This week was pretty big…the main news is that my employment venture Workhorse Recruitment Ltd has been acquired by long term partner Totem Consulting.
The main benefit to this for you as a practice manager (if you are in the UK) is that rather than just getting a bum on a seat in your clinic, you now have access to a complete performance management solution. The team at Totem are a really awesome crowd who have been working for years with HR departments across all industries to help improve organisational performance.
Long term Hamster Wheelers will know that this is basically my mission in veterinary life – to try to help veterinary practice owners improve the return on their hard work.
Which is why I’m so excited about the acquisition, the recruitment market is a devil of a place, with a lot of organisations touting themselves as ‘recruitment specialists’. Quite how most of them would know a good vet from a bad one is beyond me and my experience of the service as a manager was almost exclusively bad. Then add in the prices charged (some asking 10% of first year wages) and it’s not hard to understand why many vets prefer to do it themselves.
The trouble is that vets are generally not any better at the job of recruitment than the agencies and frequently make decisions on candidates without any scientific insight. In the broader scheme of performance management, if you start out with the wrong raw materials (people) for your practice then you will be every unlikely to produce a masterpiece (optimum performance).
A far effective strategy (and one I’ve put to great use in my own practice) is to get an expert to handle the entire process. From helping you work out what you really need (this is often dramatically different to what you might think you need), to creating your job ad and involves designing the interview process that will successfully attract the good and repel the bad. If done right this saves a lot of time and money. Better still it then makes the job of managing your team relatively straight forward. It is far easier to put square pegs in square holes. Sadly many of us waste a massive amount of time, emotional energy and money pushing square pegs into circular holes.
It is such a valuable investment to spend some cash at the outset, than have to repeat a poor process six months later because you got the wrong person. And as the saying goes, ‘If you do what you always did…’
Well, you get the picture. Performance management (of which recruitment is certainly a part) is what Helen and her team at Totem Consulting do…. I’d strongly advise you to give them a call (which costs you nothing) to get a better feel for the service.
Anyway, in memory of what was, and in toast to what is, I dug out a couple of short clips I did for the recruitment blog on Workhorse. Both are guaranteed to exponentially boost your performance at work whether a vet or manager…ahem.
Do let me know your thoughts. And you can contact Totem Consulting via their website http://www.totem-consulting.com/vets.html
How to Bring A Newbie Vet into Your Clinic Successfully
Do You Want Instant Success in Your New Vet Job?
