By Brandon Hess, CVPM, CCFP
You’ve secured a stellar new employee that has the potential to be a great addition to your team. Your first obstacle will be on-boarding them appropriately. Next, you need to think about that employee’s first 30, 60 and 90 days. What?! You mean think about the first 30 days before collecting feedback on day 29? Yes!
Think about the first three months of employment as a progressive development plan. With a progressive development plan, you talk about the goals at the beginning and then check in with that employee after a set amount of time. The new hire should have a clear outline of what is expected of them during each period, and a task/skill checklist to complete. The 30/60/90 day meetings should be more of a check-in than a formal review. I would encourage you to incorporate feedback during these meetings, but most mentors and co-workers will not have much to say until around day 60 to day 90.
First 30 Days
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, this period should be considered an introductory period. You should utilize this time to get the new hire acquainted with all of the staff, and see if there are any questions or concerns they have that need to be addressed. You should provide the new hire with a basic list of duties to accomplish, focusing on those that will familiarize them with the layout of the practice:
- Duties like helping put shipment away, or a scavenger hunt.
- Their trainer can begin to show them how to do basic operations with the computer software or medical records.
- Increase comfort with basic information about the practice: phone number, website and directions.
- Provide them a fill-in-the-blank chart that lists vaccines that your doctors recommend at specific ages.
You can solicit feedback from the trainer and mentor to address any big concerns. Ideally, if there were anything to be concerned about, it would be addressed with the new hire, in-the-moment.
30 Days – 60 Days
The following 30 days should piggyback onto the first 30, but with higher expectations. You should expect the employee to be slightly more hands-on during this time. Perhaps they can begin restraining relatively calm patients, interacting with clients more and learning more advanced things about the practice.
- More involved software processes
- Medical terminology and abbreviations fill-in-the-blank
- Inputting charges
- Creating care plans
It would be a good time to get more formal feedback from the mentor and trainer near the end of the 60 day period. Also, ask the employee formal questions about how they feel things are going:
Questions to trainer/mentor:
- What are 3 strengths of this employee?
- What are 3 development opportunities of this employee?
- Is this employee meeting expectations for the length of employment? If no, please explain.
Questions to employee:
- What are 3 things you have enjoyed about the training process so far?
- What are 3 things you need differently during your training process to improve your learning?
60 Days – 90 Days
During the last 30 days of this period the trainer should start reversing roles with the trainee on certain tasks. Perhaps the trainee could put the invoice in and then the trainer can check it. Or, the trainer could shadow the trainee while running an appointment. A lot of people learn by being hands on, so this is where you see if they will shine. Of course, if an employee is not meeting expectations you may hold back on letting them take lead.
No matter what structure you land on, keep these key points in mind:
- Conversations with the new employee should not be limited to the 30, 60 and 90-day meeting.
- The more brief check-ins you have during early employment, the better. Even if it’s a brief conversation about “how is everything going?”
- Don’t focus so much on the meetings being a review, versus them being a check-in and coaching opportunity.
- Provide very clear expectations for each period of time. Have the employee sign off on the tasks along with the trainer. Review this checklist during the check-ins.