Business - Creating a Wonderful Environment - What Your Staff Needs

When you hire someone to work either on a contract or as an employee there are several things that will help to develop your relationship and ensure that you have a wonderful environment because of their involvement. In exchange for their expertise and skills, you will need to provide them with:

Specific Training - People cannot read your mind and most employees want to please but might not understand why you do things a certain way. They will not only need an initial orientation but also very clear direction about how you would like tasks to be done. I used to make the mistake of thinking that someone who has good organizational skills would be able to organize my paperwork the way that I would organize it. Not so! You need to teach at the beginning. This might mean that you supplement verbal instruction with a list of the steps necessary to accomplish a task. Once the employee knows what is expected and how the results should look, they will be able to to replicate the process over and over again.

Honest immediate feedback - It is extremely important that you give praise and correction as soon as possible after a task is done. Both must be given with a focus on the task and not on the person who did the work. When things aren't done the way that you expected, have a conversation about this and offer information or more training to help the employee develop in that area. You may need to offer a training video or course if there is a great deal to learn about an area where you do not have expertise. Sometimes an employee will negotiate a way for you to share the costs with them.

Remember, you and the employee have a unique relationship. As a sole professional with a private practice, it is important that the work is done properly but also that the two of you are good at working together to get it done.

Business is an adventure that is much more rewarding when things run smoothly.