Ep. 141: How to Guarantee Employee Turnover in Urgent Care Clinics
About this Episode
In this episode, Nick and Michael take a humorous approach to discussing employee turnover in urgent care clinics. They playfully explore various ways to "guarantee" turnover, effectively highlighting practices to avoid. Through their lighthearted discussion, the hosts encourage clinic owners to self-evaluate and reflect on their practices, helping listeners identify areas for improvement to promote better employee retention and a more positive work environment.
Topics Covered
- Creating a negative work environment will lead to high employee turnover.
- Inconsistent leadership, poor work-life balance, and underpayment are common factors that drive employees away.
- Negative workplace culture, lack of career development, and high stress levels contribute to employee dissatisfaction.
- Micromanagement, poor feedback mechanisms, lack of support, and insufficient training and development also negatively impact employee retention.
- Clinic owners should evaluate their own practices and make necessary changes to create a positive work environment.
"At the end of the day, if you feel like you cannot walk away and you think the business is going to fall to its knees because you're not there. That's an ego issue."
Michael Ray, Patient Care Marketing Pros
Patient Care Marketing Pros (00:00)
What is going on? Urgent care clinics. Welcome back. You're listening to Walk -Ins Welcome where we help you grow your clinic by tripling your... Yeah, that's good. Tripling your patient volume is a good one. Yeah, tripling your patient volume. We would hope you get more patients. We want repeat visits. Right. We want to help you scale and we want to help you deliver better care. Absolutely. That's what this podcast is all about. We have another fun episode today. I'm excited about this one. Yeah. A while back.
We did an episode that turned out to be pretty popular. I was kind of shocked. People still like actually quoted to us when we bump into them and urgent cares, like I heard that episode. That was funny. and it was how to virtually ensure that your urgent care fails. Yeah. was was funny cause we were just, we, you all know this click baits a real thing. so we even know the episode was that right. But the, the title
hooks you in. That's right. So we're going to try again today. Yeah, we will. And I'll get to the title here in just a second, but I want to go ahead and promote our Facebook group. I want to make sure that you guys get a chance to go to Facebook, join our group walk -ins. Welcome. It's a resource. It's a marketing resource group, basically to help you collaborate with other clinics. What's working, what's not working. Here's what it is. Here's what it's not.
It's not a sales platform or not in there pitching anything. We're just trying to build the community. We're the only ones in there that's not an urgent care or not a clinic of some sort. Right. We don't let other vendors come in and look for opportunities to sell you. Yeah. And if we see it and they sneak in there, we'll kick them out. hopefully they're there to be a resource. Like if you're a vendor and you want to go in there and you're actually adding value to the conversation. Yeah. I'm OK with that because I want you to be able to answer questions. People have questions. But I want to encourage you to go. And then the other thing is always want to make sure share this podcast with
your urgent care friends. want to make sure that this is a great resource for them as well. A rising tide raises all ships. So please subscribe. Yeah. So hit that smash that subscribe button. right. So our podcast today is how to guarantee employee turnover. Yes. Guarantee employees. These are guaranteed ways that you're going to be always hiring, always firing and always saying
Well, it just happened. Right. I'll kick us off with the first one and I'm going to talk about inconsistent leadership, right? If you want to make sure that your team members are putting in their resignation notice and go into other urgent cares, make sure that you are unpredictable, right? Make sure that off the cuff, they don't know what personality they're going to get. They don't know if you're going to be in a good mood. They don't know if you're going to be in a bad mood. They don't know if you're going to be freaking out about something insignificant.
just go ahead and do that consistently. And I guarantee you, you're going to experience some turn. Just get extremely mad at random things and then put the blame on the person right in front of you. Throw a chair. I want you to go ahead and throw it. to Waffle House and throw a chair. That's it. We want to make sure that your employees are leaving. I forget how much fun this is. is. So, So there you go. Inconsistent leadership. That's one easy step.
It's a solid one. You should do it. Super easy, actually. That's right. Just don't care. Next one in the role is poor work -life balance. Oh, And I don't think they should have that at all. No, it should be 80 -hour work weeks. Let's go. All you do is go home and sleep and come back to work. That's all I care about. Oh, by the way, you only need four hours of work and your phone has to be on. I was going to say, the secret to this stuff is to set your work hours and then don't keep
Yes, exactly. That's the secret. Or no. There you go. When you say, Hey, I'll see you guys tomorrow. And then you call them an hour later. Yeah. And it's nice to talk about something good that day or questions. I think it complained to you because you screwed up. Yeah. I think it's a super important way to get people to leave your company. So yeah. mean, yeah. If you, and here's a good one. Keep calling them in on their days off. Yeah. yeah. Call that. But you know, they're on vacation at the beach. You say you better keep your phone
And then or a good one that I've had my own personal experiences with. Send send me a text at 10 p .m. on a Friday night. Do you still work there? No, worked. Yeah, exactly. It was still happening after I left. That's right. That's right. you realize you're not paying me anymore. That's right. Speaking of which, underpayment. What a great way to make sure that people leave your company. Here's the deal. Or even say you're going to pay on one thing, you pay on something else. Here's what I want you to do. Go look at the market
for a nurse, front desk. Payscales .com is a good place to Payscale is what we use. And the best way that I can make sure that our people stay is to make sure that we get that pay scale number and then we pay under it. Like less than what it says. That's how I know they're going to go. Right? Like that's the way to do that. So payscale is a great resource to make sure that you screw this up. Yes. I mean, it's so easy. It's kind of amazing that you'll be able to hire anybody. I mean, the good ones out there.
the ones they're going to go to, they pay at the top of that base scale, but that's not who you are. Or you're going to hire a bunch of trash garbage. That's right. That's right. So the next one now is have a negative workplace culture, negative culture, you know, where I am terrified to ask you a question or the best one here. Everybody gossips. Everyone gossips everyone. Everyone gossips, everyone backstabs and you think it's
Like it's just the thing to do. Like it's just the way things are. It's who we are. mean, just think of the movie or the television show, the office where, where Pam finds out that Michael is like dating her mom. And she goes, Ooh, gossip. Yeah, exactly. She wasn't happy when she left that meeting. Was she? Yeah. And guarantee and make it the worst. The worst thing for somebody is to come in on a Monday, just make it just a terrible time. Make it where, no one wants to say anything.
Here's here's a litmus test on if you're doing this right, okay, which way right on Sunday afternoon around 330 everybody should have their hearts racing and Like terrified to come in or you get random call outs for sick and they're not actually sick. Yeah, exactly That's the easy one. You're only out for a day for the stomach flu. Hey, you got this You got this
I think this lines up with the payment issue and this is making sure that you don't have any kind of career path laid out for them. I think what you need to do is when you hire them, just let them know this is the job you're going to be in and there's nowhere for you to go from here. Give them no hope. I mean, if you can take hope away, they're going to leave. Take away hope, take away inspiration. Just suck it dry. Just say what you're doing today is what you're going to do until the day you quit.
Yeah. And it's so demotivating. It's really going to work. So next, these can kind of go together. High stress levels and a lack of transparency. What's cool about that is you already work in a high stress level environment, especially putting needles in people's arms. At some point they should be wanting to put needles in their own arms. That's how we want to get this done. Man, we're to fun cutting this on TikTok.
They're like, put needles in arms. Yeah. But no, so like the high stress levels and the lack of transparency, just make up crap. Don't hide everything from everybody. We're going to do another episode how to get guaranteed to get banned from social media. How to get guaranteed. So like transparency. So don't communicate with your people. They don't need to know what's going on. Go buy crap for yourself that nobody knows about.
Don't pay your tax, you know taxes just don't say anything to anybody and just show up say out you're fired Why I don't buy just make it I love that just make it where they have no clue what they're about to get This is probably my favorite because this is actually helped me get out of so many jobs that I hated and that's micromanagement. It's my favorite like this is the one way I if you just did this one
They're gone. They're gone. Micromanage them. Like, don't trust and verify. Just verify everything. Right? And trust nothing. That's right. I think they modeled this really well in the movie office space. Right? Where the guy would come by and say, you need to put a cover on your TPS report. And then another one, and then another one, and then another one would just micromanage the crap out of this dude.
And yeah, he blew up the building. know, I think it's safe to say if you're watching the office or office space, you're like, that kind of reminds me of my place. You have a problem. Just by chance. It's the right kind of problem. Yeah. Our goal is to get people to I am a recovering office watcher because I haven't been able to watch the office really ever because it reminded me. It triggers you. It triggers. Well, I think I'm past it's been five years. So I think I'm past the point where it doesn't trigger me or where I used to work.
because it was so familiar, was bothersome. Anyway, do you still work there?
All right. So next one up is this is a good one. Poor feedback mechanisms. You have no place for somebody to give you feedback as an employee. So if they wanted to tell you things that are bothering them or something that's just not working like you don't provide that opportunity for them. Now you block it away. You say that's your problem. Deal with it. I don't care if you don't like who I am that deal with that.
Oh, Susie over there. She's stealing needles out of the bag. Don't tell me about it. I don't want to know that lines up with mine. Next one, which is just a lack of support. Yeah, you're talking about that. My, my thing here is, is, is let's, let's make sure that when they come to you with questions, you tell them to go find the answers themselves. That's a good way to do it. Yeah. Oh, and going back to mine real quick, just the, I think we're going to be open 24 hours. I don't want, I don't care what you say.
Probably some feedback that would come from that, but there's no way to give that feedback to you. you're crushing it. You just zip it up. I don't care. I mean, I'm thinking too, cause I know some companies that do some of these things and it is comical to Steve and think about. know I enjoy it. All right. So let's see. Next one I got is, well, kind of goes to not vying employee opinions. Right? So it's kind
falls into that same thing where I just don't care what you have to say. Yeah. This is my business. I don't care what you have to say. I'm smarter than you. Now here's the problem. You're human. So you have to really work on this. You have to make sure that you make a conscious effort to not care. To straight up don't give a rip. Only care for yourself. Sometimes you're going to have to catch yourself because you're going to feel like you want to be helpful. You're going to have to resist that. And you're going to have to tell yourself, I'm the most important person in this room.
I know everything. These people know nothing. Guarantees. We're making guarantees on this podcast today. It's going to work. This is the fastest 12 minutes. It's going to work. Yeah. And I've only got, I've only got really two more on my list. I don't know how you're doing over there. Yeah. only got one more after that. Yeah. This is my last one up here. We talked a little bit about pay, but you can actually take that to the next level and just not give any benefits at all. No vacation, no paid holidays.
You don't have to worry about health insurance. It's going to save you a fortune. Yeah, it's going to save you tons of money. Now you'll have to spend that money back on the hiring side of things. Yeah, you'll have to hire every three, you know, with that six month mark where people start to burn out because they need some time off or something. Or they just like realize that they're on a sinking ship. Yeah. And you're the captain. Yeah.
And you're happy to go down with that. That's right. And you're I'm going to go down to the very bottom and just hang on. This ship will rise again someday. That's right. That's not when it's underwater. And then finally, which goes into some of this, at the end of the day, you don't address any issue. You just ignore the issues. You just don't care. They'll just work themselves out. That's the mind. Why stress yourself about it? Just don't think about it. Just do what you do.
It'll be fine. Nothing will happen. That's right. This is probably my favorite. This probably hits home to me the most. It's insufficient training and development. And here's why I say that. I remember going into my first traditional advertising role in radio. I got hired. I went through their processes. I took their tests and they took me back to the sales department of two people, me being the newest of two. And they sat me at a desk
said, luck. And then three days later, I wandered out of the office to go sell something because nobody would talk to me. They wouldn't train me. They didn't develop me. They just said, you were here to sell, go sell. I don't work there anymore. It worked. Yeah, it works every time. Yeah. So just make it just a barren land where you have, they have no idea which way is up or down or anything. They just have to wander. and then you're just making this giant assumption
They have a degree in this. They'll figure it out. That's good. That's right. that is some insurance right there. That's how you insure people leave. like that. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if you just want to be a business of one, just follow these steps. All right. So now what we have to do is, just like every episode that we do, we have to put things into practice. All right? We need to do a little self -evaluation in an inventory. Are you paying well? Stop it.
stop it. Okay. mean, are you, are you, are you giving people freedom to go make good decisions in their role? You're going to have to micromanage a little better. Y 'all. I mean, you need to step up your game. Are you actually telling them what's going on and being honest with them? I mean, that's a big no, no, we can't do this. Why would you do that? No, we can't do it. We can't do it. I really feel bad for those of you, cause this is a big one that you're going to have to undo. And that's
Like you've given people a career path. If that's you, you need to go delete that. Yeah. Just, just wipe it from the handbook that they signed and say, you already signed this. Take it off the wall. We hired you for this job. Not that way. You don't have a handbook cause you don't know what transparency is. Now that's my kind of clinic right there. You know, gosh, every time we talk about this type of stuff, I just think about my old place and
Wow, we checked all these boxes. You know what's funny? We had no handbook. I actually had no contract. Did you not? And didn't he try and like send USC, send to assist? No, so I had a partnership contract. okay. got you. But I never had an employment contract. Not that you breached it, Yeah, he still owes me a dollar. Another way to ensure failure. Make your partnership agreement worth exactly one dollar. If I backed out.
He would owe me a dollar. He never paid me that dollar. You'll never see it. But it was funny because I had to go to his lawyer and say, can you please get him to send me a document to disconnect me from this partnership? Because he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't send anything. finally, she said, yeah, yeah, I'll take care of this for you. Talking to his lawyer. Unbelievable. And you don't work there anymore. No, it's been a while. And I'm not even the same person. I have to tell you, we're not perfect on this. But I think we've checked most every box on here.
Unfortunately, it's the opposite. I mean, we've dialed in all of this. So we've got work to do. We're in the same boat that you're in. I've got so much work in this area that I've got to go back and I've got to undo the micromania. Like I've got, I've got to remove the support. I've got to make sure that I'm not a good leader. Like all these different things we've got to work on. Hey, listen, I know we're joking and this is probably the fastest train wreck of a podcast and, and, and video that you've probably listened to, but you know, it might be our most listened to.
You know what? If we weren't having fun, why bother doing this podcast? Yeah, we weren't. We already recorded a serious podcast earlier today. Listen to that. And it was pretty good. I enjoyed it. But by this time, right, let's have some fun. Honestly, we were looking at our podcast numbers and y 'all really loved the episode where we weren't being serious and y 'all dug into it and liked it a lot. So we're like, all right, we'll come up with another one. But but now at the end of the day, if you started nodding your head yes to these things that we were saying,
You have a problem Actually, what's probably happening is you're probably going back and going man. I had a job that did that Yeah, you're probably you're probably triggering you right now quick triggers You know, it's what's funny about our company is it is a what is the word like the island of misfit toys that we talk about? yeah, it's an acumen, know, we're kind of past that a little bit No, no, we're in a very good place. But it like when we first started this company, it was an accumulation
Like all of our SOPs, standard operating procedures, all of our vision, mission, values, all of that was birthed out of the disasters of companies that we came from. Yep. So, and I worked for some good places too. I don't just have this history of just terrible places. I've worked for some people. Yeah. I've worked for some good people. But even like, I would argue even here, as much effort as we put into all of this, I would even say there's areas for us to improve and grow and change.
Just do a little introspection. If you feel like this is who you are currently in any one of these areas, that's an area to go tackle. And I'm talking about the opposite end. Like if you feel like you're a little micromanage -y, think about why you are that way and just make it a goal to back off a little bit. Yeah. At the end of the day, if you feel like you cannot walk away and you think the business is going to fall to its knees because you're not there. That's an ego issue.
Well, that's the wrong team. Yeah. Or you just don't trust them. Cause I, you know, we have some clients that have amazing team team members. And when we talk to our contact or the owner, they, don't show the trust toward them. Cause there have been multiple times like owner, you don't have time for us. Can we talk to so -and cause she's been awesome. Like, no, I don't trust her. Well, so, in all fairness, Michael, you know, we I've poured a
this is a real thing for a business owner or a clinic owner or whatever. I pour a lot of mental energy into caring for this team. And there's often times where because of the past experiences I've had with team members going on to other companies because of pay where I've like, Hey, did they quit? You know, there's a hidden joke in there now, but it wasn't always that
No, because every time we'd come out of a meeting with somebody, man, I their notice. Yeah, I think it's a bad joke now for sure. Because we were talking about this at lunch, like back in the hot times of COVID. Job hopping was just a thing. Yeah, like it was. it. We felt it. We had we had good people that really liked us and wanted to stay but felt like they needed a job hop. Yeah. And there was a good two or three months I would go have my monthly one to one with with an employee.
And I come out say, Hey guys, just want to make an announcement. So and so just turn in their notice. Yep. Their last day will be whatever. Yeah. And that happened quite a few times and it's demoralizing. it is. like, cause like from my standpoint, crap, now I gotta go find somebody else. And then also the team members are saying, dang, what am I in the wrong boat? Like is this ship sinking? I just don't know it. Yeah. Cause that's the thing too. Like when you, cause I'm working with
a nonprofit right now and two of the four people left. And so and they had to send out an email and say, don't worry, blah, blah, blah. And like that there's a lack of confidence that comes with that. our last team member that left the company.
needed to leave the company, like for the reasons they left, but money, right? Cause there was a downturn in a spouse job and some other things and it was a significant, it was a significant enough pay increase that they needed to go. But the last time I talked to him, he genuinely regretted leaving. we were, you know, we were, there was a, he brought a lot to the table. I'd have kept him forever. know, I would have. He kind of just added to the flavor of the culture and everything.
Love him to death and I think all of us have a general relationship with him. We can text him. He'll text us right back. We have an employee that hasn't worked for us for almost three years. I texted him happy birthday this week and he sent back and thanks and I miss seeing you guys. Like that's three years ago. I think it's okay to build something like that, right? I hope you are. I mean that. hope you're building a company where people see
in a trusted team kind of way. I'll be honest. So when I left the other place, because it was so bad, I couldn't visualize the idea of hanging out with my boss after hours. Couldn't visualize it. I like, that's just weird. And now I hang out and stuff, and I even think about it. I remember. Well, that's good. Right. But I remember I could never associate with that person in that sense. also, when I finally did leave,
it was bottom pit in the stomach if I saw him in public, like almost like, me turn around and we had a whole thing where this company was in the same building as that my old company. It's I had to get on the elevator with them and that was fun fact. God, I didn't know that that happened. You didn't, you buried that down deep. He's like, Hey Mike. was like, hi. There was a, the company that I worked for right before I started this marketing agency.
has moved to our city from where they live. And so I see them at the grocery store now. And I feel that same, I only worked there for exactly one year. It just wasn't a good fit. And I was there for almost eight years. Yeah. Yeah. But even after just one year, we left on such bad terms that, that like I see them in the parking lot and I'm just like, I'll just go grocery shopping another day. That's something I'm have to work out. didn't know that was even a thing.
I mean, buried down deep, you know, that's so interesting. Yeah. So anyway, that has to feel like this is a therapy episode waiting to happen. Well, I mean, it is like, okay, audience. I'm curious. Is there anybody here that's like, would rather drive 15 minutes to another grocery store than see my ex employer in the same grocery store. You know, so in full disclosure here, some of us because of maybe the way I did things to you've heard me talk about your ex.
My exit was was dicey. I started an agency when I worked at an agency. Yeah, I don't feel good about that. I still deal with that a little bit. Right now. There was reasons for that. Yeah. That were that were more than justified. But at the same time, I've always felt I've always felt like there was a better way to do that. You live and learn. Everybody makes mistakes. And I said it may have been the way that culture was set where you were designed to feel bad about
I mean, that may be true as well. Because flipping on its head, let's say you went and worked for Josh Nelson. I think he would encourage you to go start your own agency. Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. Different set. Different leadership. But no, I didn't know that about the grocery store. That's so fascinating. Let's be human, Like, this is, mean, it's a real thing.
Such a cool episode. All right. Well, that's all I think we got, right? That's all I've got. If this is a one star episode for you, tell no one. Yeah, don't please don't rate this one. But I think actually, but if you do like or have anything, please send us an email at hello at patient care, mark, the pros dot com or leave a comment on Spotify because we get those from time to time. we do. We tripped over one the other day. We didn't see. And it was like this episode was great. Like I wish we saw that earlier. That's right. Thanks for the comment. And
Please visit us on YouTube. Our YouTube channel, believe it or not, is growing. wasn't expecting that. I don't know why I would expect that, because this is an audio podcast, except we've built out a video studio. So it seems to me, at this point, the best place to engage in our content is YouTube. we have a nice looking studio now. I'm not embarrassed by this at all. No, you were struggling with the previous. For a minute. Yeah, but once we had it, we had it pretty good at the old office.
And then when we got here, literally had a blank space. Yeah, we were building it. Yeah. And then now we're back in the game. anyway, listen, I digress. Hey, listen, we'll be back next Wednesday with another episode. We'll be a little bit more positive on that one. But I hope you have a great week. I hope you got a kick out of this one. We'll see you next time. See you. See you.
