In an ideal world where patients always turn up on time and nothing ever goes wrong we wouldn’t need to manage performance. Sadly that ideal world is never likely to exist, and one of the most important things managers and dentists have to get to grips with is how they manage performance in their practice. Tempting though it is to hope that people know what they need to do and will get on with it to the best of their ability, the perversity of human nature means that this is not necessarily the case. In short, we may not have made it clear what we are expecting and people may not do their best simply left to their own devices.
Your practice’s success relies on everyone within it delivering a good service. Any shortfall or any weak link in in the chain will have a detrimental effect on the practice. The aim of managing performance is to continuously improve the performance of individuals and that of the practice. It involves making sure that the performance of employees contributes to the goals of the practice, and taking appropriate action when this does not happen.
Good performance management helps everyone in your practice to know:
• what the practice is trying to achieve,
• their role in helping the practice achieve its objectives,
• what they need to know and what they need to be able to do to fulfil their role,
• the standards of performance required,
• how they can develop their performance and contribute to development of the practice,
• how they are doing, and if there are performance problems and what can be done about them.
Performance management often emphasises the setting of objectives and the appraisal and evaluation of results against goals. However, this is only part of the story. A good performance management system looks at how as well as what people get done. Such issues as how a person approaches their job, or the way they behave as part of a team or communicate with patients and their peers is now just as important as what they produce. Imagine a receptionist who makes appointments with 100 per cent accuracy. We might say her performance is good. Imagine the same receptionist with the same accuracy record but who is regularly unfriendly to patients. In the latter instance we are very unlikely to describe her performance as ‘good’; we are now measuring her behaviour as well and not solely on what she does.
Performance management however is more than simply trying to get staff to do things which will help to further the practice’s ends. When performance management is working well, it becomes a two way street or a partnership in which managers and dentists give and receive feedback, and identify with people what support they need to be more effective in their jobs and develop. It can unlock ideas for improvement and clarify standards, nip problems in the bud and allow for greater communication in the practice overall.
It all sounds so simple. But like many simple things that does not mean it is easy, so here is a checklist to make sure that your performance management system is working for you.
Make sure that you are clear about the aims of the practice.Your people are working for you to deliver the objectives you have set for your practice; good performance means that they are effective at doing this. Their performance can only be measured in terms of the practice’s performance. Much performance management falls down because the objectives of the practice have not been clarified and set by the principal or partners. If this is the case, how can we possibly measure staff performance?
Communicate the aims to everyone in the practice and continue to do so with regular updates on progress. Make sure that everyone knows the objectives and re-iterate them frequently to keep people focused. As you achieve certain milestones, don’t forget to tell the people who have helped the practice do it – the staff.
Have clear and detailed job descriptions and person specifications. Make sure that you regularly update them to reflect changes in working practices so they remain current. Job descriptions should provide part of the blue print for good performance. Specifications should outline the qualities and qualifications that successful staff members need to have to in order to fulfil their roles effectively and provide the other part of the blueprint which focuses on the ‘how’ people carry out their role.
Make sure you have clear policies on what constitutes acceptable behaviour. What do you need? Your policies are your ‘book of rules’ – effectively they are clear statements about the way to do things, which might range from the way to treat colleagues through to what constitutes acceptable social media use. If you do not tell people what acceptable looks like,you cannot complain if they do not adhere to it.
Know how to get people back on track. Have a menu of options to help people improve through training, coaching and development opportunities to get them up to the standard you want if they are not there yet, and to exceed the standards if they are good performers.
Be brave with feedback. Make sure that you and your manager are skilled at giving honest, open and direct feedback - not just at appraisal time but on a day to day basis. Catch people doing something right at least twice as often as you catch them doing something wrong.
Make sure that you have a fair appraisal system which allows for two way discussion. The way you manage performance should be fair to all staff and decisions should be based on merit.
If your staff are engaged and helped to see the bigger picture and what they are contributing to it they are more likely to be doing their best for you and your practice organisation. Ask yourself if your staff take pride in their job and show loyalty towards the practice, and whether they go that extra mile. If they don’t, they and you need performance management urgently. If they do, performance management will make sure that the superb performance you get is maintained and built on.