Human Resources

By Stacy M. Menz, PT, DPT, PCS

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but the first thing I think of when I think of human resources is my onboarding process for my first hospital job. I had a lot of paperwork to fill out, a lot of tests to take, a few long days of orientation (during which I struggled to stay awake), and then finally I could start doing the job I wanted to do. I never even thought about Human Resources after that initial process because all of my other interactions were with my supervisor or director.

As a business owner, I have realized that human resources is more than a department. However large or small your Human Resources team is, whether just you or a team of people, the function is key to your practice’s success. Being in a service industry, our primary asset is the people that deliver the service. Given that, the dollar and resource investment you make in this area is paramount.

While there is a wonderful resource on “how to do it” via the PPS Human Resources Compendium (see page 74), I have found, that since your team is made up of individuals, an individual approach is needed while also maintaining consistency. Luckily there are systems you can put in place to help provide the consistent policy and procedures. Within the systems you can individualize so that the needs of your team members and your organization are being met as well as ensuring they are meeting the expectations and needs of the organization.

This issue includes some pointed articles on the topic of human resources. I was excited to read “How to Drive the Journey of Change” in this issue, as it provides a systematic and evidence-based way to bring change to your organization. Change is often one of the hardest parts of managing people and a business. This article provides some great insight…I will be reading this one again!

I was also intrigued by the idea of decreasing the formality of performance reviews. We do reviews two to three times a year but they are time consuming and while I find that taking the time to put my thoughts onto paper can clarify things for me, I often wonder if the time investment translates into meaningful feedback for the employee as the formality of the “review” at times seems to limit true dialogue. If they can be done in less time and be more meaningful, this is definitely something I want to explore.

We hope that this issue of Impact brings about thought and you spend some time pondering your most important resource and asset—the humans!