Creating a Team Culture that Retains Clinicians & Grows Your Brand
Oh, man. Alright. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Brand Your Practice podcast where you get to learn about marketing, growing, and scaling your private practice. I'm Brent Stutzman, and today, we're gonna be talking about how to create a team culture that retains clinicians and grows your brand. But we've before we get into the episode, I want all the group practice owners out there and those who might be on the verge of starting a group practice to know about the group practice scaling summit that I'm hosting on April 23rd 24th this year in beautiful Oak Park, Illinois.
Brent Stutzman:It's a day where and a it's a day and a half where you get to grow your business owner skills. We're talking about how to hire amazing team members, how to fire team members, and what metrics you need to do to track, like, what metrics you need to track on a dashboard to make sure your business is healthy and you don't have any blind spots and so much more. So think about this summit as a series of mini TED Talks, but you can then ask all the questions you want to the speaker and also learn from the wisdom of the group. So I I think community is really important in the learning process, so which is why we're we're limiting to just 50 people, group practice owners coming, and also creating a lot of space where you can ask questions and be in community and try to figure out those way those those places that you are stuck in your practice and get unstuck. So just go to brand your practice.com/summit to sign up.
Brent Stutzman:Tickets are going fast. We have a special discount for just the podcast listeners. So when you go and check out, just type in podcast 100, podcast 100, and you get a $100 off. Alright. So let's go back to today's topic, how to create a team culture that retains clinicians and grows your brand.
Brent Stutzman:And to help me do that is Alex Hare, the owner of Optimum Joy Counseling is a multistate group practice, that's based here in Chicago, Illinois. Welcome back to the show, Alex.
Alexandra Hoerr:Oh, I am so happy to be here. And, honestly, I think, and then just listening to you list off those topics, Brent, I am happy to be speaking to some of, but I'm also just happy to be attending because I think like metrics hiring all those things are things that I am also dealing with on like a day to day basis. So I'm just excited for the summit and to be there and to see you there. And, yeah, it's gonna be a great time.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. We're really looking forward to it. And, again, it's like group practice owners coming together and, like, helping solve one another's problems is what I'm really excited about in building a little community around that. And today, you're gonna be, really kind of doing a little bit of a preview of your talk. So you're gonna be sharing about 3 of maybe the 5 or 6 points, that you're gonna be talking about in this topic.
Brent Stutzman:So if you wanna hear more, then sign up for the summit and come to Oak Park. Alright, Alex. Why don't you go ahead and jump in? I'll turn it over to
Alexandra Hoerr:you. Absolutely. I really appreciate, the introduction, Brent. And I think that when we are thinking as practice owners about how to retain what really, what is our, our most valuable product is the people that work within our organizations. And so I cannot emphasize enough how important employee retention is.
Alexandra Hoerr:And, you know, we, at this point in time have employees who have been with us. We've been a practice for 7 years, just over 7 and there's people who have had been with us for 6 and a half years, you know, so have decided that they wanna stay within our organization when in fact they maybe didn't have to. And so this is something that I think is is a really important topic because this having people providing services is what we do. Oftentimes is our main income line as practice owners. So it's just really important.
Alexandra Hoerr:And if you can combine those things like retaining your employees, but also like growing your brand, I think that it's a really delicate thing to combine those where people feel committed to an organization. So And I don't know if you resonate with this, Brent, because you're somebody who helps people start practices all the time, but I think we need to really, as practice owners, realize that at some point in time our employees don't really need us. And that sounds like a weird place to maybe start on the front end of like, Oh yeah, we're trying to retain people, but like there's so much information out there that like organizations like yourself provide to like help people do this private practice thing well, and at least in Illinois, some of the licensure stuff is people really only need their, employer for about 2 years until they get their full license. And so I think that with that combination of factors. I think we all just need to come to grips with like at some point in time our employees might not need us as their employer and when they're when it's like really easy for them to maybe work somewhere else to think through what actually, like, why would they actually stay?
Alexandra Hoerr:And so when they don't need us, why would they actually stay? What actually, like, matters to people? And this is probably the bulk of my job at this point in time is thinking about, are our employees happy? We just, like, changed so much of our paid leave structure to, like, you know, give people rest and incentives and all those different things. So, yeah, the I I don't know how much you see of this on your end in, like, growing brands, Brent, but I think one of the biggest things I've seen matter to people in their hiring and staying process is something I don't know, exactly the word to put on it.
Alexandra Hoerr:I've the best word I've put on it is almost like ethics in a way, but people I can every single interview I have been in, which is quite, we're we're, like, regularly having applications and interviewing people and consistently the thing that people say about why they would have applied to even come work at Optimum Joy is related to the brand that people consistently say, you seem like you're doing good in the world. You seem like you're giving back. And that just feels important. Definitely the thing. So I would say that consistently what matters to people on their entry into an organization, but also what helps them stay is how you think about business, how you care for your employees, how you care for like the community around you.
Alexandra Hoerr:And one big thing that we have done is really kind of work in our private practice, but also kind of work together with a non profit arm that we are able to kind of fund initiatives that are really important to our employees. And that doesn't connect directly with compensation, but I cannot tell you how important that is to our employees that they feel like what's important to them could be important to their organization that their organization would put time, money, effort, and different, means behind just what is an initiative that feels important to them.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. And I know I mean, you may you might dive in this a little bit more in their talk, but, like, I would actually love to hear, is this your nonprofit or is this a another nonprofit you just partnered up with?
Alexandra Hoerr:That's a great question. I I am the founder of this nonprofit and, so I have started it and I'm on like the board that runs, that facilitates our initiatives and stuff. And so it's not. It's not essentially the same thing. There are 2 separate organizations, but we have a really, wonderful working relationship in essentially like training therapists and like giving reduced fees and like putting money towards those causes.
Alexandra Hoerr:There's like a number of things around accessibility to mental health that is like the overall umbrella of the nonprofit that I found it, which is just called resonate joy. So Optimum Joy, Resonate Joy. It's kinda hard to separate the 2, honestly, but they are 2 separate entities Yeah. That our employees have kind of probably unique access to since being the founder.
Brent Stutzman:Got it. That's great. Okay. Well, good. Well, keep going.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. I well, I would say yeah. I think the, you know, I am not a millennial, but I know the new workforce is generation you know, the the millennials, gen gen z ers, you know, that that type of thing where, you know, there's a bit of a disconnect and how like, connecting with them. So you I I, you know, I don't know how you would identify if it's a millennial or or gen or gen x or zer, but, I'm curious, like, how are you, yeah, how are you connecting with them as far as what are they seeing as far as wanting to like, a workplace? I mean, you talked about the giving back, but I'm curious what else you're seeing.
Alexandra Hoerr:Yeah. You know, there is, I think a benefit of being in private practice to some degree is, like, flexibility. And so, I think that that that's something like hybrid workplaces or even the we've had a number of people retain their job with us. We actually had a coworker living in Ireland this last year and we had someone who moved to California And so, you know, it's a little more more complicated on the back end of, like, paying their state taxes. Yeah.
Alexandra Hoerr:But I think with millennial Gen Z, just like the upcoming, they they, want to some degree the flexibility to be able to Do this like work that feels like helping people and doing good and like earning a good wage, but they also kind of want to take advantage of all of what life has to offer.
Brent Stutzman:Right. And then it's it's the difficult balance of well, if you, like, if you want that, then you can't make as much like, you know, there's like this trade off. I mean, like, you have to work. Right? And but if you want this, then there's sacrifices that have to be made.
Brent Stutzman:I imagine there's Totally. Lot of those conversations go.
Alexandra Hoerr:There really are, honestly, and I think that that gets into, like, one of the other big points that we'll talk more about at the summit, but just how you set up compensation and initiatives. And and here's the thing is everybody. People need money to live and we all want to make as much money as possible. But I think that what you just said brings up a good point that it's like, if you want flexibility, where are you going to give? And is that going to be in compensation somewhere?
Alexandra Hoerr:And I I honestly in our interview process, I talk about this with our employees all the time and truthfully Brent, we I I we aren't the highest paying practice out there. We probably sit just right under what is the highest payers, but it's because we do so much in, like, benefits and incentives and all this stuff for our employees. But I am really kind of clear about that we aren't the highest paying and really, like, tell people that, but they still choose to, like, work here and stay because of the, like, unique compilation of flexibility, this, like, great place to work that takes care of people and also like what would be like a livable wage that they could do things in their life. And if they work hard that they get, some type of, recognition incentive. It doesn't always have to be financial, but I think, money does always talk, I think, in a unique way as well.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's let's go on to your next points. Thanks for sharing that first one.
Alexandra Hoerr:Mhmm. Yeah. You know, the other biggest difference so we're an office that, we have just embraced the fact that we we are for hiring young clinicians, training them, putting a lot of time, money and effort into their career development. And, you know, Brent, people get into our field because they love to work with people. They love it.
Alexandra Hoerr:It's why we get into it. People probably don't often enter it thinking about, like, even the the compensation side of it. Maybe if they're in their 2nd or third career, they do. But some of these younger clinicians, they just they come into it because they're like, I wanna help people. And I think that that is good and beautiful.
Alexandra Hoerr:We'll all be doing that the rest of our lives. But I think that there could be a fatigue and envisioning your life 5, 10, 15, 20 years out and just thinking, oh, I'm going to see 20 or 30 clients a week, literally for the rest of my life. And that has a monotonous and a fatigue to it that our office has really, thought a lot about and created ultimately, like, how do we think about career development and what does that look like for somebody? And ultimately in thinking about that at any point in time, somebody, an employee may choose like, oh, optimum joy is not the right fit for me. But it doesn't happen very often, and I would be 100% okay if that did happen for somebody.
Alexandra Hoerr:It doesn't really happen very often because I think we've thought about and tried to think how can that career development and all the things they want to do, how can that actually be maybe be under our umbrella or within the company of Optimum Joy within the brand of Optimum Joy. And this is something that I think a lot of our growth, has really been a therapist saying, hey, I'm interested in this. I want to do this within my my life and my career. And then actually, I think just like matching efforts and putting resources behind that. That's been a huge way for our organization to grow and they end up growing the brand of Optimum Joy, but they also feel like their resume, their career experience, all grows with it.
Alexandra Hoerr:And that to grow one doesn't sacrifice the growth of the other. So I think a lot of our kind of new products in a way, if you wanna say it from, like, a business standpoint, come out of our own people coming up with an idea, bringing it and like wanting to do that. So that's kind of on an informal approach That just kind of rolls with people, but we have a really formal career development plan in our office where ultimately if an employee were to choose to stay and they would obviously be a good fit for the role, but they can essentially start managing a team of clinicians, bonusing off of how their team performs, and instead of them going and starting a private practice elsewhere, we think about career development and can they do that here and have like the supports and structures to do that, but still but still get some of like the benefit of ownership in a way. So we have like a pretty formal, like, what does it mean to be an assistant assistant supervisor and then a clinical director and have an admin lead specifically for your team to help with, like, billing and all those different things.
Alexandra Hoerr:We have some pretty formalized structures that as people stay, they're able to just create something that is their own as well.
Brent Stutzman:Oh, that's really yeah. That's brilliant. I'm sure you're gonna get a lot of questions at someone around that too. Yeah.
Alexandra Hoerr:I'm sure. Yeah.
Brent Stutzman:Since we don't have time to explore all the things here on that. So, hopefully, that's a good tease for people to come in, and, come to the summit. Because, boy, I'm gonna have some questions around that too for myself. I'm just curious. Okay.
Brent Stutzman:So let's, let's let's jump to the, you have the 3rd point here coming up?
Alexandra Hoerr:Yeah. And we already touched on it a little bit, just running from, like, a good work in place to, like, Gen z and millennials and stuff like that and what they want in the compensation piece. And I will say that I do think compensation it's I ended 2023 as a practice owner taking on the initiative of how do I really make sure we're competitive in compensation, but also benefits. You know, like we, we give people December 24th through January 1st for everybody in our office is a paid week off. You know, we just shut down the office.
Alexandra Hoerr:It's paid. And that's a that's a benefit that doesn't necessarily translate to the dollars in your pocket as far as wages, but that is something that our staff has really loved. And quite honestly, it's a slow season anyways, but we don't have a lot of we don't have a lot of, clinician or, a lot of clients seeing their therapist in that time. So it kind of matches up with the business need and an incentive that feels like one of the favorite things our office does. And so sometimes they can be just like money in your pocket.
Alexandra Hoerr:But you know, the reason why we don't fall in the highest paying category is because we have structures that, like, automatically give a week of paid leave that doesn't count against any of your other paid leave and some of those those things. So I think being creative about incentives and time off and those type of things, a coworker of mine, he said, Alex, doesn't always have to be the salary. He says, hey, if every once in a while you do like a paid vacation for my family, I would love that. I will stay till for ever. If you just like, kind of think about what is ultimately a just an expense that's deducted from overall, you know, on a profit and loss statement versus what is like, oh yeah, I'm gonna pay you wage and then pay taxes on it and you're going to pay taxes on it and just starting to kind of be creative and think about.
Alexandra Hoerr:Oh yeah, that could be something really cool that feels good and right to our employees. So we have like a lot of different incentives and think about incentives and compensation in a way that, I don't know, feels more creative than I hear about at other places.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. Well, okay. So let me ask this then because as you've you know, you're growing multiple, multiple clinicians and and things like that. So, you know, creativity is the antithesis of, like, scaling. Right?
Brent Stutzman:So you can't be creative with all your incentives individualized. So I'm curious. Like, maybe you could share one kind of, creative way that you are incentivizing your clinicians now? Like you said, at the end of 2023, you're like it sounded like you went on a journey of self discovery and compensation. So, like, I'm curious what you kinda came back as as like, what what's what's one thing that you're trying out or you're testing or you've implemented that's really worked and resonated with your with your team.
Alexandra Hoerr:Mhmm. Yeah. I I think a huge well, just what I'm in the middle of right now, this isn't necessarily the most creative give approach. I kind of have a I'm pulling from, like, a list in my mind of the things that we did, but what I'm in the middle of right now that matters the most to our employees is their ability to rest. And have like paid leave and you know all of 2023 we actually had an unlimited PTO policy and we're a salaried office.
Alexandra Hoerr:We don't pay people based on, like, the their hours. We pay a salary and, like, kind of mutually work together so that they meet their job description and have a collaborative approach like that. But you know what was interesting is people didn't like the unlimited PTO policy And even that is, like, probably a very creative way to think about structuring paid leave as a practice. But there was a little bit of uncertainty that people felt. So we are actually like, it's not necessarily creative, but it is more structured where we've kind of come back around.
Alexandra Hoerr:I'm literally, like, I have, like, 35 half hour meetings this week with all of our staff to, like, make sure they feel great about it. And it is providing structure and definition to those things that ended up even though that might be, like, against creativity and flexibility, sometimes that actually has ended up being more important to them because they feel like it's really clear. Now other than paid leave, I would say if you're a practice owner figuring out how to give your people rest, it's it's I think it's the thing that will allow for burnout. And again, like if your employees are your product, it'll allow them to stay for as long as that would, you know, work in life. And that has been, like, one of the biggest endeavors I think we've been on that has been the most appreciated by our office.
Alexandra Hoerr:Now creatively, we are really thinking about, oh, man, do we just, like, put people on vacations? You know, for giving them paid leave, do we also think about, you know, like, how that goes? And even our our bonus structure is not based on how many clients you see. It's more like finance and accounting. It's based on your total billable.
Alexandra Hoerr:And so we just, even in that way, take what is a pretty common practice. Oh yeah. You see 30 clients, that's more than 22. You get an incentive, but we just instead have matched that to a different metric. And so a lot of what we do, I think you'll probably come to find out at the summit is really similar to practices, but it just takes it and twists it.
Alexandra Hoerr:It turns it on its head a little bit and thinks about it a bit differently.
Brent Stutzman:Is it essentially Oh,
Alexandra Hoerr:there's a lot of information. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. 100%.
Alexandra Hoerr:Yeah.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. I I think that's true about rest. Trying to get creative and how to provide rest for your team, that would be really yeah. That's a really good conversation. That's a nice reframe.
Brent Stutzman:And then, like, vacation, because people rest differently.
Alexandra Hoerr:Yeah.
Brent Stutzman:Rest for me is like, I wanna hang out with some friends. Mhmm. You know? And some are like, I just wanna go alone into the woods into a cabin and yeah. So
Alexandra Hoerr:I mean, that's becoming me.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's also a huge discussion around unlimited time off. Like, I I think a lot of businesses are doing away with it, because it's sort of like, well, a lot of people didn't take it.
Alexandra Hoerr:Exactly. And there's no doubt. Totally. And, you know, we for the most part, I think it like, from my perspective as a business owner, it was working well, but I think that it just, again, there was like a, a undercurrent of feeling like uncertainty or even like, how do I interpret this? Or am I really like, they say you can leave, but they haven't.
Alexandra Hoerr:And so it is really ultimately by the like preference of our employees, which we have, just under 50 people working within our office at this point in time. And so it's really by the preference of the employees that we're moving away. And it's a and it's a smaller policy. It's a smaller amount that's allotted quite honestly in the structured system, but it's highly preferred by them because it feels really clear. And I think anytime you can be clear, it's like anti chaos, But it also is like a kindness to them.
Alexandra Hoerr:So Mhmm. Yeah.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. Wow. Oh, man. Yeah. So many, so many questions I look forward to asking you in person.
Alexandra Hoerr:I'm so sad. I we're gonna have a great time. I'm excited, Brent.
Brent Stutzman:Yeah. Well, how can people, find out more about you?
Alexandra Hoerr:Yeah. You know, I think that the best place to go to find out more, about myself, also Optimum Joy is just at optimumjoy.com. That really is the hub within our digital space that houses pretty much all the information about that. And even if you're kind of someone who is like interested in talking like we'll see each other at the summit. I'm so excited.
Alexandra Hoerr:That's like gonna be a great space for collaborative learning. But I think even if you're someone who's, like, oh, I want some individual consultation or time and different things like that, there is like a contact us form on our website that will make its way to me. So I would say optimumjoy.com is probably the best hub for that.
Brent Stutzman:Great. Well, thank you. Yeah. So like what Alex said, if you if you need to level up some yourself as a practice owner, if you need to be thinking about incentivization, compensation, you know, how to retain clinicians, then definitely come to the group practice scaling summit. Just go to brand your practice.com/summit, or you could just Google group practice scaling summit.
Brent Stutzman:We go right to the top of the page, and sign up and sign up today. So don't forget to use the discount code, podcast 100. That's podcast 100, and you could get a100 bucks off your ticket. And, yeah, thank you so much. And just another reminder, all content on the Brand Your Practice website, podcast, and other media reflects my own opinions and should not be taken as legal advice, financial advice, or investment advice.
Brent Stutzman:Please seek out the guidance of a professionally trained and licensed individual before making any decisions, and some links in the descriptions may be affiliate links. Alright, folks. Thanks for listening. If you found the conversation useful, subscribe to the podcast, and please join me the next time for the Brand Your Practice podcast. Alright.
Brent Stutzman:End recording.
Creators and Guests
