Team Talk By Corinne Tolan
Attributes of high importance to employees and those on which the practice needs to improve low
As the Marketing Data Analyst at PVMA, I love getting in the weeds with data. Let me share with you two of my favorite analyses and how I would apply them to two common business challenges that veterinary practitioners face.
Attributes of low importance to employees and those on which the practice needs to improve
Although creating the map is the fun part, the real meat and potatoes of any analysis is determining actionable insights. What attributes fell into the upper right quadrant? These are the attributes that are important to your employees and where you are performing well. Take a minute to pat yourself on the back! What attributes fell into the upper left quadrant of your map? This is your growth or opportunity area. These attributes are important to your employees, yet your practice is not meeting these expectations. Talk through an action plan with 8 | Keystone Veterinarian
high
maintain
low
Employee retention is a large idea comprised of many attributes. A way to visualize how your practice measures up could be an Importance vs. Performance (IvP) map, easily created with a scatter plot in Excel. For an IvP Map, you’ll need paired questions: one question asking about how important a concept/attribute is and a matching question asking how your practice performs on that concept. Answers should be captured with a Likert agreement scale. I suggest using a 7-point scale for a wider distribution since people working in Veterinary Medicine tend to be more compassionate and positive. Then, after looking at the distribution, choose either the top 2 or 3 box scores (T2B, T3B, respectively) and determine which percentage of respondents fall into each category. In Excel, make Importance your x-axis and Performance your y-axis, create a paired score scatter plot, and voila! There you have it, a visualization of how your practice is meeting employee expectations.
Attributes of high importance to employees and those on which the practice is performing well
Performance
No Attention
Employee Retention/Satisfaction
win
high
Needs attention
If your office has lost good talent to this trend, read on! Surveys are a way to capture a concept of interest and analyze the variation within that concept. They are more than finding out whether the room is too cold, or the food is too hot. The science of surveys has evolved, and PVMA has some useful tools for you to use to leverage the power of data collection and surveys to improve employee retention and increase patient satisfaction.
Importance
It’s that buzzword: the Great Resignation. Has it affected your practice?
Attributes of low importance to employees and those on which the practice is performing well
your leadership to address these opportunities. Address each opportunity one at a time and re-do the survey in 3-6 months to see if your opportunity has moved into the “Win” quadrant. Here is a sample Employee Satisfaction Survey, with bonus questions that give you an opportunity to run a linear regression. If you do decide to run a regression, one or all of the bonus questions will be your dependent variable, and the performance questions will be your independent variables. More instructions on regression techniques in the next section. On a scale from 1-7, with 1 being do not agree at all and 7 being agree completely, how much do you agree with the following statements? Importance Metrics: •
It is important to me that I have a work/life harmony in my career.
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It is important to me that I develop friendships with my coworkers.
