Resources
Relationship Management and communicationStaff Meeting in a Box
Need staff meeting ideas? Welcome to our Staff Meeting in a Box! Each month, we provide a full staff meeting worth of materials on a particular topic, taking all of the planning off of your shoulders!
This month’s topic is Your Workplace Culture: It’s Up To You. By clicking on the link below, you will be directed to our online platform, where you will have access to a 21 minute video, created by Brenda Tassava Medina, as well as several downloadable resources and activities for your staff!
What people are saying about Staff Meetings in a Box:
“The Stress Management meeting in a Box what’s the perfect meeting at the perfect time! In the middle of the Covid pandemic stress management was a timely topic!”
“Great ideas with specific resource to make the celebration happen.”
“I like that it’s all laid out for me. I’m not very creative so I need something like this to help me.”
Wellness Tip of the Month
While electronic platforms like email, Slack, WhatsApp and text messaging make communication more efficient, they aren’t necessarily the best methods when it comes to clear, transparent communication between individuals. In fact, the over usage of these digital methods may create unnecessary conflict as they often leave out important details and speech nuances, as well as lack the enhancement of body language and facial expressions. Avoid potential misunderstandings by making use of face-to-face communication more frequently, especially when dealing with individuals over group messages. Your extra efforts at in-person communication will pay off in the form of stronger bonds with your team mates.
Employee Handbook Tip of the Month
An Anti Nepotism Policy is often put in place to ensure that someone in an authoritative position cannot supervise, or otherwise influence any aspect of employment for a close relative. In the litigious world we live in it’s important to have safeguards in place to prevent any perception of discrimination. While one’s relation to another is not one of the protected classes, aspects about that person (or another) could be perceived as discrimination. This could cause a perception of treating two individuals differently who are two different genders, ages (over 40, and under 40), religions etc. If family members (or even close friends) are able to be hired within your organization, it is recommended to put safeguards in place to prevent any perception of favoritism. This not only leads to disgruntled employees, but it could also lead to discriminatory litigation.
Book Review/Recommendation
Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When The Stakes Are High
Crucial Conversations is one of my favorite books – hand’s down. It is one that I recommend to my clients almost as a baseline for starting out our coaching journey, I feel it has that much impact. I often read it at least once a year to keep the techniques in the fore-front of my mind. My journey with the book began when I was a baby manager and really struggled with talking to my team in a way that was empathetic but also helpful. Likewise, I would often feel completely unprepared when I had to confront a situation full of emotion and a difficult topic – like a blatant mistake, a meltdown, rudeness, etc.
I don’t remember now who recommended it to me but it was an excellent foundation for the communication skills necessary in my role as a Practice Manager. However, over the years I have also recommended it to my team leads and individual support staff members who were motivated and could be coached with the information.
The book is full of tips about how to recognize your own shortcomings when it comes to having conversations that may elicit strong emotions from you. It gives a lot of good tips on how to overcome these. I felt the section on recognizing when others feel unsafe (since this is when you start to lose the productiveness of the conversation), and how to bring that safety back, especially helpful. Another plus for the book is the plethora of conversation examples that they provide. Even though the situations aren’t veterinary medicine related and they are sometimes not as realistic as what may pan out in real life, they still give you a good idea of what different types of scenarios can play out as.
Overall, this is an excellent read. I recommend getting the hard copy as I always took notes, highlighted and put in tabs for easy reference. Happy reading!
– Carol Hurst, LVT, CVPM, CVJ, CCFP
Looking to improve your team’s client communication skills?
The ULTIMATE Veterinary Client Experience: Phone Skills and Client Service Sharpener
Everything you need to know to build rapport with pet owners on the telephone
Delivering an exceptional experience to pet owners, both on the phone and in person is essential to attracting and retaining veterinary clients. As a veterinary support staff member, it’s your responsibility to create a pleasant, professional interaction each and every time you are working with a potential or existing client. This course will take you through the five ingredients for a highly successful veterinary client phone experience, as well as how to manage difficult client situations, and how to discuss finances with pet owners.
Modules include:
- The ULTIMATE Phone Call Experience
- Forbidden Phrases
- Navigating Sick/Urgent Calls
- Managing Financial Conversations
- Euthanasia Scheduling
- Dealing With an Angry or Upset Caller
- Communicating a Confident Recommendation
Podcast Recommendation: Vet Med After Hours
Tune in to The Vet Med After Hours Podcast Season 4, Episode 2 – Help for Veterinary Professionals
Episode Description:
Therapy from a Vet Tech’s Point of View
“I won’t be able to find a therapist who can help me – they don’t understand what it is like in veterinary medicine.” Have you ever heard or thought those words? How about “I can’t ask for help, it will make me seem weak and vulnerable.”? Jamie Holms, RVT gets real and candidly shares the battles she faced as she rose from being the tech who believed she could do it all on her own to the tech who practices asking for help regularly. Jamie’s dry sense of humor and wit punctuates this episode filled with information we all need to hear. In the veterinary field, we treat pets with behavior orders even though we have never been a dog or cat and Jamie helps us understand how to find the right kind of therapy and therapist that can help us even though that therapist has never been a veterinary professional. Take the time to listen to this episode and you will understand asking for help in a way that may never have crossed your mind before. As Jamie says, “*the willingness to ask for help is a huge step towards mental wellness.” So take the first step and listen to this episode today!
Recipe: Customizable Hummus
For this month’s topic, let’s look at a yummy sharable recipe! Hummus is perfect and has many different uses. Making it from scratch isn’t hard and the taste differences are totally worth it.
- 1 x 15oz can chickpeas
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (1 large lemon)
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1 garlic clove
- 2-3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
- Salt to taste
Using a food processor, blend tahini and lemon until smooth. This recipe can be made with a good belnder but will need the tahini blended by hand prior to as I found the quantity wasn’t enough at the beginning to blend well in my blender. Add the olive oil, garlic and salt. Blend for another 45 seconds – 1 minute. In a blender, these ingredients can be added at this point. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Add about half to the mixture and blend for about a minute. Scrape sides and bottom and then add remaining and process until smooth. This is the point where you taste, adjust for salt or lemon and olive oil, scrape sides and blend again.
Drizzle with olive oil for serving.
Extras that can be added either later or to the process:
- Green (or type preference) olives
- Marinated red peppers
- More garlic (sautéed, minced)
- Jalapeno
*Note: Using high quality olive oil is a must for this recipe. I love the brand Lucini.
Adding in extras is a matter of personal preference and desire for prior prep – any extraas should be added in small quantities toward the end so that overall texture isn’t sacrificed. I’ve thrown in a few olives at the final blend stage and then shopped a few for topping -as they are typically already marinated. Or you can treat the marinated red peppers the same way, adding a bit at a time until desired taste. Raw garlic can sometimes be overwhelming, I like to give it a low and slow sauté before adding. Similar with the jalapeno.
Hummus can be served with pita chips, tortilla chips, vegetables, or any other vessel of choice. Happy eating!