HOW TO MOVE FROM THE FLOOR TO SUPERVISOR AMY NEWFIELD, MS CVT, VTS (ECC) VETgirl Technician CE Coordinator
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Plenty of career development conversations have taken place over patient workups. While it’s not ideal, the employee feels valued because leadership is listening to them. Making sure you’re in touch with every member of the team is important for the success of your position. 6 EDUCATE YOURSELF Just because an individual can perform CPR or place a catheter in a very compromised patient does not mean they are the best managers. It is important that any new supervisor or manager educate themselves on how to lead people. There are plenty of in-classroom weekend seminars, online seminars, and even at most veterinary conferences you can find continuing education on skills needed to lead people. Leadership skills are something that can be learned and worked on throughout one’s career. There is no such thing as a perfect leader. Educating yourself on the basics is very important to the success of your position. 7 SET YOUR TEAM UP FOR SUCCESS A good team has the following key qualities: Understanding what is expected of them, feeling like the hospital’s success lies in their hands, feeling like they are valued, the work environment is healthy, and pay/ benefits are good. Understanding Their Job: Hospital teams should have a manual for that department. It is important that items such as dress code, calling out policy, vacation time requests, are all outlined for the employee. It is hard to
become a culture in the hospital that everyone is a cheerleader. The best managers foster that environment. Healthy Team Environment: The minute you have a toxic team is the minute you start losing team members. It is important to focus on the health of the team. A healthy team is one that will come in for each other if someone called out, is there to support the wins in someone’s life, is there to support each other through bad times as well, and who has the ability to laugh and joke with each other throughout the day. If your team isn’t laughing and joking and you’re having a hard time having people come in for work if someone calls out, then you likely have an unhealthy team. Working on teambuilding is really important. Pay/Benefits: It is unlikely that you have the ability to control pay or benefits. If you do, the most important thing is that all employees are paid fairly. Using a pay scale and standing by it is the best way to justify salaries to employees. Pay scales are never based off of just years of experience. Medicine is constantly evolving and changing and employees should be expected to evolve and change with it. It should be based off knowledge and what the individual is contributing to the hospital. 8 CONFLICT RESOLUTION Conflict resolution, or dealing with team
document less than ideal workplace behavior if they don’t know what’s expected of them. Ensuring your team knows exactly what’s expected is important. Ensure that important policies, perhaps even how the team is expected to place an IV catheter, are signed off on so it can’t be said that the policy was never presented to the employee. Hospital Success Is On Them: Every employee, regardless of the job, wants to be able to contribute to it in a way that makes them feel empowered. The best hospital teams work in a way where the manager is simply the leader but every member on the floor also feels like a leader. They take ownership and pride in their hospital. They recognize that the drawers will not stock themselves and that in order for them to be most successful it may mean staying 10 or 15 minutes late to stock them. The best managers teach employees what freedoms they have and then allow them to make decisions within that framework. Don’t micromanage. Allow your team to be successful. Feeling Valued: Regardless of all the freedoms allowed, if an employee does not feel valued, they likely will stop performing well. The best managers ensure that their team members feel valued. Every team member should be praised at least once a week for something. “Good job getting that catheter in.” “Thanks for coming in early.” “Way to go with that difficult patient.” All of those things are simple but important for managers to acknowledge. It is important that little and big things are praised. It should
members that are underperforming or those that have made mistakes, is perhaps the hardest thing from going from the floor to a supervisor position. (continued)
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