By Jay Juffre
Back in college, in addition to a full class schedule and many activities on campus, I had three part time jobs. One job was work-study making copies for minimum wage at the local high school. The second was as a food server at a popular local restaurant. Third was as a hockey referee. All three incentivized me differently. For the first job, no matter how good a job I did printing out daily assignments for teachers, it paid the same. Ten hours per week times $x.xx per hour. The second job’s take home pay was largely based on tips. Depending on how good a job I did taking care of customers determined how much I took home each week. As far as referee, the better you were, the higher the level game you got to officiate, and it would pay more. Therefore, I worked hard to become good enough to do the high school and college games to earn more. So how do you incentivize your people? Do you have folks who spend a ton of time interacting with patients and their families, but are incentivized the same way a 19-year-old gets incentivized to run a Xerox copier? Are there opportunities to earn a little extra for taking better care of people, like my time spent as a waiter? Is your organization like the people who assigned us the hockey games, where the ones who are the best at what they do get the best assignments? You get the point. Sometimes when, ‘it all pays the same’, the same is exactly what you get from your team. Whether it be simple recognition, small bonuses, or a big part of their compensation, look for ways to tie compensation to desired results. Coming out of COVID, the organizations who truly reconnect with their patients the quickest will win. Getting your entire team aligned behind that cause will pay huge dividends.
Jay Juffre is Executive Vice President, ImageFIRST. For more information on ImageFIRST, call 1-800-932-7472 or visit www.imagefirst.com.
