline your office. Knowing what to look for, and why you should look for it, is critical to your evaluation and any subsequent changes you make.

However, if you do not have access to workable office communication procedures, systems for evaluating your employees' job performances, time-tested office policies, job descriptions or training formats for every position and formulas to help you determine how to manage your finances, you are going to be operating at a disadvantage. Your time log project may reveal troublesome areas, but solutions may not be so easily discovered or implemented. Learning proper management techniques for each of these areas will help you solve each of these specific problems. If you need help with any of these areas, feel free to email us with any questions.

We also invite your feedback to this blog or previous blogs by participating in our Discussion Forum at the Silkin Facebook Page BY CLICKING HERE.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin Management Group

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REWARDING PRODUCTIVITY WILL GENERATE MORE PRODUCTIVITY, EVEN IN BAD ECONOMIC TIMES

I just read an article what I consider to be a great legislative idea being implemented by the state of Georgia. The article can be found at AJC.com. Georgia is giving significant tax incentives to small businesses to hire people who are not employed. The expected result is more people working, less people the state has to write unemployment checks for every week and more people making and spending money, thus truly stimulating the economy by productive means, rather than handouts. I really agree with this approach.

I wrote in a past blog that one of the pieces of management philosophy, as well as a management tool that we teach our clients is the idea that when you reward production, you get more production and when you reward lack of production you'll end up with less production. How this translates to the offices of our clients is through a variety of methods, with one of the key ones being a bonus system based upon production. We have found uniformly that offices that have pay systems with a lower base pay and high bonus incentives based upon productivity are generally higher producing, happier and more profitable offices than those that have their employees on a pay system with a high base pay and little or no production bonus incentives.

In order for this bonus incentive system to work, each position in the office must have a clearly stated job description, a clearly stated product or end result named for the specific job and a realistic means of measuring the productivity of the job. Without all three of these in place, incentive systems can end up being arbitrary and counter productive because the staff won't feel that their incentive or bonus truly parallels what they are doing and because of that they can't really be at cause over making it happen. But, with these points in place and with the staff member understanding and agreeing to each of these points, you'll find staff members figuring out how they can be more productive on their jobs and make the office more productive as a whole. Having an office wide bonus system will also help tremendously - i.e. having bonuses for all employees when the entire office hits certain levels of productivity and profit. At Silkin we have worked out job descriptions for each position in the health care offices that we work with as well as specifically named products and metrics for each job. With these in place we have bonus systems that have proven to be very effective in increasing productivity.

Taking this to a more "macro" look in a larger sphere, I feel that what is being done by Georgia, as explained in the above article, parallels this philosophy and management tool. Small businesses will be rewarded for hiring unemployed workers, thus they have a very specific incentive to hire and I'm sure more hiring will result. One state legislator says that this is dangerous as it will cost the state income due to the tax breaks. This, to me, is a backwards look at this and does not follow the idea that rewarding production creates more production. Why doesn't this legislator look at the fact that, although there will be lowered tax income due to the tax break provided the small business owner for hiring, there will be less money spent by the state on unemployment payments, more people working and thus paying tax on their personal income resulting in more tax income for the state, and more people with money to spend in the economy thus boosting the income of businesses in general which should boost overall tax revenue for the state. It seems to me to be a win-win proposition all coming from an incentive for productivity. I hope this concept spurs some ideas for any client or business person reading this. Look at how you can provide incentives that reward productivity in your business and you'll come out a winner.

If you have any feedback on this, let us know by visiting our discussion forum at the Silkin Facebook Page.

Larry Silver
President, Silkin

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