Ask Katie: How can I stir my team to seek CE?
If motivating your team to stay engaged with the veterinary profession both inside and outside your practice walls is giving you grief, Katie Adams, CVPM, has a plan to replace your tears with tiers.
A tiered system can help make the benefits of extra training and responsibility more tangible to your team.Q: How can I motivate my team to seek out CE opportunities on their own, use the opportunities I give them and stay engaged with our profession?
A: I get this question a lot! What I've found works best is a performance-based pay scale. Here's how it works: For each role in your practice, you will establish a set of three or four tiers-each with its own associated set of requirements and pay range. Necessary skills are an obvious component of each tier, but you can also include things like team meeting attendance, CE hours, team meeting presentations or education, and specialization (for example, inventory manager, OSHA officer, surgical equipment maintenance and so on). The higher the pay, the greater the expectation for participation in the practice and also in our profession. Achieving all the requirements in a particular tier makes the team member eligible for a raise.
If you include CE in your performance-based pay scales, you should provide each person on your team with a CE budget to draw from. We pay our team members too little to also ask them to pay for their own CE.
Katie Adams, CVPM, is director of curriculum development at IGNITE Veterinary Solutions. Got a question for Katie? Email us at firstline@ubm.com.
You. Can. Do. This!
At Fetch dvm360 conference, we're the support system you need. With every conference this year, we intend to nurture your mind (meaning quality CE for days) while also encouraging you to take stock of your physical and emotional health. Register now.
