35. What is the top staffing challenge you face?
Recruiting |
33%
|
Keeping staff motivated |
25%
|
Boosting productivity |
18%
|
Retaining top talent |
14%
|
No major staffing challenges |
2%
|
No staff |
2%
|
Training/education/changing billing protocols |
2%
|
Aging staff |
1%
|
Payroll costs/staff insurance |
1%
|
Other |
2%
|
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38. Which staff position is hardest to fill with qualified people?
Insurance biller |
8%
|
Salesperson |
7%
|
Optician |
38%
|
Optical manager |
4%
|
Associate OD |
6%
|
Receptionist |
13%
|
Scribe |
1%
|
Tech |
9%
|
N/A |
14%
|
39-40. If you have full-time employees, did any quit in the last 12 months? If so, what was the reason?
41. What is the average tenure of your staff?
42. How often do you hold staff meetings?
43. Where did you find your best-ever employee?
Online advertisement |
17%
|
Staff reference |
15%
|
Peer/vendor reference |
14%
|
Recruited from another optical store/inherited from ex-owner |
10%
|
Former patient/customer (or referred by) |
9%
|
Recruited from another retail location |
5%
|
Ad in the paper |
5%
|
Family/friend, or reference from family/friend |
4%
|
Employment service |
4%
|
Walked in/cold contact |
2%
|
Career fair/local association/campus |
2%
|
Previous co-worker |
1%
|
Sign in the front window |
1%
|
Served me as a waiter/waitress |
1%
|
Other |
1%
|
NA |
9.36%
|
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44. What techniques do you use in your staff training?
Sessions with sales reps |
25%
|
Lectures/seminars/courses/outside trainers/webinars |
24%
|
Role playing
|
11%
|
Buddy training |
10%
|
NA |
10%
|
Staff trips |
10%
|
Outside reading assignments/self-study/personal goal-setting
|
6%
|
Mystery shopping |
1%
|
Brainstorming/lunch meetings/’bitch’ sessions |
1%
|
One-on-one with doc or manager |
1%
|
Case studies/scenarios |
0.5%
|
Conventions |
0.5%
|
45. What takes up most of your time?
Patient/customer interactions (incl. pre-testing, CL fittings, exams) |
32%
|
Working on the sales floor
|
17%
|
MVP/insurance/EHR/billing/paperwork/general admin. |
14%
|
Managing staff
|
12%
|
Strategizing, marketing and planning
|
9%
|
Active patient/customer development
|
7%
|
Managing boards/inventory/buying |
5%
|
Everything: No individual task stands out
|
2%
|
Lab work
|
1%
|
*A special thanks to the respondent who replied “Taking surveys…”)
COMMENT: Digging into the findings, it seems the medical side of the industry is the most demanding in terms of staff management; optometric practices were three times more likely to report it as their top time burner than opticals with no OD. Intriguingly, owners of non-OD boutiques were far more likely to spend their time strategizing, marketing and planning; a nod to the ever-shifting shape of today’s retail world?
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46. What’s the most inappropriate or strangest thing you’ve caught an employee doing on the job?
From the sublime (“Unraveling a Bird of Paradise leaf”) to the ridiculous (“Smelling things out of habit”) to the…. even more ridiculous (“Admiring parmesan cheese”), the responses we got to this seemingly innocent question left us a little disturbed. Here’s a mildly alarming snapshot of the things that weirded our respondents out most about their employees. (What’s with all the toenail clipping….?)
The 6 Most Commonly Cited, in Descending Order:
- Sleeping
- Clipping/painting toenails
- Sex/self-gratification/ porn/sexting
- Doing drugs/drinking
- Applying for another job/secretly working second job on computer
- Stealing
Here’s a selection of some of the most memorably weird things employees have been caught doing on the job:
- “Selling Amway”
- “Porn in the bathroom connected via bluetooth to headphone in the lab. It was very loud….”
- “Feeding baby bunnies she snuck in.”
- “Putting a miniature live frog in her mouth.”
- “We once had a (short lived) female employee who was dealing with a ‘sensitive health issue in her genital area’ place a fan in front of her chair and sit in it with her legs spread around the fan… all at the front desk!”
- “We had an employee who was searching for a ‘Second Wife’ on CraigsList. Needless to say, that employee did not last long.”
- “Eating snacks out of her bra while in the exam room scribing for the doctor.”
- “They brought a blender from home and were making smoothies in the breakroom on the clock.”
- “Making sinkers out of metal blocking material.”
- “Telling a patient that they didn’t need glasses just as patient exited the exam room with a prescription in hand.”