18 SpeakOut
April 2014
SpeechPathology Australia
professionalpracticenews
Areyouagold star employer?
1. Recruit the right staff.
Staff
recruitment is time consuming and
costly so you need to get it right.
Not only do you need someonewith
the right skills they also need the
personality to fit your work culture.
The first step is todevelop a list of
jobduties and expectations and from
thiswrite a jobdescription, selection
criteria and advertisement. Next
develop a staff recruitment process.
Include the following steps: seek
candidates, manage applicants,
conduct interviews and award
the position/advise unsuccessful
applicants.
2. Provideorientation and training.
This is amust for any new employee.
Develop an orientation program that
provides consistent, comprehensive,
and essential information for all new
employees and includes an ongoing
training schedule. Employers should
meet with new staff weekly and have
a regular time tomeet with existing
employees. Itmay alsobe useful to
organise amentor from existing staff
for larger practices or outside the
business for smaller practices.
3. Set realisticworkloads andwork
hours.
Employees shouldbe offered
stable, reliable hours andovertime
shouldbe kept to aminimum.
Employersmustmeet the 10
minimum standards outlined in the
National Employment Standards and
thewages and conditions outlined in
theHealthProfessionals andSupport
Staff Award (2010). Apaidprobation
periodmay be offered. It is illegal to
offer an unpaid trial/probation period.
4. Offer professional development
andadvancement.
Employees
should have access to ongoing
professional development
opportunities by the provision of an
annual professional development
budget. Employers of a number
of staff may also offer in-house
professional development sessions
and if possible a career structure
within your business that offers
the opportunity for employees
to gain new skills, increase their
responsibilities and advance their
career.
5. Provide regular supervision.
This
provides the employer with the
opportunity todemonstrate ideal
attitudes andbehaviours, ensure
employees are followingpolicies and
procedures anddeal with any issues
before they become problematic. A
specificmeasurable jobdescription
can be used to conduct an annual
performance review of staff.
6. Foster teamwork.
Employing team
workapproaches in theworkplace
fostersa shared responsibility for client
careandoutcomesandapositive
workingenvironment. Staffmeetings
andacommunicationsmethod for the
sharingof informationaswell as team
buildingactivities shouldbe regularly
scheduled. For larger practices itmay
beappropriate toalso involve staff in
problem solvinganddecisionmaking.
7. Reward staff.
Staff recognition and
support goes a longway tomaking
staff feel appreciated and valued
and thus fosters staff satisfaction.
Strategies such as an annual bonus
scheme, a system for rewarding
years of service, personal touches
such as birthday acknowledgements
or significant events celebrations are
all worth considering. One simple
way of supporting staff is tomake
sure you provide themwith all of the
necessary tools and resources for
fulfilling their job.
There isnodoubt
thatmore private practitioners are
employing staff whether they are fellow speech pathologists,
administrative support staff, other allied health professionals
or for those of youworkingwith school aged children tutors
and teachers. A recent survey of SPAmembersworking in
private practice found that 30percent of the respondents
employed staff. Themajority, 94percent, of those employing
staff indicated that they had a small practice (1–4 employees),
approximately 5percent were employingbetween 5–9
employees and 1person indicated that their practice
employed 10–14 staff.
One questionwe didn’t ask in the surveywas howmuch
experience employees have. Many private practitioners report
a ready andwilling supply of new graduates but that it ismore
challenging to find experienced employees. Having the right
mix of employees in your business and the pros and cons
of newgraduates versus experienced clinicians is a topic for
another day.
We do know, however, that aside from the obvious benefits to
your business, seeingmore clients and increasedprofitability,
aswell as the opportunity to share knowledge and experience,
employing staff is time consuming and costly. If you get it
wrong it can be disastrous both financially and emotionally.
Fortunatelywe often hear good news stories but in an effort
to keep it that way, we thought it wouldbe timely toprovide
a checklist of what research has identified as the seven best
practices of a gold star employer.
Agold star employer’s7
best practices
:
