Good CA's Start With Good People & Good Training

inding great CA’s is a crucial responsbility for every practice. These are the dedicated professionals who are the face of our business. They foster the personal bonds that make patients trust that they’re receiving the best care and give them the confidence to follow through with their treatments. They gather and record the fundamental data that informs how and why we apply our techniques. They support and facilitate most every aspect of a successful practice. The importance of placing these responsibilities with the right people for the job can’t be overstated–which is why hiring and training new staff is often a very difficult task.

Of course hiring good dependable staff members can be a challenge irregardless of qualifications, experience, availability and the other dozen requirements that need to be met when recruiting. There is an article–Ten Recruiting Strategies For Hiring Great Employees–from the online employment website Indeed.com that has some rather useful tips for making this process easier. Here are a few of their best recommendations:

1. 1. Implement An Employee Referral Program: If you already have great people working for you, chances are their interpersonal circle contains very similar folks, and while you don’t want the workplace to become a social club, there are advantages to having coworkers who are compatible and can work well with one another.

1. 1. Craft Compelling Job Descriptions: This helps in a few ways, first by creating an attractive opportunity that will draw in a lot of interested candidates. Also a good deal of time is saved both before and after a hiring decision by making sure that the people who are applying for the job know exactly what they’re getting into. Be sure your job postings are clear, descriptive, and give potential candidates a detailed image of what it’s like to work in your office–both in practical terms as well as idealistic terms–here are the realistic demands of the job, and here are the great rewards of a life dedicated to helping and healing others.

1. 1. Use Social Media: This isn’t just about distributing your offer to a wider audience. It can also facilitate a more casual two-way dialog ahead of a formal interview that could help determine whether someone is a good fit without investing much time and resources. Just be careful when conversing through text messaging, as the lack of physical and audible cues can often lead to misinterpretations. Keep it surface-level for this step.

1. Include Your Existing Staff In The Process: They know better than anyone what you’re looking for and what the job entails. They can help give perspective and direction to potential candidates while helping you ask the right questions during interviews.

[vt_blockquote text_size=”18″ left_color=”#56b0ee”]Train them extensively and be sure that the learning process is continual.[/vt_blockquote]

Once you have the basis of a great worker, the next step is identifying your CA’s personality traits that may or may not even be immediately relevant to chiropractic. These are the kinds of things that are innate and cannot be learned or imitated, and so should be used to establish their roles from the start. For example, an individual with a warm and outgoing personality, who easily carries a conversation and makes those around them feel comfortable already has a great deal of potential before they even begin training. We should be sure they spend the most time face to face with patients, because so much of the healing process is bound to the patients’ mindset and their assurance that they will be well cared for. Conversely, a person who is more cerebral, methodical, good with numbers and organized can be invaluable with keeping records, managing the office’s workflow, and dealing with insurance and billing to protect your bottom-line.

Once the right people are in the right roles, train them extensively and be sure that the learning process is continual. Once they are confident with their own roles, begin cross-training them so that they are familiar and capable in other areas as well. This will naturally develop a smoother, more efficient office workflow as your staff will all be better aware of how they fit into the process, and they can find ways to further smooth the paths of their coworkers. Not only that, but whenever you have someone who is temporarily absent they can easily step into fill the gaps. Because you have already hired people with the inherent qualities that you need and can’t be taught, everything else is just a matter of good training. If you don’t have anything like a training manual already, it’s worth taking the time to start on one, even if it’s fairly informal and scattered. A document to record the areas of study that you’ve found made a difference in your employee’s performance, and a list of resources that can provide the information you want your CA’s to learn.