OASC | PERSONNEL
Getting Great Employees
Tips for attracting and interviewing top candidates, so you hire the right people.
By Erin Murphy, Contributing Editor
Staff can make or break an ASC. Hire wisely, and the center will run efficiently with a pleasant atmosphere and happy patients. Hire unwisely, and you risk breaks in efficiency and dissatisfied patients. Experience probably has taught you to take a smart, thorough approach to finding candidates, taking them through an interview process and evaluating all available data before making a final decision. Consider adding these tips to your hiring approach.
Finding Good Candidates
For some positions, you might hire from within. But even outside hires can get an inside start.
“Most of our new hires are referrals from current or former employees,” explains Marcia Conley, RN, Director of Nursing at Cataract & Laser Center, LLC, located in Crossville, Tenn. “Because our employees are familiar with this fast-paced environment, they often have a good grasp of whether someone would fit in well at our ASC.”
Debbie Payne, Chief Operating Officer at San Antonio Eye Center, finds that word of mouth is one of her best tools for finding candidates. “When we have an opening, I send an email to our entire staff and ask them to spread the word. Their networking has yielded incredible results.”
The San Antonio area also boasts another key source of job candidates: new people moving to the region.
“For us, Craigslist ads are effective, because people moving into town seem to go there first. But even when we’re not advertising, new residents frequently send us their resumes,” Payne says. “If we see an awesome candidate, we may hire someone, even without a specific opening. We want to snap up those top employees.”
Interviewing Insights
Resumes provide an applicant’s tangible skills and experience, some of which can be verified through reference checks. The tougher qualities to gauge are the intangible ones.
“When I look at intangibles, I start with a positive attitude,” Payne says. “Customer service is very important as well, so candidates should talk about serving and pleasing patients, not just moving them along or ‘handling’ them. I need people who like to be busy and are interested in their jobs. They should be focused on their own work without worrying about how hard their coworkers are working. And finally, I want people who can see the big picture and know what needs to be done.”
Payne evaluates these qualities during the in-person interview, but she starts with an initial phone screening to save time. “I ask easy questions, such as what job duties they currently perform, why they’re leaving their job, and what they want in a new job. If that conversation tells me that a candidate has bad grammar or minimal skills, then I save myself the time of an in-person interview.”
At the in-person interview, Conley gauges a candidate’s demeanor and personality. She asks questions that provide insights into the personality traits and attitudes the candidate possesses.
“What do you consider your personal and/or professional strengths? Weaknesses? What do you love most about your current or most recent job? Least? Can you tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult patient or family member? All of these questions provide valuable information that guides my decision about whether to hire a candidate to our team.” (See “Three Qualities, Three Questions.”)
Does Your ASC Pay Competitive Salaries?
Find out with salary survey data collected specifically for ophthalmic practices and ASCs.
Do you know the average pay for employees of ophthalmic ASCs? Or how much folks down the street are making? Friends and colleagues have probably given you some idea of the numbers, but now there’s an objective resource for accurate, updated salary data.
The Ophthalmic Practice & ASC Salary Survey (http://aao-ooss-salarysurvey.bsmconsulting.com) is a joint project from the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), Outpatient Ophthalmic Surgery Society (OOSS) and BSM Consulting. This anonymous, searchable database has data on about 130 surgery centers and 300 practices, and all offices are welcome to participate and access data — no AAO or OOSS membership required.
Albert Castillo, who is the Membership Development Consultant at OOSS as well as CEO for San Antonio Eye Center and Executive Director of South Texas Total Eye Care, recently answered a few questions about the Salary Survey.
Why is it important to collect salary information and offer it to ophthalmic practices and ASCs?
“Specialized ophthalmic ASCs are very different than multi-specialty ASCs that handle many kinds of surgery, and it has been difficult to find salary surveys that are specific to ophthalmology. We’re providing one of the only specialized resources available to our peers.”
How does the salary survey work?
“Practices and ASCs enter their salary data, which becomes anonymously available to other users. To enter data, users create a login based on their tax ID. There’s no need to enter the name of the practice or provide any AAO or OOSS membership information. The survey asks for salary data about employees, including job titles, years of experience and hourly or annual salaries.
“You can enter each employee individually or in groups. For example, in our practice and ASC, we have about 40 technicians. Rather than enter each one, we enter several groups with similar experience and salaries (i.e., 12 employees with X years experience and Y salary). The site reminds users to update their data every 6 months.
“To access salary data, users simply search the database. We can also view summary reports that compare our salaries to national and regional data. The survey tells us how our wages compare as a percentile of ASCs, and we can compare our salaries in greater depth by looking at employees’ years of experience.”
How is this information useful to ASCs? Do you use it in your own work?
“It’s not easy to staff ophthalmic ASCs. As a facility director, I use the survey to see how we pay employees compared to others in our state and region. Our ASC is in a highly competitive environment with many ASCs, so we need to know that we’re paying employees fairly and competitively to attract and retain them. We like to be in the 75th percentile for our region, give or take 10% based on experience and years of service.
“In our practice, only the upper management accesses this survey. I’ve talked to some physicians at other ASCs who are concerned that employees who look at this or other salary surveys will decide they need to get paid more. The reality is that even in a small community with little competition, employees tend to know through their own networks or online research what folks get paid elsewhere. Regardless of the market, it’s good to know how your employees’ wages compare.”
Three Qualities, Three Questions
Making a list of interview questions should be a simple task, right? Begin with “Tell me about yourself” and go from there. Unfortunately, that route sometimes leads to such questions as, “What are your hobbies?” and omits questions that dig deep into what you really need to know about a prospective employee.
Two experts from Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Plantation, Fla. — Martha C. Tello, BGS, COMT, ophthalmic technologist and clinical research coordinator, and Stephanie D. McMillan, MHA, COA, lead ophthalmic technician — have interviewed many candidates for their large center. They understand that interviewers must think about the specific qualities they need in an employee, and then craft questions to gauge those qualities. Here, they illustrate this approach with three qualities and three corresponding questions for ASC job candidates.
NURSE
1. Great communicator: Can you describe a situation when you explained a complex surgical procedure to a very nervous patient?
2. Empathetic: What is empathy? Give one example of a team member not showing empathy to a patient.
3. Able to handle stress: What happened the last time you encountered a major problem in the OR and had to make a decision without consulting your head nurse?
OPHTHALMIC TECHNICIAN
1. Competent in most preliminary ophthalmic testing: What is your proficiency with refraction, topography and slit-lamp examination?
2. Collaborative team member: If you were in charge of a group, how would you create a culture of teamwork?
3. Able to efficiently handle busy clinics: What are the key elements for a thorough ophthalmic workup? How many workups can you perform on a busy clinic day?
FRONT DESK STAFF
1. Experienced in a medical setting: How would you describe some of the capabilities you’ve learned from working in previous healthcare settings?
2. Committed to patient service: What do you see yourself doing in 2 years?
3. Pleasant: How do you contribute to a patients’ perception of the practice?
SURGICAL COORDINATOR
1. Organized: How would you train a new surgical scheduler?
2. Able to communicate effectively: Step by step, how do you explain pre-op instructions for cataract surgery to patients?
3. Able to identify surgeons’ specific needs: For surgical scheduling, how many physicians can you comfortably handle?
During the interview process, candidates are typically shown around the center and introduced to other hiring decision-makers. Very strong candidates are in demand, and you can attract them by showing off the best qualities of your ASC and the great environment in which they will work.
At the end of the interview, Conley likes to get an idea of salary expectations. “I often ask candidates if they have a specific salary or certain requirements in mind.”
After a good interview, it’s important to check references. “We’re looking for recent employers and managers with current, eyes-on knowledge of the candidate’s work,” Payne says.
Making the Right Decision
Finally, it’s decision time. Decision-makers vary from ASC to ASC. Conley, a Nursing Director, makes joint decisions with her Medical Director. Payne, a COO, might make a hire, or her center’s CEO or Director take the lead. They often seek feedback from managers and others in the ASC who have met with the candidate.
Once a decision is made and the candidate accepts the offer, there is one last step. “We let them know that their employment depends on the results of a background check,” Conley says. “We check the state abuse registry, as well as the state’s disciplinary action report for nurses.”
For training and further evaluation, Payne’s new hires go through a 90-day “entry period,” and she says it’s very rare that an employee doesn’t work out. “By putting a good deal of thought and work into the interview and selection process, we’ve established a very strong staff that contributes every day to our success.” ■
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