Applying the Best Concepts of Google’s People Analytics To Reduce Your Medical Practice’s Turnover Rate
By Christiane Soto, Snelling Medical Professionals 
Medical practices are relying more on advance practice clinicians – a group that includes nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Because of this demand, salaries have increased approximately 9%. However, the turnover rate is showing signs of increasing as well. In the annual Physician Retention Survey, the turnover rate for both nurse practitioners and physician assistants was 11.5%. This was down from 2011, but remained almost 5 percentage points higher than the turnover rate for physicians.
Keep Your Best People
All medical practices are human- driven organizations. Machines do not treat people (not at least by themselves); people do. It is a person’s clinical expertise and knowledge of how to read the machine’s data that drives the diagnosis and eventual treatment.
Therefore, in order to combat turnover and keep your high value staff members, it is inherent that you become a better “people person”. In other words, you need to embrace your inner HR manager.
With over 30,000 employees and a constant stream of new hires, talent management is an important topic at Google. Their culture demands that they consistently make spot-on hiring decisions, and that they work very hard to keep their high value employees.
What is equally as interesting (but totally predictable) is that the company has an HR process that is 100% dependent upon analytics. It is called People Analytics, and it is the basis for all talent management, hiring and compensation decisions at Google.
So can the principles of People Analytics be applied your medical practice’s turnover and staff retention issues? Absolutely.
You need to build a better boss
Google’s People Analytics did find that there is a “resounding” statistical difference between a good boss and a bad boss. Google found that there are several things that employees – all employees – want in their managers. They want even-keeled individuals who
- Take genuine interest in their lives and careers
- Do not micromanage
- Are results-oriented
- Have a clear vision and plan for the team
- Help them work through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers.
Why is it important to “build a better boss”? Unless you are self-employed, you really work for a person, not an organization. No matter the culture, industry, or daily job duties, if you have a bad boss, the entire experience is poisoned. If you have a good boss, going to work every day is a joy. People will follow good bosses to the end of the earth; people quit jobs they love because of bad bosses. Anyone who has worked for either knows this to be true.
There really is a high value on a high value employee
Good bosses retain good staff members. Google has calculated that there is a performance differential between an exceptional technologist and an average one of as much as 300%. These numbers may not translate directly to your medical practice, but people do work harder, smarter and more collaboratively for bosses they respect. If you work to become a good boss, you will reap the rewards of this performance differential.
People are what make your office hum. While we all cannot have a Google working for us in the background, Snelling is here to lighten your load. We work every day on the behalf of medical facilities all over the country to help you build your hardest working, most collaborative, most innovative office possible. So let us know how we can help. From temporary staffing for vacation coverage to long-term assignments, we can find your best-fit staff to fit your management style and office culture perfectly. Visit our website to today to find your local Snelling Medical Professionals office.
NOTE: A full-color, downloadable PDF is available.
