Teamwork-boosting tips for Veterinary Appreciation Day

Teamwork, when done well, feels pretty magical—but getting a team to work together so that it feels like magic? Well, that takes hard work. It requires commitment from decision-makers to prioritize that team culture. It takes leadership serving as an example, and it needs buy-in from team members at every level.

But how can you go about building the trust and respect that’s needed to embark on this journey toward seamless teamwork?

Molly Lyons, CVPM, worked as a hospital administrator for a 24/7 emergency, specialty, and general practice in Santa Cruz, California, and as a practice management consultant for independent veterinary practice owners before joining AAHA in 2024. Over her 25 years in veterinary medicine, she saw just how important teamwork was, and how strongly a culture of appreciation influenced the team’s ability to work well together—and she recalled a few things that worked well in her experience.

Cross-training as a key to success

“Cross-training was something I implemented in my practice long ago,” Lyons said, “and not necessarily to have people go into different roles and cover each other’s job duties, but more to help them understand each other better. What kinds of things do they encounter on a day-to-day basis that might be difficult?”

For instance, a technician might not realize just how many plates their CSR has to keep spinning at any given time, just as the CSR might not fully appreciate how much time a technician needs to take with a pet who is nervous about having their nails trimmed.

She noticed this approach had a particularly strong impact during onboarding. “I really wanted to give new hires a frame of reference for the entire practice,” she said. This helped the new employees better understand the practice’s broader goals and how each different part of the practice worked to help achieve them.

But that wasn’t the only benefit.

“The other thing it did was it connected the trainer and the new person together. They typically were not going to be in the same department working closely together, but it made it feel like they had a point person in that other department,” she said.

Additionally, Lyons said, it created a bridge to greater understanding of—and respect for—the duties other roles handle. Having someone from client services shadow a veterinarian and spend time in the exam room might help them understand some of the questions the medical team fields—and it might give them some ideas for how to address more of those questions (about things like pet insurance, nutrition, end-of-life care) up front.

Addressing the hierarchy

While Lyons didn’t experience this in her practice, many veterinary professionals have been in hospitals where there’s a clear hierarchy of doctors at the top. Some team members report feeling a responsibility to put themselves in harm’s way to protect doctors from being bitten, scratched, or otherwise injured, as if the doctor’s safety and wellbeing is more important than their own.

Cross-training, where the doctors have the opportunity to spend a few hours in someone else’s shoes, can help to reduce this kind of a divide, but so, too, can straight-up team-building exercises.

“I think that team building would be one thing that could potentially help with that,” Lyons said, “so that we all start to see each other as people, that are all worthy—and it’s not, ‘There’s the veterinarian and their white coat and then there’s me.”

If a day out on a ropes course isn’t in the cards (or the budget), even simpler opportunities that give team members the opportunity to get to know each other outside the clinic might help. Walking clubs, craft nights—activities that don’t involve work can all be useful in this regard.

Recognizing invisible labor

Claire Dodwell, DVM, Associate Veterinarian at Pershing Oaks Animal Hospital in Orlando, Florida, knows that some of veterinarians’ workloads may be invisible to other members of the team. This can include researching future appointments, analyzing diagnostic results, or even mentally preparing for a phone conversation with a client.

“I think this work may come across as invisible to others because they cannot see what I’m doing on my computer,” she said, “and they do not necessarily realize that I am looking deeper into certain cases, or coming up with treatment plans or even sometimes doing continuing education.”

Of course, that invisible labor occurs with other roles, too. A practice manager looking into new childproof bags to send preventive medications home in, an assistant spending a few extra minutes in the back to tidy up a closet—there are all kinds of tasks that team members take on that aren’t likely to be reflected in their official duties, which only drives home the importance of providing opportunities to cross-train, or at least shadow, other roles.

Encouraging team utilization

Showing your team that you appreciate them may also take the form of appropriate utilization; or, in other words, providing those individuals with the opportunity and support they need to do the duties they’re trained to do and legally allowed to do.

“I think trust comes into this in a big way,” Lyons said, “because most of the veterinarians I worked with were willing to do this, but they first wanted to make sure that things were going to be handled—from a client perspective and a clinical perspective—in a way that they were comfortable with.”  She believes that giving team members a chance to work together one on one can accomplish this, but if that’s proving difficult to manage, appointing a liaison position may help.

“We had an incredible team member who was our patient services coordinator, who floated between the front and the back. He wasn’t tied to the phones or greeting, and he really became sort of a champion for promoting good communication between our client services team and our technicians and doctors,” she said.

This “jack of all trades” position was able to step in to help veterinarians struggling with a new template in the medical records system or assist with difficult money conversations with clients. In this case, the individual had been at the practice for some time, so there was already a degree of trust, but Lyons said the real trick was that he was dependable and followed up.

 Celebrating team members

Ethel Pawlak, RVT, marketing manager at VCA Veterinary Specialists of the Valley, makes showing appreciation for her team members an essential part of her job because she recognizes the importance of appreciation as a top driver of retention and individual wellbeing in veterinary medicine. While she acknowledges the importance of fair compensation and benefits as ways to show appreciation, Pawlak also sees the value of celebration and expressions of gratitude in motivating her team members. “Let your co-workers know that they are seen and valued,” she said. “Express what you specifically appreciate, admire, value or respect about them and the contributions they make.”

While we all know how good it feels to be appreciated, we may each have our preferences in terms of how we wish to be celebrated. Pawlak said it’s important to learn these preferences so that gratitude and appreciation is felt and received well. For example, some team members may prefer public recognition in the form of a verbal call out or a message on a whiteboard, whereas others may prefer a handwritten note delivered privately.

Dodwell agreed. “At our clinic we got each staff member to fill out a form ranking which type of appreciation makes them feel most valued such as verbal appreciation (privately or publicly), gifts, written appreciation etc.,” she said.

“We also started a chart on the treatment room wall where we can put sticky notes of thanks or appreciation next to each team member’s name for specific things they did that we want to acknowledge them for. At our monthly staff meetings we read them out loud and then enter the sticky notes in a jar and draw out a name. The name that is drawn gets a gift card.”

Sometimes actions speak louder than words. This might include helping with a load of laundry, answering a ringing phone, or assisting with a challenging case, even if it is outside of your typical job description.

Remember, you don’t need a specific date on the calendar (like Veterinary Appreciation Day) to show appreciation for every member of the team. By creating opportunities for your team to get to know and respect each other—and by making expressions of gratitude a part of your practice culture—you’ll all see the benefits, as will your staff and even your clients.

Further reading:

2023 AAHA Technician Utilization Guidelines

Stay, Please

 

 

Photo credit: smartboy10/iStock via Getty Images

Disclaimer: Trends™ content is meant to inform, educate, and inspire by providing an array of diverse viewpoints. Any content published should not be viewed as an official stance, position, or endorsement by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) or its Board of Directors.