Handle staff complaints with humor

Here's how one hospital handles staff complaints with humor.Weekly staff meetings are sacred for Angela Green, practice manager at the Trinity Animal Hospital in Weaverville, Calif. For a full hour every Thursday, the practice closes, allowing team members to reconnect as a group, discuss the week's agenda, and solve interoffice grievances. "It seems like people in veterinary practices have really dynamic personalities because of the passion involved with working with animals," Green says. Co-workers sometimes squabble and complaining is inevitable. In these instances, the staff hands out the martyr award. As recognition for surviving a particularly hard time at work, the week's biggest complainer receives a stuffed flea, Green says. "It's done in light fun," she says. "We try to put some humor into it." The winners usually appreciate getting the flea, Green says, because they realize the team understands they had a difficult week but did the job anyway.