How to Plan a Staff Meeting (that your staff actually want to attend!) Five elements needed to make a meeting memorable.

Element One Topic to instruct Example: Glaucoma Awareness Month Provide training on the disease. Share a story about a patient in your office who has been diagnosed with the disease and how it affects them. Speaker notes: -What treatments are available? What medications are used? What does your office/doctor recommend and why? Use trivia questions or a game to help employees learn about the disease. A Bingo game is easily adaptable for learning. Staff love winning gift cards and other prizes. --Perhaps you could video your patient talking about the disease, the treatment, how it changes their everyday life and what they would encourage others to do. --Ask the VSRs what topics they’ve had success with and the staff enjoyed learning about

Element Two Goal Setting/Measuring What are you measuring? Talk about high/lows and work on a plan to improve or change. Speaker notes: Incentives may be a natural point here but note we cannot discuss salary benefits or incentives when discussing this slide with the group. -Are you trying to increase usage of VS branded contact lenses? Optomaps? Truclear products? --Make sure that the goals set are attainable to boost staff confidence. ---What’s in it for the office? The employee? The patient? Ask your employees to help you think about what needs to be changed and why. They are more likely to “buy in” when they understand the why’s! Mini-games are a great way to measure. The staff should be involved and help plan.

Element Three Current Events/Issues Discuss immediate issues specific to your clinic. Upcoming event planning. Instruction or training on current issues. Speaker notes: -Example: Give your VSR time to share Vision Source updates and Vision Source news. --Do you have a special event on the calendar? Updates to staff should be given. Get staff excited about your upcoming event, perhaps pictures from a past event or a YouTube video. ---Example: Your office is accepting a new insurance and needs training. Follow up with individual training, but it is beneficial for everyone in the office to understand changes that affect patients.

Element Four Team Building Example Topic: Communication Include staff members in the planning. Conduct a SWOT analysis on topics for team building. Mission Statement Speaker notes: -Plan an activity that gets staff out of their seats and working together. Hundreds of ideas are available on-line for topics like this. Adapt them to fit your staff and have fun! They will remembering laughing together! Many of these are low cost or no cost, but help drive home your point. --What are the office/staff strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats? How can your weaknesses become strengths and your threats become opportunities? ---Review your mission statement often. Make sure everything you do reflects what you have said is important to your office. ---Ask the group what type of teambuilding they’ve done with their co-workers and doctors.

Element Five Topic to motivate or inspire Do you have a WOW story from a patient survey? Highlight another business in your city. Highlight a staff member or doctor. YouTube videos/Facebook/Pinterest Speaker notes: -Spend as much time looking at what your staff does right, as well as what it needs to work on. -- How it got started and what makes it successful? Does your clinic share any of the same qualities? Why or why not? Has anyone visited other successful business like Zappos? Have them share the success stories. ---Are they involved in a community organization? What do they like to do when they aren’t at work? So pictures of them involved in what they do outside your office. ----There are so many good videos available for specific topics of interest, just takes a little research. Also, many inspirational items on Facebook and Pinterest. Ask a staff member to bring something that inspired them and tell why.

Meeting Checklist Clarify the purposes of the meeting. Who will be in charge or lead the meeting? Where will the meeting be held? Date? Food and drinks? Does the agenda encourage involvement from staff? Follow up plans?

Credits Vision Clinic Doctors and Staff Springfield, Missouri Neil Gailmard Optometric Management Tips of the Week