I find that many of my clients cringe at the thought of disciplining employees who are not doing the job that they were hired to do. Somehow, the doctors think that the problem will just go away! Or they think that someone else will handle it. This usually goes on for months and months, and sometimes years.
Here is the technique that I found works best. Write a list of all of the tasks that you expect this employee to be doing. Some of these tasks the employee is probably already doing. Some of these tasks, the employee does not like doing and she/he just does not do them. These unaccomplished tasks could be very important to your business. The employee may not like checking on benefits from the insurance plan involved. The employee may not want to make collection calls. The employee may not want to check that the patient bathroom is neat and clean.
Schedule a face-to-face meeting with the employee. Unless you hope that the employee quits the job, start by saying that you hope she/he will be with you in the office for years to come. Then the employee can relax and realize that they are not about to be fired.
Ask the employee if she/he likes working in the office. Now ask if the employee would like to continue working in the office. Most likely the answer to both questions will be yes.
Now give the employee the task list that you wrote up and say that if they would like to continue working in the office, they need to do all the items on the list.
You may want to discuss some of the problems that you are having with the way some items are being done now. Ask if the employee is willing to do all the items on the list.
To close this meeting, set up another meeting in two weeks at a specific time, to review their job performance on the items on the list. I call this, “Bringing the employee to choice about their job!” You will not have to fire anyone again, they will actually choose not to work in the office. Won’t that be wonderful?
Photo credit: insta_photos