Welcome to The Health & Wellness Practitioners Podcast! Dr. Danielle and other guest experts talk about everything from getting your practice started, developing your clinical skills, growing your practice YOUR way, and dealing with the real stuff life burnout and work/life balance. Whether you’ve been practicing for decades or just started your journey, you’ll find something here for you!
DR. DANIELLE: Hi again, everyone. Right now I am here with Shelli Warren from BizChix and she hosts a podcast. Shelli's going to introduce herself to you and share more about what she does and then BizChix community. And then we're going to talk more about recovering from a bad hire.
SHELLI: Well, Danielle, it's lovely to see you again. We've known each other for a while now, and it's wonderful for me to be here and be able to serve your community so honored to be here. I'm Shelli Warren, I'm the team and leadership coach at BizChix, Inc, where we train and coach women who own service based businesses. So the fact that you are a group of heart centered healers in the different industries of chiropractic work, naturopathic dentistry, doctors, massage therapists, doulas, all of the people that we need to surround ourselves well to have a healthy life, happy to be here with all of you.
And before I joined BizChix, I was a leader for Procter & Gamble for 25 years. And that's really where I fell down, scraped my knees, cut my teeth, learned what it was like to lead people and lead highly technical team members. We did a lot of big initiatives to really up level those billion dollar brands. So it was a wonderful 25 year career. And now I'm the team and leadership coach, uh, and head coach of our Leadership Lab program at BizChix. And of course, host of the Stacking Your Team podcast, which I love. So Natalie launched her BizChix podcast in 2014. Natalie Eckdahl is our CEO and founder, and she's been hosting that award winning podcast since 2014. Incredible. And then we launched our sister podcast called Stacking Your Team over four years ago.
THE HIRING RACE
DR. DANIELLE: It's actually is mind boggling to me that your company has two podcasts. And I think it's really cool. I in the past had like dabbled with having a secondary podcast and I later then just decided, I'm just going to talk about all the things I want to talk about on one podcast instead of having two. But your podcast that you host for the overall brand is really specifically focused on building your team, right? And there's obviously a lot to say about that. As you and I were chatting before we started recording, I was sharing with you that people in our community are really struggling to find people to work in their brick and mortar businesses. I don't think I'm seeing as much difficulty with hiring for positions that are virtual or remote. But it's really, for a lot of people it's really, really difficult to find someone to work in person or an in office setting right now. Do you have anything to say about that and maybe any words of encouragement?
SHELLI: Well, I feel you, it, it's a real thing. This race for talent that's happening out there. It's a long game for sure. And how I like to work with our clients who are all hiring and you know, many of the members of the Leadership Lab are hiring in bulk because they're opening up second and third locations and they're building out secondary revenue streams. So they need a broader roster of talent on their team. So how I like to help them out is we really have them slow down for a minute and think about who is their next best hire, who really will be the next person that's going to come onto the team and contribute in such a high level that it takes the business to the next level. So in order to find that person, you literally need to become a marketer. So you may be a chiropractor, but you need to move into the realm of being a marketer and position your job as the next best career move for this individual. And it comes down to learning how to truly craft a compelling job posting where you're painting a picture and you're telling a story of what it's like to come and work in your practice - the day in the life. And I like to encourage people to be as transparent as possible. Tell the good, the bad and the ugly in that job posting because you'll be saving those candidates time and you're saving yourself and you're interview team time by only attracting the people that are truly interested about this.
So tell them everything, tell them benefits or no benefits. Tell them the hourly wage or salary, tell them what your hours of work are. Tell them the location that they're going to be working in and tell them the truth. If your practice is in a strip mall around the corner, beside a large manufacturing site, just say that that's where we're located versus trying to paint this Google like workplace, it's just not true. It's just not true. So be as transparent as you can and look to really be that marketer. So and there's ways that you can get your team involved, your current team members involved in talking about what it's like to work there, how much they find their work worthwhile because they're serving this particular niche or they've been able to lead the stamp on the business because they've created this asset or they've restructured this part of the daily operations, get your team involved in positioning yourself as the next best job opportunity for these individuals.
DR. DANIELLE: That's really great advice. And it's something I've been trying to express to people, but I think hearing it in your words, it's different especially putting it into the frame of thinking about it from a marketing perspective. And I do see a lot of times people write job descriptions or job postings for a front desk assistant or an office assistant and it's like 20 hours a week, $15 an hour, answer the phone, manage front desk - and it's very dry and not very exciting. Now that being said, of course it doesn't include the good, the bad or the ugly of course. So there's some other facets to that too, but yeah, I think people don't even know to make a more robust job posting or listing because the examples that most of us see are also not very good.
SHELLI: They're not very good. And what I want to remind your members here is that you're not embellishing. You're not lying. You're being incredibly clear about what it is that you're offering. So even that front desk position, you want to position that as being the first moment of truth for every single person that comes to your door, it's the first moment of truth. They've heard about you. They've seen some of your marketing positioning out online. They may have a friend or cousin or neighbor who's come to you for treatment, but they're walking in. It's their first moment of truth. And it starts with the first person that says hello to them as they come in. So how caring is that front desk person? How much eye contact are they giving them? How much are they getting involved with helping them work through any problems that they would have with their insurance provider? Or how well are they going to master the art of calming a patient down so that they can receive their treatment well? Those are all incredible skills that that front desk person is going to be able to develop.
So when you paint the picture that way, those individuals that really do want to play a bigger role in the healing world and know that they're more than a data entry person, they're more than answering the phone. They're more than doing some filing. It's up to you to market that role broader than the face value of that type of a job posting that you just described. And you know, the art of crafting a job posting a winning job posting is something I've mastered over decades. I mean, it's a life skill for me now. And I really appreciate and enjoy helping other women who are trying to attract the very best people to come and, and want to apply to work with them. I love helping them craft those job postings. It's so crucial. It's the first step.
DR. DANIELLE: So what is the next step?
SHELLI: Your next step is the whole, you have to have an actual hiring strategy. So at BizChix, we like to say hiring is a project and within our digital course, Your Next Best Hire, it really does walk you through that. So once you have the job posting and you're starting to collect those applicants, then it comes down to pushing your emotions aside and saying to yourself, I'm going to go through these applications and I'm going to put them in into three piles; good, better, and best - and stick to your guns on that. Because oftentimes if we're in dire need of someone to come into the practice, we will just take anyone. Anyone. And so what ends up happening is we miss the nuances of the application and the resume. We miss those moments where the individual was not in the workplace for a few years. And so let's find out about why - were they on maternity leave? Were they on compassionate leave? Did they relocate to another state? Like let's find out why.
But it's really about separating out those applications into good, better, best, and then doing pre-screening on the best. Pre-screening on the best. And what I mean by pre-screening is this doesn't need to be you, it can be someone on your team. They're going to reach out and contact this individual. And they're going to ask them three questions; what compelled you to apply for this role? What's your compensation expectations? When are you available to work? Those three answers will then put them off into another pile. Because what you're wanting to find out is is this person applying for this job temporarily? Is this going to be like a layover until they get their dream job? Are they planning to move to another state for love? And so they really are only going to be here for like maybe four to six months and then they're going to go off and start a life with their partner and a whole other state.
And then you want them to say out loud what their compensation expectations are. You want to hear the number, even though you've blatantly put the number on the job posting, you want to hear what they say, because if they're declaring a number that is not in alignment with what you're prepared to offer, nor is it aligned to what you had included in the job posting, you know, that's another red flag. And then you want to hear when would you be available to join our team? This is so critical. I've seen so many clients go through an interviewing process, sometimes two interviews and then create the job offer, give the person the job offer only to have the candidate say, well, I actually can't start until September. What? We just went through this whole scenario only to find out that you're not available for another three months - time out on that, right? You need to know those things right up front. So doing that pre-screening will really whittle down your best candidates even further.
And then you're going to do some reference checks. You're going to look for evidence of what they've included on that re on the resume and in their application really did happen. And that's another outreach moment, but incredible opportunity to get some real data.
MONEY TALK WITH JOB CANDIDATES
DR. DANIELLE: As you were talking about asking specifically the candidate, what are there expectations for pay, I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on this. I've seen people respond, they're open, they're flexible. They don't give you a dollar amount in other words. What are your thoughts about that?
SHELLI: That is so common people like, well, let's talking about money's uncomfortable for most people. Like most people it's uncomfortable to talk about money. So people like to dance around. They just like to dance around it. But in this point, while we're trying to do this pre-screening, you are definitely trying to get them to say a number.
So if the number that you included in your job posting, let's say it $55 an hour. Let's just say that's what the job posting was for and that's the job that you have. It's $55 an hour. And if you said to this individual, can you tell me about your compensation expectations? And they say, well, you know, I'm really open to what you have to offer. That's when you say I'm offering $55 an hour, are you aligned to that? Yeah, I could probably go with that. Are you telling me that that is not a starting wage for you? Were you hoping to come in at a higher rate than that?
Like just keep asking them questions to get them to declare out loud that I'd be happy with $55 an hour, because you want to hear people that really, some people have a bit of a chip on their shoulder and because of the life circumstances they're in right now, they're feeling like they're having to take a lesser role because of the climate. So they'll take that job for $55 an hour and the whole time they're with you, they're just asking for a raise. They're just constantly asking for a raise. So you're trying to really have that conversation with them in the prescreening and then be very prepared to tell them what you were not prepared to offer. So if you are not offering benefits at this point, or if you have some sort of structure that says at your year two, we offer this and this for benefits, tell them that right upfront too, because they'll appreciate the transparency of that as well.
HIRING AGAIN WHEN YOU’VE BEEN BURNED BEFORE
DR. DANIELLE: Okay. So these are really helpful tips on the front end of hiring and hopefully we find the right candidate, we get them onboarded and, and we train them and we've done a great job, and then we sometimes find that they're not the right fit or they decide that the job isn't the right fit for them. In our community, there are a lot of women that I have spoken with who have hired in the past, whether it was an associate doctor or office manager, and they were burned, or they felt like it just didn't - it became burdensome to them more so than it was helpful for them to have that team member. And then they decide they don't want to hire again, or that they're not capable of being a boss of hiring good people of finding good candidates. So let's dive into that side of this conversation.
SHELLI: I would say that the majority of women that come to work with me in the Leadership Lab come with that story. They're they've told themselves that I'm just not a people person, I'm just not a leader, I'm a really good dentist, I'm a really good lawyer, I'm a really good naturopathic doctor, I'm terrible at leading people, or they'll say I'm terrible at hiring. And what I like to remind them about is, okay, it's time to stop beating yourself up about this because you didn't go to school to learn how to stack a team, you didn't go to school to learn how to interview, you didn't go to school to learn how to lead people, how to create a workplace where everyone feels like they belong. You went to school to become that expert that you are, and you're really incredible at it. So now that you've decided that you want to open up your own practice, being a leader absolutely comes with that. You cannot abdicate that role. You are the leader. And whether you tell yourself you're CEO, or you tell yourself you are the founder, or you tell yourself you're a business owner, all of those titles mean the same thing. You are in charge.
So then you need to get more comfortable with being in charge and just realizing that, Hey, I've learned all these skills that got me to this place in my career and this place in my practice. And now I'm going to learn a whole bunch of other skills that's going to take me and my team and the practice to the next level, which is absolutely going to have a ripple effect into how we're serving our community. And so one of the things I need to learn how to do is how do I attract and retain really great people? Because I don't want to have this revolving door of people in people, out, people, in people out. We want to have a sense of stability for everyone here, including our patients who come and see us. I mean, we've all been there where we walk in, whether it's a salon or a spa or your dentist and you walk in and you go, am I even in the right place? I don't recognize anybody. I don't recognize anybody here. And that creates worry for your patient because now you have to rebuild the trust with them.
So those leaders that have had some, what they would call some bad experiences with hiring, and now they're afraid to hire, oftentimes they won't hire. And so what'll happen is they'll just work ridiculous hours, they'll revert back to doing tasks that they really shouldn't be doing anymore because the business has grown past them. The operations has grown past them and they don't really know what they're doing anymore. They did when they first opened up the practice, but the work systems and the daily operations have changed so much that they're actually breaking their business while they're in there trying to do those roles. They need to get out of those roles. So they can really stall themselves. And it's so unfortunate because you can learn how to lead and you can learn how to find and attract and retain these individuals that are coming on board. These are all skills that you can learn how to do.
DR. DANIELLE: Well, the bottom line is we didn't come out of the womb knowing how to adjust a patient or how to, where to place an acupuncture needle, what modality needs to be applied when, like we had to learn those things as well. And maybe the motivation for learning those things was different. But ultimately, as you said, when we decide to start our own business, we're taking on the role of doing all those other things that we have to do as a business owner, whether we knew it or not consciously. So yeah. I'm with you. And I always like to remind people that just because you don't know how to do something now doesn't mean you can't learn it. And that they've already learned how to do hard things in many cases.
LEADING AFTER HIRING OR FIRING MISTAKES
SHELLI: And many of you have, you know, if you're high performing, you've got a lot of drive, you don't even stop and acknowledge the hard thing you just overcame. You just full speed ahead onto the next problem to solve. And so what we really like to do is have people stop and reflect on how far they've come. And even this terrible experience that you had with this team member, you can stop and reflect and ask yourself, okay, what part of that experience do I own? And be that wise woman that's confident enough to look at that scenario and say, okay, reflecting on what happened and revisiting on all the things that kind of led me to where I was with his individual, right up to the, till they did, they blew up and quit and walked out on me that day. And then maybe even took a coworker with them, because that's been happening a lot lately. Or, you know, I was about to fire them and they quit before I could, or I did actually have to terminate them. You can stop and think about what were all the times that I knew there was a problem and I didn't address it and instead I chose that moment, that day to overlook it because I was tired because the kids were up all night because I was actually feeling nauseous that day or because I just didn't have it, the wherewithal to even want to go after this situation so I let it slide? I didn't want to be mean. So I thought it'd be nice. And I know she was going through some hard times, so I just kind of let that fly by.
But what ends up happening is these moments of, of disappointment, these moments, where we stopped being a leader, the moments that we stop being professional, they start to stack up on top of each other. And then before you know it, you resent that person. You and it can lead so much to a point where you don't like them anymore. You just don't like them anymore. This is a person that's in your practice that's here to serve your clientele. You are the lighthouse, you are the one that was attracting these people to come and want to be served by you, and yet you have an individual on your team that you don't even like. And yet you're hoping that your patients and your vendors and your partners do like them. That's no way to build a business. And then what ends up happening is you resent this person so much that it is past tolerating. Now you resent them.
And that relationship is so broken, you just need to take a deep breath and follow through with declaring to them that you've done a disservice to them. And apologize for the fact that you've let this go on. You've let these feelings fester. You've let these disappointments fester over time. And also realize that if you are disappointed in this individual, they're disappointed in you. And by the way, your whole team has been watching you, praying for you, wishing that you would've taken action. And so you've disappointed that extended team too.
So now we just need to come out straight with it and say, I've done you all a disservice. You're going to speak with this individual first, and you're going to bless and release them. I like to send everyone with a parting gift so that we don't lose any brand loyalty. So I'd be encouraging you to pay them at least two weeks salary, preferably a month. Let them go, it gives them a bit of a cushion before they go out and try and find another role out there in the world of work. And then you have to face the audience of your extended team and apologize to them about being, doing a disservice to them by not addressing this particular individual sooner. And that's how you show I am a leader, I'm professional, and I'm still growing.
DR. DANIELLE: Yes. Oh, that's a great point. Because having that conversation with the rest of the team after the person goes is really hard. And there's a lot of things that come up, you know, about like, will they still trust me? Are they going to be worried that they're next or whatever? And yet, as you mentioned, you know, showing that you are the leader, we have to remember that being the leader isn't always glitz and glamor and fancy and cushy and comfortable and you know, all the fun aspects - being a leader is hard. It's doing the hard things, having the hard conversations and being the example of that for everyone else as well.
SHELLI: Yeah. And when you're talking to that extended team, the first thing you can do to rebuild the trust is to not share any details at all about that individual or why you finally came to the decision to bless and release them, or why it took you so long to bless and release them. It's literally like a two sentence conversation that says, you know, you've probably are aware or you'll notice today as you came in that Jennifer is no is not at the front desk today. Jennifer's last day was yesterday. She's no longer going to be part of the team. And we wish her well into her next steps as she takes to build out her career, she's contributed to the business and this way, this way, this way, and I know that you're all going to wish her well as she goes off into the world of work. So I also want to just confirm that we will be posting a job by the end of the week. If you know of anybody, just get them into that hiring stage, move them away from the shock and awe of losing someone, get them over into the motivation of finding a quality replacement and also giving them the plan of how we are going to cover that front desk in the meantime.
So you want to assure them that you've looked at the schedule, you yourself may decide, you know, you're going to pitch hit for other people, you're going to redeploy the work, give them the plan as to how they're going to move forward and get them over into thinking about how great it's going to be when we get a new person here.
THE BAD HIRE RECOVERY PROCESS
DR. DANIELLE: So, okay. Coming back to the topic of recovering from a bad hire, is there a specific amount of time that someone might take to recover from a bad hire? Does it depend on how bad the hire was?
SHELLI: Well, actually it doesn't really because you're going to be doing the same things. So whether you had someone with you for two weeks and you knew it wasn't going to work out so you bless and release them, or you had someone with you for two months, or you had someone with two years, the same things have to happen. You have to set time aside immediately afterwards to go in and do all of the security and confidentiality tasks that you'd want to do to ensure that this individual cannot break your business in any way. Even if you adored them at one point at this state of mind that they're in, they've just lost their job and they need to go home and tell their family, Hey, guess what I got fired today. And all of that emotion that come along with it.
So you want the very first thing you want to do immediately is to go and do all of your security, IT, and confidentiality tasks, make sure all of those are buttoned up, get any equipment back that they would've needed, change passcodes on doors, all of those things need to be done. And once the security and the IT, and the confidentiality things are taken care of, then you're going to move into systems. Anywhere did they leave sticky fingerprints on your operations or on your systems? So, and that takes time to be able to go in and have a look at that to see, is there any recovery that we need to do within our, within our systems because of bad decisions that they have made or just performance gaps.
So there's that piece of work, and then there's you have to have a conversation. You have to have a way of informing your patients and your partners and your vendors that that person's no longer here. So you're not going to take an ad out in your newspaper, but what you are going to do is have a conversation with your team that says, Hey, you know, when patients come in and they're asking for Jennifer, here's what I would prefer you reply. Here's how I prefer you reply to them and tell 'em exactly what you want them to say. You don't want to create any nuances or gossip or drama. What you want to say is, well, thanks for noticing that Jennifer's not here with us, she's actually not part of the team anymore. She's gone off and she's got a whole new career that she's going after. That's it.
Have everyone repeat the same story and that's it, don't elaborate. And if, if the patient says, well, oh well, is she still local? I think so. You know, there's just, no, you don't want to give any information about no speculations as well. And then if that individual has had some sort of face to face contact with your partners or your vendors, you want to inform them that Jennifer's no longer working with you, and here's the plan moving forward. Here's their new single point of contact here's who will be servicing them. Here's their contact information. So it's looking after those individuals.
And then you want to look after yourself, because we need to really stop and reflect on how this scenario has impacted you and do the thought work so that you're not stuck in that thought process that says, “I am just not great at leading people.”
DR. DANIELLE: Yes, yes. And that story I've seen people stay stuck in for a very long time. So what you've described about blessing and releasing the person, and then deciding that you're moving forward with replacing filling that role that's open essentially, there's not a big gap of time there from my understanding what you're describing. But I do see many times that people will go months or years sometimes with not replacing a person in that role and just absorbing the task themselves because they feel so emotionally damaged or injured by the experience. They're sort of traumatized in a sense by it and they don't want to repeat it. But they go into the stories about, oh, I'm just not good at this. I knew this wouldn't work out and et cetera, et cetera.
SHELLI: Yeah. And while they're in that head space, they're also impacting their team because the story they're telling their team is, oh my gosh, I hope we don't lose anyone else on the team. Because if we lose someone else, she's going to take all that person's work and just chuck it out to all of us. And that is what leads to burnout, and that is what leads to resentment for your leader. Because what your team is wanting you to do is to become a better leader. That's all they want from you. They're not wanting you to be perfect. They're wanting to see that you're trying even hard things to be a better leader, not hiding under your desk or hiding in your treatment room or staying stuck installed and not making decision and leaving this role empty while the rest of the team is carrying the weight of that work because let's face it, the work is still there. I mean, someone was leading it, someone was doing it every day.
DR. DANIELLE: What would you say for someone that has maybe just hired their first hired for their first position, and then it doesn't work out, they bless and release the person and now they're back down to a team of one? I mean, it's kind of the same scenario in a sense, but there's not the impact on other team members. Then they're just carrying the load themselves. It'll be okay. You can do it all, right?
SHELLI: But you're just fooling yourself. You are literally fooling yourself to think that you can do it all. I mean, all of us as women, we were born, it's embedded in our DNA to handle a lot. I mean, we can, it's just part of who we are. We can handle a lot. But we don't want to run at that pace forever. Because we all know like, all of you are in the healthcare industry, you know how burnout affects all of us. And so when you tell yourself a story that says, well, you know what, I'm just going to suck it up for another year. Really? What does your life partner think about that? What do your kids think about that? What do your friends think about that who haven't seen you in months? Because you're dog tired at the end of the day you can't even go out for a glass of wine with them?
So this whole idea of, oh, I'm just going to suck it up for another year - it's it's that martyr thinking like you, you're thinking you're going to sacrifice for your, for your business, but what you're sacrificing is your own health and your own well being. So I'm all about getting back on the horse quickly, get that job posting out there, dip back into your good, better, best pile. Go back into that best pile and look to see who was next on top, reach out to them and say to them, oh my gosh, wanting to circle back with you and let you know that this role is still open and available. Are you still interested in it? Yes or no, you'll have an answer. And you just keep dipping back into those piles or get refresh that job posting and get it back out there. But to think that, you know, the ideal team member is just going to waltz into your life one day at the soccer field, in the grocery store, at a Tupperware party - I mean, come on. Those things do happen, but it's very, very rare. And oftentimes they just don't work out.
DR. DANIELLE: Shelli, you make it all sound so easy. And I want to just remind people that you've been, I mean, this is your expertise and if they don't feel like it's that easy for them, that there are options for them to get support and guidance. And BizChix offers those. So tell people more about what is available for them through BizChix and where they can go to learn more.
SHELLI: Sure. Well, we have a couple of things that are here to help you. The first thing you can do is start subscribing to the Stacking Your Team podcast, which airs every Tuesday. I know that you're all podcast fans because you subscribe to Danielle's podcast. So I would be honored to be in your queue every week. And that particular podcast is designed for not the corporate people; it is designed for service based business owners who are building out a business that is going to not only impact their lives, but the lives of their teams and others. So subscribe to the Stack Your Team podcast.
The other thing that's available to you is you can always go and grab Your Next Best Hire. It's our digital course, it's complimentary for all of our clients that are in our programs, but it is available to anyone that wants to purchase it. And it will take you from the minute you decide you want to hire someone right through up to the first 90 days and including a module on firing. And it is full of templates, samples, video trainings, we have a plethora of experts that are in there. It's not just me and Natalie. We've brought in experts for certain topics. We also have other team members involved in it as well, but it's very practical. It's not rainbows and sunshine. Like that course is going to tell you exactly what you need as you go through it.
And a lot of our clients, especially the clients in the Leadership Lab, they don't do their training anymore. They have team members that they've done the course. And now they're team members are the ones that are building up the team. The CEO comes in the last interview just as a, you know, cordial introduction, get a vibe from the person, but it is the team that is choosing who they're going to be working alongside. So I encourage you to check out Your Next Best Hire, the digital course.
DR. DANIELLE: Awesome. Okay. Any parting thoughts before we wrap up,
SHELLI: I want to encourage all of you that you're doing as much as you can right now. And I also want to throw out a little bit of a challenge there for you this week. My challenge for all of you listening today is to one time this week, at least one time this week, when you're compelled to say, I'm sorry, don't. And at least one time this week, when you're compelled to say yes, say no instead.
Take back the narrative of your life, take back control of what you're doing every day, and just know that you have done so many hard things already. And as a woman, you are prepared to do even more. And by asking for help, you can ease off some of that hardship. And that's what we're all here for. You're here for that. Danielle, to help things be easier for them and just know that the older you get, the wiser you get. And so we all have to just keep learning, never stop learning.
DR. DANIELLE: Thank you so much, Kelly. It's been so fun to reconnect with you.
SHELLI: Yeah, you too, Danielle. It was great to see you.