Why staff retention deserves your attention in the New Year
AAHA surveyed nearly 15,000 veterinary professionals and learned that 30% plan to leave their current job within the coming year. What might make them want to stay? It starts with the right goals.
Whether youâre all-in on New Yearâs resolutions or youâre simply always looking for ways to level up, now is a great time to look at your staff retention rate with a critical eye. How often is your practice losing good employees? How long does it take to replace them? And how is that impacting your clients, your business, and your team?Â
In 2023, AAHA surveyed nearly 15,000 veterinary professionals from all practice roles and learned that, among those currently in clinical practice, 30% plan to leave their current job within the coming year. Some were open to a job at a different practice, others planned to work in vet med outside the clinic, and others intended to leave the profession entirely.Â
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Regardless of where theyâre going, the fact remains that turnover is expensive; Gallup estimates the cost of replacing an individual employee as ranging from half to double the employeeâs annual salary (or more). Â
Perhaps more important is the impact of high turnover on teams, especially when you lose harder-to-replace employees like associate DVMs and technicians. Until those jobs are filled, the remaining team members have to pick up the slack; meanwhile, clients may get cranky when itâs harder to make an appointment because youâre short-staffed. All of this increases stress, which can lead to burnoutâand thatâs a fast track to driving even more good employees away.Â
Why people leave (and stay)Â
The AAHA Path to Improved Retention Study, which youâll read more about in the upcoming white paper, identified the factors veterinary professionals consider most important in the workplace. Â
- Some of the factors identified are strong attrition drivers, meaning that people are likely to leave when these needs arenât met. Â
- Some factors impact both retention and attrition strongly: When these needs arenât met, theyâre a big reason for leaving, but when theyâre done well, they inspire people to stick around. Â
- Others are compelling retention drivers, meaning the people who plan to remain where they are consider them major factors in making them want to stay.Â
If youâre ready to pay attention to retention, the following suggestions will help you get smart about the right steps to take. Stay tuned to AAHA publications throughout 2024 for more tips and resources to help your practice take the step toward 90% retention, and a brighter future for the whole profession.Â
A smart way to stick to your retention improvement goalsÂ
One of the biggest mistakes we can make when setting goals (New Yearâs resolutions or otherwise) is being too broad. âI want to improve retention in my practice,â is a nice idea, but not a strong goal. If you can be clearer on exactly what you want to accomplish, that will get you closer to actually achieving it.Â
SMART goals can help identify where you want to go and whatâs needed to make it happen. While your goals will vary based on your practiceâs current and future needs, the following examples illustrate how to use the SMART goal technique to make your goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.Â
How to make goals âSpecificâÂ
What exactly do you want to accomplish? Improved retention rates, yesâand, in fact, weâd suggest aiming to reach a 90% retention rate, which suggests strong retention but leaves enough room for necessary turnover. But, youâll need a little more detail to create the right strategy. Â
Action #1: Write your practiceâs specific goal statementsÂ
For starters, are you in a situation where youâre seeing:Â
- High turnover across the board? Youâll want to slow turnover across all roles.Â
- High turnover in a specific role or two? You should aim to reduce turnover in those roles. Â
- Reasonable turnover, but youâd still like to improve? You actually want to increase retention and improve practice loyalty among your people.Â
These subtle differences strongly impact the approach youâll want to take and the solutions you need to implement to make lasting change.
Sample goal (specific)Â
- Reduce turnover rate of credentialed technicians by addressing the attrition factors that tend to drive individuals in that role out of practice.Â
How to make goals âMeasurableâÂ
How can you measure success in your goal? The clearest place to start is with your current attrition or retention rate (which you can learn about calculating here). But you may be able to keep it quite simple. Â
Click to Download: Sample Goals Handout for
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Action #1: Calculate your attrition/retention rateÂ
For example, if a 30-person practice has an average turnover rate of 30%, thatâs nine or 10 people a year. Aiming to reduce that attrition rate to 20% (six people leaving a year) could be a great place to start. Your ultimate goal can still be to reach 90% retention, but itâs more manageable to start small. Â
Action #2:Â Quantify employee satisfaction with a scoreÂ
Another metric you could focus on is employee satisfaction. Allowing your team to provide feedback, perhaps anonymously in a survey, can give you a clear understanding of whoâs happy where they are, whoâs notâand, as a bonus, you can even give them a chance to tell you what changes would make the biggest impact on their satisfaction. To make it measurable, youâll need a way to quantify those responses so you can pinpoint how big an improvement you want to see in that score by your next survey.Â
Sample goal (measurable)Â Â
- Reduce the turnover rate of credentialed technicians by 10% by addressing the attrition factors that tend to drive individuals in that role out of practice.Â
How to make goals âAchievableâÂ
What resources or tools do you need to achieve your goal? What changes must be made? Â
A lack of fair compensation is the strongest driver of attrition in just about every role in practice, and for technicians, thatâs especially true. So, if youâre going to focus on improving factors that are likely to make the biggest difference for vet techs, it makes sense to start with fair pay.Â
Action #1: Research wages in your areaÂ
That requires an understanding of what âfair compensationâ really means. Resources like the MIT Living Wage Calculator, along with data on what other practices in your region are paying, can help narrow it down. Itâs not just about remaining competitive with local practices; if vet techs in your area canât earn a living wage in clinical practice, theyâre more likely to switch to a career where they can, even if itâs outside vet med. Â
Action #2: Assess technician utilization at your practiceÂ
Of course, it takes money to pay folks more, right? Consider what you might be able to adjust to avoid this hurting your budget. For example, try increasing technician utilization. Practices that utilize their techs to their full abilities show an average revenue increase of 36%âplus it helps to increase job satisfaction among those techs! Â
Offering (and charging for) tech appointments (or telehealth appointments that your technicians are legally allowed to handle) could be another way to offset the cost of a pay increase for these valuable team members.Â
Sample goal (achievable)Â
- Reduce the turnover rate of credentialed technicians by 10% by addressing the attrition factors that tend to drive individuals in that role out of practice. Â
- Because fair compensation is the primary driver of attrition in this role, look for ways to offset a pay increase for these team members.Â
How to make goals âRelevantâÂ
Whatâs the big picture version of why youâre setting this goal? Itâs not just so you donât have to keep recruiting, hiring, and training new technicians (although thatâs certainly part of the reason!). Reducing turnover in this role benefits the whole practice because being part of a staff that works as a team is a major retention factorâand you canât build a solid team if youâre constantly losing and replacing its members. Plus, when team members arenât leaving unexpectedly, youâre less likely to experience ongoing staff shortagesâand that benefits not only the team, but the clients, patients, and the business.Â
Action #1: Write an impact statement for your goalÂ
Think about how achieving this goal will impact your practiceâs mission, vision, and cultureâthis should help you understand how relevant it is.Â
Sample goal (relevant)Â Â
- Reduce the turnover rate of credentialed technicians by 10% by addressing the attrition factors that tend to drive individuals in that role out of practice. Â
- Because fair compensation is the primary driver of attrition in this role, look for ways to offset a pay increase for these team members. Â
- Retaining more technicians will help our practice in its mission to treat more pets while also taking the time to educate our clients and the community about proper pet care.Â
How to make goals âTimelyâ Â
By when do you want to accomplish this? Or, put a little differently, over what time period do you want to track your progress? Â
Action #1: Map out a timeline for your goalÂ
With a goal like improving retention or reducing attrition, there are multiple parts: The implementation of changes that will lead to the overall goal, and the goal itself. Start backward from your target date and identify check-in points along the way, including who is accountable for gathering any of your measurable data to report on your progress.Â
Action #2: Create a team communication planÂ
By communicating with your team about your goal, along with providing transparency about the steps youâre taking and the timeline, simply setting (and sharing) your intention to make these changes could impact the very people youâre hoping to retain. (You still have to follow through, though, or this will backfire spectacularly.)
Sample goal (timely)Â
- Reduce the turnover rate of credentialed technicians by 10% in the next 12 months by addressing the attrition factors that tend to drive individuals in that role out of practice. Â
- Because fair compensation is the primary driver of attrition in this role, look for ways to offset a pay increase for these team members and implement this pay increase within four months. Â
- Retaining more technicians will help our practice in its mission to treat more pets while also taking the time to educate our clients and the community about proper pet care.Â
Stay tuned for more in 2024!Â
Improved retention is a smart place to focus your attention in the coming year. And AAHA will be paying plenty of attention to it, too, with a white paper, webinars, and deep dives into various solutions shared in our publications throughout 2024. Â
Click to Download: Blank SMART Goals Worksheet for
Your Team
Stay tuned for more on how to improve retention in your practiceâand in the meantime, if youâre facing specific turnover challenges or have retention solutions youâd like to share, please reach out to us at research@aaha.org.Â
Kristen Green Seymour is AAHAâs copywriter and lead writer on AAHA research projects.Â
Cover photo credit: © didesign021 E+ via Getty Images Plus
Disclaimer: The views expressed, and topics discussed, in anyâ¯NEWStatâ¯column or article are intended to inform, educate, or entertain, and do not represent an official position by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) or its Board of Directors.â¯â¯Â