Clear expectations can be defined as “explicitly communicating to team members what specific behaviors, performance levels, and quality standards (both client and patient care) are required of them in their roles, ensuring they fully understand what is expected to succeed in their role, and includes key responsibilities and performance metrics.
Therefore, team members must know the practice expectations and be given training opportunities to meet and exceed them. This can be easily accomplished through the development and communication of practice goals, clear job descriptions outlining expectations as the role applies to the practice goals, a robust training program that includes both onboarding and ongoing training, and a performance feedback system that helps the team members not only survive but thrive in their roles.
Practice Goals: The practice goals start with the Vision, Mission (or Purpose) Statement, and Core Values.
The vision statement defines ‘where the practice is going’ in one to three years. What will the practice achieve? Who will it serve? Consider the three large focal buckets: the client experience, the patient experience, and the team experience.
Result: When everyone on the team works together toward the practice's vision, camaraderie and collaboration replace chaos. Team members become more accountable for their actions, and client and patient experiences elevate.
Vision statements should not include financial goals, as those can be easily achieved when every team member works towards the same goal.
The vision will be achieved when every team member demonstrates the mission or purpose statement daily. A mission statement should be short and memorable and help guide the business and team’s decisions. Many hospitals have mission statements, but most fail to carry them out in everyday activities.
Core Values define behaviors expected to be demonstrated by all team members at all times (including leadership). When each team member demonstrates expected behaviors (i.e., respect, compassion, empathy, honesty, accountability), team member retention increases, clients are more satisfied, and patients receive the care they deserve. Remember that leadership must hold all team members accountable for demonstrating the values for this theory to work in practice.
Without clear goals for team members to achieve together, silos are formed. A ‘front vs back’ situation begins to develop; the CSR team is isolated from the medical team, and finger-pointing results when client and patient experience is compromised. Break the status quo and start sharing goals the entire team can work towards together. This is the base for setting clear expectations.
Resources below provide guidance to help develop practice values, a vision, and a mission statement.
Job Descriptions: Every role needs a job description that sets clear expectations for that role. These documents must include the practice goals described above and explain how the role is expected to help achieve those goals. Additionally, they should help identify the right candidate for the job (not just a warm body). Job descriptions must be presented during an interview, and expectations must be built into leveling, onboarding, training, and performance feedback mechanisms. Resources below provide examples of job descriptions for a receptionist, veterinary assistant, and credentialed veterinary technician.
Interviews: It is critically important to set clear expectations during the interview process with prospective employees. Review the practice goals, job description, and required skills and ask open-ended questions to identify how the candidate will contribute to goal achievement. If candidates are offered a position, once again, clear expectations with the job description must be presented with the formal offer of employment.
Properly interviewing a candidate involves structured preparation, effective questioning, and thorough evaluation to ensure you select the right person for the role. Resources below provide a step-by-step guide to successful interviewing.
Once the candidate is hired, the above expectations must be continually demonstrated in leveling programs, onboarding and training, ongoing training, and performance feedback (covered in the following topics).
Team meetings are also where clear expectations should be discussed and revisited often. Weekly or biweekly meetings can keep the team aligned on practice goals, departmental goals (depending on the practice size), and how each team supports one another to achieve the more significant practice goals (vision, mission). Consistent, positive team meetings allow collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving, trust, transparency, and personal accountability. Ensure team meetings are productive and incorporate an alignment environment (versus a complaint session with no solutions) by developing and distributing an agenda and meeting notes shared post-meeting. See Chapter 6, Operational Efficiencies, for more details on team meetings.
