Management Essentials

Staff Certifications Can Justify a Raise

A change in your practice’s culture can help you meet employees half way.

By Farrell “Toby” Tyson, MD, FACS

How many practices employ competent individuals who have little or no certification? These employees request a raise year after year because they know they’re important to your practice. But what can a practice do when employees refuse to obtain certification to validate their skills? This can lead to an unsustainable salary creep. So, the question is, How can you set up a win-win scenario that motivates and rewards the employee and, at the same time, advances the practice goal of having better trained and certified workforce?

Establish a Pay Scale

First, change the culture by establishing pay limits for different positions and certifications in the practice. These pay levels should be commensurate with national and local averages. They are not set in stone for eternity, but may be adjusted with inflation over time. This change in culture incentivizes your top-performing employees and encourages less-motivated staff to look for employment elsewhere. Over time, your staff will be filled with more goal-oriented individuals.

Practices commonly hire well-experienced and qualified people who do not have the expected certifications. In many cases these individuals come from practices where certifications are shunned as a way to hold the line on practice payroll.When these situations arise, it is difficult to justify paying a wage for certifications that have not yet been obtained.

Paying up front for experience without certification can have two downfalls. First, the individual may not have the certification because she truly does not have the skill set but interviews well. Secondly, and probably more importantly, paying above your pay scale will disrupt your practice as it can drive down morale. Don’t think for a second that your staff doesn’t compare wages. They talk to each other, usually with some hyperbole mixed in.

Negotiate an Incentive

I like to use a method I call “put your money where your mouth is.” This allows you to deal with applicants who either need to demonstrate a certain level of proficiency or need to obtain a certain certification level to justify a desired pay rate.

Here’s an example: Say an applicant for a technician’s job has years of experience but no certification. Usually, she’ll want a pay level higher than an uncertified tech. If you offer the appropriate wage you will not be able to hire the individual, but if you pay the elevated wage, she had no incentive to get the certification.

The alternative is to negotiate what the wage should be for a certain certified skill set, and then offer the appropriate wage for the uncertified pay scale. Using my method, the practice can escrow the difference between these two rates until the new hire successfully completes the certification within six months or in the agreed-upon time frame. Once she completes the certification, the practice pays out the escrowed funds as a bonus and increases the pay rate to the negotiated amount. If she does not obtain the certification in the designated time frame, the practice recovers the escrow.

This method also works well with staff members you are trying to develop internally for future advancement and responsibility. It is a wonderful carrot that you can dangle to encourage professional growth. It costs the practice nothing if the employee fails, but the price is minimal to obtain a motivated individual with a better education.

Most practices have some form of incentive bonuses. Creating these incentives attracts individuals who will propel your practice to the next level. OM

Farrell C. Tyson, MD, FACS, is a refractive cataract/glaucoma eye surgeon at the Cape Coral Eye Center in Florida. He may be reached at tysonfc@hotmail.com.