Turning Recruitment Challenges into Opportunities: Treat Your Business Bonus Episode

Katie Bell: 0:02

You’re listening to treat your business with Katie Bell, the podcast for health and wellness business owners that want a need to give their business the treatment plan, it needs a treatment plan that will create more time back in your life, more income and more confidence when it comes to running your business. I’m here to share with you bite sized episodes full of tried and tested tips from my own real experience of growing a successful physiotherapy and wellness clinic. And from working with many businesses to do the same. The treat your business podcast is sponsored by hm DG. Marketing is always one of the top three issues for clinic owners that I speak to. It’s too expensive and complicated. They’ve had issues in the past, or they just don’t know where to find a trusted expert. It’s always said only recommend products or services, you’re confident in using yourself. Well, when it comes to marketing, we use HMD G for our own clinic. They’ve proven to be exactly what you’d want from an agency. As a specialist, they understand the industry. They’re responsive and always deliver. We can’t recommend them highly enough, head to HMD g.co.uk To find out more.

Katie Bell: 1:10

Welcome to your cheeky little bonus

Katie Bell: 1:12

episode. So quite a funny way that this has come about because I am sat here with20 minutes to spare before I interview, my next guest speaker and the fabulous Joe who sits behind the scenes of this podcast just said to me just fling one out pay to just fling one out. So this is what I’m doing. And I decided that I would just come on and quickly talk to you guys about the recruitment challenge that we are all facing in our industry and how we can turn this into an opportunity and how we can reframe this, I would say negative Nellies out there that are just moaning constantly about the fact that we can’t recruit that it’s really difficult to recruit that the cost of living crisis has gone up that the media is telling us that there’s no you know, we are in a labour shortage and blah,blah, blah, blah, blah. So I wanted to just, I guess, talk about what we’re seeing that it’s completely normal. And it will all come back round.Because business is always very cyclical, it will always we will move on to the next cycle. So I think there’s a few, a few reasons we’re seeing what we’re seeing, and COVID was, we are now I guess, sufficiently along the track from COVID, where we’re now seeing the people coming through our graduates coming through, I definitely know that we’ve seen this one we’ve been recruiting have got different experience, okay,which means that as a private practitioner, we find it more difficult for them to just merge into our culture, because their experience thus far has probably been quite hands off. Or they have lacked that those clinical placements just because of the challenges that happened to join COVID. And it’s about recognising that that is what is okay, we cannot change that. We can’t, we can’t control that.But what we can control. And what we can adjust is how we maybe create different opportunities within the private sector for these young graduates that are coming out, who don’t necessarily want to move straight into the NHS, I was one of those people. I never ever worked in an NHS role, I went straight into the private world.And I was very, very, very grateful for the opportunity that was given to me. And I think it’s important that we all as private practitioners paid back into that. And we we do take on some of these people who look about 12, which is always slightly frightening, isn’t it when you interview them, but there are a lot of new graduates that need our support, and they need that opportunity. So I think COVID has some impact in what we’re seeing. I there’s lots of economic reasons, we are definitely in a labour shortage.There’s no two ways about that.I also think that the media have got a lot to transfer, which is why I’ve not watched the news for about 10 years. So I’ve got no idea what’s going on ever.But that it’s always about lack it’s always about negative and the cost of living crisis is creates fear. And it creates worry, which means people who are unemployed roles are going to find it more challenging to make the shift and the jump into private practice because private practice is still people still think they need to be freelance or they need to be self employed within a private practice. It’s kind of from history really,that’s just what everybody assumes. But actually we need to be keeping up with the way things are moving and we need to be offering employed To roles,we need to be offering training schemes, we need to be offering CPD schemes that we can help support these individuals and make our businesses a place that people want to come and work in.We can’t just rest on our laurels and keep thinking that,you know, well, if they want to work for they shouldn’t work for me, it will make it like they should want to work for you,because your package or the way that you and it doesn’t have to always be about money. But the other things that you can offer,outweigh what they maybe are looking at in the NHS. I think the other thing that we’ve seen in the last 12 months is that we have seen quite a big increase in the NHS salaries. And we feel as private practitioners, that it’s a big jump, and we’re chasing that all the time, okay,some of the percentage increases that we are seeing, like in the private world would just never,ever, ever happen. However, we have to take the we have to see as an opportunity, not just always the challenge and all always the negative and go right, knowing your numbers. So if you are going to employ somebody, I always like to take what they’re going to cost me so what I paid them. And then I always like to add 20%, because you’ve got employers, national insurance, and you’ve got pension contributions, if they’re working for you, or both the personal taxes are sholde.And so it’s a cost cost to the business. So I have 20% on. And then I look at that and go okay,at the base cost of staff. So gross salary plus 20%. What is it that how many clients do they need to see to break even each week. Now, that’s not just what it costs you because then they are in one of your treatment rooms, and there’ll be using some of your equipment. So there will be an additional cost to them seeing client which is all of your overheads, okay, and that can be split across the number of hours that you’re working within, within the clinic, the number of hours that you open for, there’s various formulas that you can use. So we can have a rough idea of every time a member of staff sees a client, it costs the business this and we can then work out how many clients they need to break even. And that becomes the key KPIs that becomes the performance drivers. So we can very clearly say right, if I take this new member of staff on by month one, I want them here,but I want to I want them here by month three, I want them here. So that they’re quickly not a cost to the business.They’re an investment, they’re going to be returning their your investment in them back to you.I always like to think about when you bring somebody into an employee role, can you look at having a salary, and then can you add in a performance bonus.So if you just do your job, this is what you get. But if you do this, if you hit an occupancy level of 75% or more, you click into this bonus scheme. If you hit a conversion rate from new patient to follow up, you kick into this bonus scheme. So giving people ways that they can make earn more money make more money, particularly right now is really powerful.But you benefit because if they’re making if they’re making more money, it’s because they’re making you more money. Okay, so thinking about how you can leverage that and think about restructuring their package, the thing that you’re offering them,can you look at some flexible working schemes, can you look at a CPD budget that they get, and you can have things written into your contract, which means that if they were to leave within 12months, it’s 100% repayable within 24 months, it’s 50%Payable, whatever, you can protect yourself, you can have a probationary period that runs for three months, and you can extend it for another three months. In my opinion, if you’re having to extend a probationary period, you need to get rid of them. However, that’s a whole different conversation. But I guess the the important thing here is to take a look at this and not just continue doing what we’ve always done in the private world, not just kind of going harping back to what well, we used to do this and we just offer commission or we just offer, you know, a set rate,okay? You’ve got to know your numbers because people coming into to work for you as a freelance practitioner or a therapist, when people are saying, well, I’m giving them50% and 60%. I can guarantee that unless you’re charging significant sums of money, or that you basically run your clinic from a greenhouse and you don’t need any form of electricity or anything. You’re not going to be making a margin that is going to give you money to reinvest into your business or to create you the life that you Want to live to give you freedom and flexibility, because the cost of delivery has gone up, our margins are being squeezed. And if you’re giving away a high percentage, a high proportion of that, I can promise you, when you do the math, and you look at how much it costs you for that treatment room in that time, the number of staff or your marketing, your advertising, your insurance,your car payments, everything,then you lost your tax, you probably ending up with a very,very small amount of money. And you need to do a lot of those to then make enough for you to reinvest in your business or to pay yourself for example. So I think, in the private world, we need a shift, we need to move with the times, we need to be a place that people really want to work that it becomes that everybody doesn’t just go and do their degree. And then that’s the natural route to for that,that we are an option because we have good support networks. We have good CPD options. We have good salaries, competitive salaries, but we also have performance schemes, we have bonus schemes, we have incentives for people to step up to the next level, you can always turn your performance schemes into if somebody says,I’m not very monetary driven.Find out what what works for them, do they want you to buy you a star day? Or do they want a meal for a voucher voucher for a meal or, you know, think about what’s going to work for you in the business, I always think that giving away more holiday in days off, you have to remember that a clinician is costing you and losing you when they’re on holiday, because they’re not seeing clients. So you’re kind of losing on to two parts. So why don’t always like to just think, Okay, well, we’ll just add more holiday. And we’ll just give that as it as an incentive.Because you you lose on, you lose twice. So think about it from a business perspective. And I think it’s a time for us to kind of really step up as private practitioners and business owners and clinic owners, and stepping into a place where we actually, we actually sell ourselves we believe in what we do. I believe that my company that people that work for me, I’ve got people that work for me for eight or nine years, because we genuinely care, we work very hard to create a great team, a great community, I listen to my team,I involve my team, I spend time with them. And it’s very difficult to do all the time,because we’re all time for a long stretch. But it’s really important that you lead, you lead in the right way. Because that’s all the team really want isn’t just one a bit of you as the leader, and they want you to be present, and they want you to be there. And that doesn’t mean that you have to lose all your boundaries, it doesn’t mean that you have to be there all the time. But it does mean that you have to be accessible. And believing in that people really would want to come and work for you. I speak to so many clients that when they put the job ad out there, it literally just makes me want to cringe, it makes me want to fall asleep. It does not inspire me in the slightest. And I say this,because that’s what we’re seeing, you know, we’re seeing these job ads go out there and just boring. We have got to become, we’ve got to promote ourselves and market ourselves to really showcase what we’re about to, to showcase what our values are as a business, our mission, our vision, why we do what we do, and why they would want to come work for you in your business. So this is like,you know, when we when we do marketing in our own businesses to market to our clients, it’s no different. We’ve got a platform that we want to showcase and say this is why you want to come and be an amazing part of my team. And then give them a call to action that allows them to follow a process.So I hate where people put up just email me your CV, and we will be in touch because anybody can write anything on the CV and that does not show anything about the person. I might say something like write me a short paragraph, no more than 250words about why you’re the right person to join my team. Or give them another scenario, okay,because if they then send you the CV or they can’t follow our process, and that’s not something that I want to work with. It might be that you get them to do a StrengthsFinder test, because you want to profile them before you take them through the interview stage because you’re looking for a type of person within your business because you’ve got gaps and you know what gaps you need to fill. So hopefully this little cheeky Flink out there bonus episode has helped just inspire you that there are great people out there that are you have to be consistent when you’re recruiting. You can’t just shove a job ad out one week and expect to have the will deliver to you on a play in front of you and all those people be the people that you want in your business. Okay because you It’s not going to happen like that. So change your expectations. Be consistent in your approach. Leverage the network, leverage your community around you. Because it’s more often than not people who know people that are going to refer people to you in your business. That’s always the way our business has worked. There’s various job platforms that you can use that we’ve talked about before.

Katie Bell: 15:21

But sell yourself.

Katie Bell: 15:23

Make sure people read your ad, or read about you and genuinely want to come and work for you or they’re intrigued to come and find out more so that the door is open and you can have that conversation. And then think about how can we not just compete? How can we not just always match how can we do things differently? Because people value money? Yes, they value time. Yes, they value balance, they value freedom, they value education, they value continue learning, they value community, they value relationships, we can we can create job roles that leverage all of those points and create and make your business that somebody really wants to come and work for. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little bonus link out there episode. And I will I will be back again next week for a slightly more planned one. See you soon. Thank you for listening to treat your business with Katie Bell, the podcast that tells you what you really need to hear. And now when it comes to running a successful business in the health and wellness industry that gives you the time, money and freedom you are wanting for access to our free workshops on how to get more clients in your business, how to make more income in the next 30 days. And to get more time back in your business and life. Head to our free Facebook group today. Treat your business or head over to thrive dash business coaching.com All of the links are available in the show notes