Training plans – activity stacking that doesn’t involve the kitchen sink

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Training a new employee is a crucial investment in their success, but it can often feel like veterinary clinics are running short on time to properly onboard them. So, how can veterinary teams work with new hires to make sure they are trained properly, but not overwhelming a team that really needs a new team member?

On this episode of The Vet Blast Podcast, Jessica Molina, CVPM, PHR, CCFP, joins host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, to review what training programs look like in most veterinary clinics, how they go wrong, and how practice leaders can get these programs back on the right track.

Below is a partial transcript.

Jessica Molina, CVPM, PHR, CCFP: I love good ole analogies and reference images. And I always call this training that doesn't involve everything "and the kitchen sink"—I know the old saying is, "but the kitchen sink" but when you think about all of the activities and skills required of an individual in a veterinary clinic, when you put like a visualization on it, I can picture this vessel full of all this stuff. And so for me, it's like a sink, and you got plates, and bowls, and everything's different sizes, and just kind of crammed in there, and the sink is the vessel, right? And you can work through dishes a whole lot faster if they're organized, if they're stacked, and they're methodical, and you can get through them more efficiently and with better quality.

And then we've also heard that, putting the cart before the horse; we don't want to put the cart before the horse. The horse pulls the cart. And so that's exactly the image I want you to think about when you're thinking about skill stacking, because skill stacking is creating a natural effective sequence of activities, and then cutting them into digestible doses, and building upon them each day so that there's balance in both the trainer and the new hires plates.