Once you've hired an optician, dispensing expert Leona Meditz recommends that you do everything you can to keep him or her on staff, including:

• Offering a good salary.
The best way to show respect for the person you hire is to offer a fair base salary. If you offer good pay, good benefits and standard M.D. office hours (8:00 to 5:00), you should be able to attract the best the industry has to offer
• Allowing for growth.
Before you hire, decide how you're going to compensate your optician, including a plan to allow growth and development along with your practice. (Opticians are often forced to move from job to job just to get a raise.)
• Rewarding good performance.
It's important to be able to evaluate your optician's performance. Benchmark your optical's performance before the optician arrives. After the new optician takes over, continue monitoring your dispensary's performance and review the results with the optician regularly. Design a compensation plan so he or she shares in the additional profits being generated.