The Veterinary Survival Show

Culture vs Compensation: What Keeps Veterinary Practices Together?

• Mark McGaunn, CPA/PFS, CFP® and Jenni George, CVPM • Season 4 • Episode 8

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This episode explores the critical balance between culture and compensation in veterinary practices. Hosts Jenny and Mark share insights on how culture impacts team retention, the importance of intentional leadership, and practical strategies to improve both culture and pay structures.

Key Topics

  • Impact of culture on team retention
  • Strategies for building a positive practice culture
  • Balancing compensation and culture for staff retention


Chapters

  • 00:00 Introduction and Conference Insights
  • 03:32 Culture vs. Compensation in Veterinary Practices
  • 06:29 The Importance of Longevity in Veterinary Teams
  • 09:28 Compensation Structures and Their Impact
  • 12:23 Creating a Positive Workplace Culture
  • 15:05 Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Talent
  • 18:12 Assessing Workplace Culture and Compensation
  • 25:19 Understanding Compensation Beyond the Paycheck
  • 26:50 Identifying Signs of Disengagement
  • 30:27 The Role of Leadership in Culture
  • 32:51 Exit Interviews: Uncovering the Truth
  • 36:35 Balancing Culture and Compensation
  • 39:23 Assessing and Improving Practice Culture
  • 43:03 The Impact of Culture on Profitability
  • 49:31 www.LGA.CPA (1).mp4



SPEAKER_00

We know that running a veterinary business can sometimes feel like you're fighting your way through a jungle of financial insecurity, HR nightmares, and overall business confusion. Our goal is to give you the ideas and tools you need to not just survive in this jungle, but to thrive in the veterinary industry. By combining over 50 years of knowledge and experience with differing opinions and a little humor, we will help you get the information you need to make the best decisions for you and your veterinary business. Welcome to the Veterinary Survival Show with veterinary CPA and certified financial planner Mark McGon and certified veterinary practice manager and practice owner Jenny George.

SPEAKER_02

All right, everyone. Welcome to the latest episode of the Veterinary Survival Podcast. I'm Chris, and I'm here with our two co-hosts, Mark and Jenny.

SPEAKER_03

Mark, how are you doing? Great. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02

So for the listeners not right now, Mark is in the throw of tax season. So for many of the listeners, hopefully you are a tax client of Mark's, and he is hardworking there. But again, uh this is their peak of working. So thank you for making the time, Mark. Having a positive attitude. I don't want to whine about it because I could go on all day.

SPEAKER_00

He could you know what he would whine about is the fact that his customer, Jenny George, has not submitted any paperwork for her taxes yet, and she's horrible.

SPEAKER_02

Jenny, how are you doing? I understand you just got back from a conference.

SPEAKER_00

I did, yes. I was lucky enough to speak at NABC Hive Midwest, which was in Kentucky, and it was awesome. It was about 250 um attendees that were techs, vet techs, and practice managers, which I thought was great. It was nice to not have any veterinarians around, although we love them very much, but it was just nice to have it be very, you know, organized towards those two topics. And all of the speakers were either vet techs or practice managers. So yeah, it was a lot of fun. I had a great time.

SPEAKER_02

Before we get to our subject today, just a follow-up question on that. Because you're in Kentucky, was it very horse heavy or is it people from all over?

SPEAKER_00

No, actually, a lot of it still is small animal that were there. A lot of the metrics that they gave were based on small animal GP or emergency medicine. It really wasn't based on large animal. It still is really, I think, a niche that is, you know, not talked about a lot. But this was really based on like the practice management stuff was really based, you know, marketing, you know, taking care of your team, culture building, how to take care of yourself as a manager. So it really wasn't based a lot on, I want to say like the hands-on nitty-gritty, although I think a lot of some of the tech stuff was, but even a lot of the tech talks were, you know, how to find where you belong in vetmed, you know, if you're what brings you joy, what brings you happiness, things like that. So it really wasn't based on horses per se, but there was definite talk about horses. Cause, yeah, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_02

You're Kentucky, you got the derby.

SPEAKER_01

Right. You have to.

SPEAKER_02

All right. Well, one thing he picked up on there, set perfect segue to our topic today. So we are talking about culture versus compensation. What keeps veterinary teams together and thriving? So I'm gonna throw out the first question to you, Jenny. But you had to pick one. What keeps people longer in the veteriness? Culture or compensation? Culture, 100%.

SPEAKER_00

And I can say I like to say that I can say that with pretty um, you know, I think I've I hopefully know what I'm talking about. A lot of my team members, so we started in really in 2008. I still have a doctor who's been with me since 2008, certified vet tech who's been with me since 2008, a uh I mean a receptionist, a CSR, and an inventory manager who's been with me since 2008. I have a lot of longevity on my team. And I will say that we weren't always able to pay the highest rates. We are in a rural area, we are mixed animal, you know, there are a lot of things that are, I don't want to say against us, but that are challenges that we overcome. And so we weren't always able to pay the highest. You know, if you really want to get paid the highest, you're gonna be, you know, working in an ER setting, a corporate setting, maybe overnight, but is pay really what's gonna bring you joy? And I will say that after having gone to this conference, some of the statistics are really scary. Most certified veterinary technicians leave the industry, not just where they're working, but the industry five to seven years. Veterinary assistants are about two to three years. So we have a problem with longevity, you know, and people not really sticking it out. And I think if you're in a place where you focus on culture, where you focus on the fact that it is a profession and not a job. We talk about Dunkin' Donuts a lot on this on this podcast because we're New Englanders, but you know, Dunkin' Donuts, not for nothing. It's a job. You don't usually plan on staying there for the rest of your life. You go in, you punch your time card, you do your job, you go home. You know, there's not a lot of autonomy in your job. You, you know, they tell you exactly what to do, how to do it, you know, manuals to follow. And that's a job. We need to look at the veterinary profession as exactly that, a profession, a lifelong profession. And that will help lead to retention. But I think the culture to me, yes, you have to compensate, but the culture is the key.

SPEAKER_04

Johnny, five to seven years, isn't that healthcare in general, no matter what kind of health care?

SPEAKER_00

It might, yeah, it might be you mean like paramedics and nurses and things like that.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, I was in healthcare and I did it full-time for five years. I fit within that benchmark, did it part-time for seven years. But people get into healthcare for many different reasons. I mean, somebody said, well, wow, you're a CPA for animal hospitals. Wouldn't you have liked to have been a veterinarian? I said, no, because I love my dog, but if my dog is sick, that's the worst time in the world. And I couldn't handle being around sick dogs all the time. And I think it takes a very special person to be able to do that and to compartmentalize that. So maybe it's not pay, maybe it's not culture, maybe it's run its course in their life and they're moving on to something different because they don't want to do it anymore.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think that a lot of people in vetmed and probably in human medicine too, right? No matter what people think out there, the nasty people on, you know, social media, we don't get into it for the money. The majority of those people who are in a caregiving type profession are caregivers, first and foremost, right? They just want to help others. You know, you didn't become a paramedic and go, boy, this is gonna really line my pockets with a lot of cash. I mean, come on. That's not why you get into it. You get into it because you're looking for a calling, you want to help people. In this case, you want to help animals, you know, hopefully both, because they kind of go hand in hand. But I think when you're looking at it, even veterinarians do not get into it for the money, right? They come out of vet school now, the average debt is what,$300,000? And they make pennies compared to their human counterparts, compared to, you know, a general practice human doctor. They're making pennies compared to it, and they have this huge amount of debt. They're not in it for the money. And so I think when you're looking at it, you can't just look at compensation. You have to look at culture and you have to really nurture that. You have to nurture the nurturers. You know, it's very important to take care of those people who are really in it to care for other people.

SPEAKER_04

Or I mean, you mentioned pay. Pay now can be commensurate with human medicine. I mean, in some of the, you know, relief vet companies like Indivet,$200,000 a year, no nights, no weekends. We have ER doctors who are making$225,$250 in human medicine. I mean, they may have some nights and weekends. Okay, they probably most definitely have nights, weekends.

SPEAKER_00

If they're emergency, yeah.

SPEAKER_04

If they if they work in an ER. So you know, I think the pay has come around. Maybe the pressure and the quality of the job they're in may not match that pay and that they may discuss discover it's not worth it.

SPEAKER_03

So b maybe the culture has to keep them there. With that though, at what point does compensation override culture?

SPEAKER_02

Does it mark like your uh or genuine you send to? Like, is it a point in your life where you're like, I need to make more money to s support my family? And when does a great environment start um stop to being enough?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think Mark and I talked about the MIT, what is it called?

SPEAKER_04

The MIT Living Wage Study.

SPEAKER_00

There we go. And there is a website that you can actually go on and type in your either your zip code or your county, and it will tell you what the minimum living wage is for your area for a single person, a married, you know, married couple with no kids where one's working, where two people are working. You know, they have all these different formulas. And what I will say is the veterinary energy, you know, Mark, you were talking about the fact that compensation has come a long way for vets. I don't know, right, that it has come that far for the support team. And we consistently talk about the importance of delegation, utilizing your tech team. The AVMA has utilization guidelines out there for how to utilize your team so that your doctors can be more productive and more efficient. But you're utilizing your team, are we paying them what they're worth? They're literally allowing the hospital to have a higher profit, you know, bring in, take care of more patients, take care of more clients, your average client transaction might be higher if you're utilizing your team really well. How much of that is your support team making? And so I think if my goal has always been to pay my team not just a survivable wage, but a truly livable wage. So that, you know, I have a CVT who owns her own house and her own car. She's not married, she's not with anybody else. So I think it's important that this goes back to the looking at it as a profession as opposed to a job. If you're paying pennies, one of my one of my inventory manager says this all the time. If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. So you have to pay people what they're worth if you want quality care. And if you're not paying them, then yeah, they're not gonna have a choice. You have to pay bills.

SPEAKER_02

The first time I ever heard that I was outside an event, I was going to get Shawn Michaels, the wrestler's autograph, and there was a security guard that violently threw someone out, and someone's like, oh, that was an overreaction. And they said, Well, if you're only paying peanuts, uh, you get money. Yeah, you're the nicest person. So, Mark, speaking of that, where do you do you ever see owners get compensation wrong in veterinary practices, whether it's overpaying, underpaying, or structuring it poorly when you're looking at their financials or advising them?

SPEAKER_04

I think sometimes on the manager side you see a whole range of compensation. We see somebody that typically is underpaid, and we've seen people that are grossly overpaid for the quality and their knowledge on the management side, Jenny not included.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like I'm underpaid.

SPEAKER_04

I think you definitely are.

SPEAKER_01

I know I am because I pay myself.

SPEAKER_04

When we talk to successor managers, we find out that the people that were in their previous position didn't understand finances, but the owner wasn't really in tune with what was going on in the hospital. They delegated, they didn't understand finances themselves, and they said, Oh, great, I can just defer to somebody else, they're gonna take care of everything. I'm on the easy street. And then they leave a train wreck in their wake and somebody has to come and fix it, and usually it's me helping the new practice manager. So I think benchmarking your pay to actual responsibilities and having frequent check-ins with them to make sure that their pay is commensurate with what they're actually doing. I mean, you could say this in the in the veterinetean space too. For somebody that's doing a fabulous job, that's doing whatever their role requires according to the state practice laws, they should be getting pay commensurate with that. And I keep using the word commensurate because I don't have any other word for it.

SPEAKER_00

Equal to their skills and knowledge.

SPEAKER_04

Correct. Thank you. I talk to a dentist. You know, we we berate dentists all the time.

SPEAKER_01

Which do they probably hate us?

SPEAKER_04

This dentist, who's a client, great person, says, What can I do to make this person feel valued that's coming in? I I have high hopes for her, nuke rad. And we talked about compensation, but we actually talked about their role. And we talked about sales skills, you know, being highly important, even though nobody likes to sell, CPAs don't like to sell, veterinarians don't like to sell, you know, staff, technicians, CSRs don't like to sell because they think sales are bad, but sales generate practice revenue and basically help create compliance. You know, if you can't sell the next heartworm preventative, that dog's gonna get heartwormed. Somebody needs to promote that. Whether you call it sales, you call it revenue development or generation, somebody's gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00

I call it education. Like I mean, realistically, it is education and it's educating your clients to understand like what is heartworm. You know, we live in New England, we have a lot of ticks, people don't think about heartworm. Ticks most likely are not going to kill your animals. They're gross, they're nasty, we don't like them. If they sleep in bed with us, the animals, not the ticks, but sometimes the ticks end up sleeping in bed with us because the animals are. But education instead of sales, because really same thing in the dental space. You're educating people as to why is this important. And then you let them make their own decisions. So we're not really selling, we're just trying to help them educate them in a way that isn't from Dr. Google or some random groomer, you know, or the kid who works at Petco. But yeah, I think that we generally in this space have had some real issues with payment. And I think it's because, you know, you can look back to James Harriet, who was able to trade his services for, you know, ham and eggs, clients kind of still feel that way too. So, you know, and they could do it all and they didn't really delegate. And so now our doctors hopefully are getting a little better better at delegating, but they don't know what to pay, which is why I think the MIT study is so it's a great place to start. I still think it's on the low end. But if you're saying Dunkin' Donuts is hiring for$15 an hour and they're not going to get bit, peed on, pooped on, have anal glands in their hair, you better be paying a lot more than$15 an hour for the skills, like what Mark was saying, for the skills and the knowledge and the what are your expectations.

SPEAKER_02

So for someone that uh maybe they're paying well, but they're unsure of their culture, everyone likes to say they have a great culture. You go on any job for anywhere, they're like, oh, we have an awesome culture. Um, what does that actually look like? I know, Jenny, you're in a well-worth-run practice, you're big on culture. What does a good culture look like that would make people want to stay?

SPEAKER_00

To me, a good culture is something that is consistently worked on with the entire team. If you are not working on your culture, your culture is building on its own and it might not be what you want it to be. I also think that your culture, so it needs to be intentional. I think intentional is an extremely important word. It means that you're actually actively working on it, thinking about it. What do we want our mission to be? Right? What do we want our values to be? And so with our values conversation, that took a couple months to go through. I actually asked the whole team, I gave them a list of over a hundred words from Bernay Brown, who is like my hero. And she had a whole, and Dara Lead, she had a whole list of values. And I gave everybody values and I said, I want you to think about not your values, but what do you think are the values of the clinic? And then I, you know, we put it up on a board and we put hashtags next to each word. And the top four words, it was not the same words that my husband and I as owners would have picked, but it was what my team wanted. So teamwork, trust, making a difference, which was one of those things that I was kind of like, I hadn't, yeah, we do make a difference, but I had like family, fun, you know. But so we took the four words that they had, and then we said, okay, now let's really define these. What does trust mean? What does that look like to you? How do you live in that value? And so I think, but the signs of a good culture are your team stays, your clients stay. You have really good patient outcomes. And when you don't have good patient outcomes, you talk about it and you learn from mistakes. You have psychological safety, whereas people feel comfortable questioning things, asking questions, and making mistakes. And psychological safety is so, so, so, so important because it's called practicing medicine for a reason, and we screw stuff up sometimes. You can do, I mean, it just is. We're humans and we can think we're doing everything right. When you look back, you go, oh, I messed that up. So, how do we learn from that? So it's the continual learning. But that to me is the signs. Also, usually those go hand in hand with a higher profit.

SPEAKER_04

Hope hopefully Hopefully. So, Jenny, if if you were a fly on the wall and you were thinking about culture and compensation, would your team be talking to potential new team members saying, Oh my god, we have the most fantastic culture and we're paid well for what we do?

SPEAKER_00

My team personally?

SPEAKER_04

Personally.

SPEAKER_00

I would hope so. I mean, I I think that my team I very rarely hear someone come up to me and say, Hey, I need to make more money. So I do try really, really hard to pay them appropriately. And I pay them for for, you know, you were talking about paying for for what we asked them to do. So my accounts receivable has once again snuck up on me in the last year. I know, don't, Mark, don't judge. Help me. But so here's what I did. Last Thursday, we sat down, we had a meeting. I said, this is our accounts receivable. Here's the goal that I wanted to get at. If you guys can all help me, and we talked about how do we do that, right? No more payment plans, send them to care credit. We just were started working with Paisley Paws, which is a 501 that will actually hold angel funds for you so you can legally raise money. Because if you are a for-profit entity, you cannot ask for people to just give you money to give away. Yeah, you cannot. It's illegal.

SPEAKER_04

Well, we use Balto for a bunch of clients too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So there's a there are these, they're 501c3s. You can raise money, and then we came up with criteria. How are we going to use it when people need it? You know, they have to be nominated by a doctor and a support team member. They have to be able to pay 10%, you know, all these things. So that's a way hopefully to help get it down. We talked about on the road, making sure that we're getting paid on the road because that's our biggest, our biggest issue right now. You know, making sure that if we, you know, we're we're really explaining what treatment plans are, why it's important to do them, and that payment is due at the time the services are rendered. So I I talked to the whole team and I said, if we can get it down to this amount, y'all get a$1 an hour raise. And it gets them on board, it helps solve a problem. They, you know, and it kind of just refocuses. And I and I keep explaining to them, it's not about the profit. It's about the fact that if your accounts receivable is, let's say,$100,000, what could you do with$100,000? A lot, right? You can be ready for when your oxygen kennel breaks or your truck breaks down or what, you know, there's so much stuff that you can, you know, maybe offer more benefits. But no, I think that my team, my team consistently will go to people and be like, hey, you need to work here. So I hope that they're I hope that I could grab any one of them and have them come in here and not under threat from me tell you how great we are.

SPEAKER_02

And Mark and Jenny, so I know you guys, well, know a lot of practices, you go around the country and everything. Are you seeing it's harder right now to keep good people or find them? And how should this change how practices think about compensation?

SPEAKER_04

It is hard to find people. I mean, we talk to people all over the country. They lose a doctor, they have a hard time finding them depending on if they're a remote area. You know, if you're a remote area in Nebraska or Oregon or Idaho, it's tough. Same with even like Michigan. You think Michigan's so small and would be hard to find or easier to find doctors and it it might not be. So I think you do have to consider compensation. I if you look at all the ads out there, it seems like everybody's providing the same information. If you look at all the dental websites, every dentist out there is being offered X dollars. And it usually comes down to the quality of the practice and the culture where they're going to work. Same within veterinary medicine. I mean, it's we have people that have a hard time attracting people in Pennsylvania where there's a vet school, one big vet school. And why? Because somebody else is giving them. Something that you're not.

SPEAKER_00

We'll say that our most recent vet who started here really picked us because of our culture. You know, she could make more working for corporate practice as opposed to an independent practice, especially in this area. But she really wanted the mentorship and she was very thoughtful in how she chose where she was going to go. She wanted the mentorship and she wanted a culture and she wanted a place where she could have fun and that was family-oriented. And so I think we kind of checked those boxes. But I do think that there is not so much, yes, it's hard to find people, but a lot to what Mark was saying, I think it's more of a, they're not really dispersed well. Because when I talk to Dr. Weinstein, Dr. Peter Weinstein, who lives out in California in LA, they can find vets no problem because they're everywhere, right? But right, nobody really wants to move to rural New Hampshire where we just got more snow last night, you know, in the end of March. Nobody wants to move here because it's not a destination like the cities are. And to find somebody who wants to do mixed animal and to find somebody who wants to do emergency. Certified vet techs, they're looking for a place. Yes, they need to make money and they want to make money, but they're also looking for a place where they actually get to do what they're trained to do. They don't want to be glorified animal holders. You know, they've gone to school, they've taken the VTNE, they've done all these things. They want to be able to place IV catheters, calculate drug dosages, you know, assist with pain management in animals. They don't want to just be used to trim nails. And so I think it's important to think about that as well as compensation.

SPEAKER_02

So for someone coming out of school, how do they assess that? Would they would you say interview with them, look up and research the practice, see what reviews are?

SPEAKER_00

I think you have to do a little of both or all of it. You know, I mean, go on Facebook and see. I would say you can look at Google reviews and stuff like that, and it will tell you something. I wouldn't the negatives, I mean, there's always gonna be people out there who complain, but you know, if you look at our Google reviews, there's a lot of, oh my God, I love the whole team there. You know, oh, this doctor is great, oh, this doctor is great. And if you go on Facebook, you're gonna see pictures of what we do. You know, like we just went bowling. So there's a bunch of pictures of us going bowling, and there's, you know, we have fun and we have interesting cases. And so you can learn a little bit that way. But I tell everybody, I don't care if you're a CSR, a CVT, a vet, an assistant, a kennel, kennel assistant, groomer, whatever, spend a whole day at that place. Even if they don't pay you, spend a whole day at that place because you're gonna spend a lot of time there and you want to see. And you people can hide their culture for an interview. They might be able to hide it for an hour or two, but they're not gonna be able to hide it all day and you're gonna feel it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So in a prior life, well, I guess it's this current life, I used to help students get jobs at accounting firms, and a lot of accounting professors would always out the big four. And it is a great career there. It's just that you put what as a younger person through the grind, like your busy season all year long. Where at a regional firm you have a better sense of life. So it's like I think what you're saying there is like similar to it's like look at the full picture. Like you may make a little bit more, but you are gonna be working those hours. So if you do your how much you're making per hour, so you gotta compare the whole picture and well, I enjoy working there.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And a lot of it, not just compensation, because say you're making an hourly wage or a salary, also, what are the benefits? You know, are they offering health insurance, dental insurance, 401k, profit sharing? You know, is it like a cafeteria model where you can take and you know, pick and choose what works best for you and what your needs are? And all of that, right? Do you get to go to VMX? Do you get to go to what's your is your CE included? Are your professional fees included? Do you have financial help to help them, you know, learn how to be more financial literate? So all of those benefits, I think we look at a compensation, we see one number, and you have to take all of those benefits into account.

SPEAKER_04

A lot of people, though, don't understand that. They don't understand the true financial package. We try and help doctors explain to their employees what they're going to get. A lot of them get the blank stare because really it is it's only what's in your paycheck. Most people don't understand the true value of the health insurance they're getting because they're not sick or they're thirty or forty years from retirement. So I think the culture has to play a big impact because that's what they're gonna experience every day, not thirty or forty years from now.

SPEAKER_03

For the beginning of this was to keep teams together and thriving.

SPEAKER_02

Sometimes you just can't keep someone, whether it's they have to move to a loved one or they're becoming disengaged, as Mark, you said earlier, maybe it's run its course. What are some early signs that someone listened to this that maybe a team member is disengaging before they actually leave?

SPEAKER_00

Showing up late for work every day, not showing up, not a negative attitude, not wanting to take on. So I just came back from a conference, or like, you know, we talk about VMX and you come back and you're all excited because you learned all this stuff. I just went to this great financial talk by Mark McGaugh, and I learned all these things and I want to implement them. And your team's like, no. You know, they put the brakes on, they're negative. All of those signs are either if all of your team is doing that, that's a culture thing. But if one team member is doing that, maybe time for them, they may have outgrown the practice. I tell that to people all the time. I'm like, sometimes you outgrow the practice. And they're like, oh, but I've been working here since I was 15 years old. That's fine. And I know we all want to stay at the devil we know, as opposed to jumping to the devil we don't, because it might be worse, but it might be better and it might be a better fit. And maybe you're burnt out in emergency medicine and you need to go to general practice or physical therapy or you know, an alternative medical thing. Or I had a CVP or I mean a practice manager friend who now does recruiting for Amerivets, you know, because it worked for her. Her husband has some health issues, she was able to work from home. There's so many options out there.

SPEAKER_04

I mean general disengagement. Some people get unenamored by public accounting. I don't know how. When I was in private industry, I said, I'll never be in public accounting. And look at me.

SPEAKER_00

So I like how you said unenamored.

SPEAKER_02

My favorite telltale sign is when I used to work in a small office, if the person came in very well dressed and we're taking longer lunch breaks, I'm like interviews, and then um number two was also they'd always pay for the they'd update their LinkedIn and then also pay for the LinkedIn premium that like helps you search better. So I'm like, you're looking for a new role.

SPEAKER_00

One team member who told me the only time that she called out sick, or she felt so guilty, she called out sick to her previous employer to come and interview for a job. So now every time she's sick, I'm like, are you interviewing for a job? And she's like, no, Jenny, I swear to God, I'm sick. I should have never told you that. And I'm like, okay, I'm just checking. So yeah, if they're calling out sick a lot, that might be a sign.

SPEAKER_02

And then I know that we sometimes you said they run their course, maybe it's time they've outgrown it, but is there ever a time to have a talk with them or do a state interview? Like, hey, what's going on? Is there something weak and cheating to address that? Would you say? Or is it you should be doing that all the time.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, realistically, you should be having meetings with your team constantly. Your leads should be meeting with your team members. So, like my head CVTs meet with the technical team, my head receptionist meets with the reception team, they meet with me, then I meet with the whole team, plus we have team meetings. If you if you don't have open forms of communication, those things are gonna sneak up on you real fast. But yeah, if you start to feel like someone is not meeting the culture that you have, or that you feel like they're right, disengaging, hey, what's going on? You okay? Because it might not be work-related, it might be personal related. Maybe they do have a family member that is going through some things and they've been taking care and they're just tired. Okay, that's something that is gonna take some time to get over, but it's not the end of the world. But if there really isn't another thing where they just aren't happy with the way things are being done, then it's okay to encourage them to find work elsewhere.

SPEAKER_03

All right. And then another question, Jenny, this can put you on the spot a little bit.

SPEAKER_02

I I think I can already guess the answer. How much of culture really comes down to the owner or the lead doctor or lead veterinarian?

SPEAKER_00

Culture comes down to every single person on the team. I think your leaders, whether it be the owners, the associates, because they are leaders whether they want to be or not, that is the reality of vetmed, right? You're all of your veterinarians are leaders. Your head CVTs, your head, you know, anybody who's been there for a while, anyone that's on your lead team, they have to live it. They have to lead by example, they have to be own who they are and be honest and vulnerable because that's the only way that you're gonna have psychological safety. If you admit to making mistakes, then you're telling your team it's okay if they make mistakes. So I think, yes, your leaders are all in charge of it, but also so are your team members. We all know it when when that one team member walks in and everybody's like, you know, Jenny's in a bad mood today. Right. All Mark's fault. No, but you know, when when you can feel it, right? You feel the change in the day, you feel the change in the attitude. And so everybody really has to take accountability for their own part in the culture. And that's why we have like our team meetings and try to make sure that we're all on the same page for what we want. And if anybody has questions, you know, come and see me. My door is always open, other than when I'm doing podcasts. The door's open. I've already had, you know, multiple people in here today having conversations, and it's not, it's 10 o'clock, you know. So the fact that you have an open door is very important. They have to feel comfortable coming to you, but it really is every single person has to have something to do with it, but it has to start with leadership. They have to understand that you can't say it's my way or the highway. You have to do it the way that I'm telling you to. People don't want to be told what to do. People don't want to be micromanaged. They want to have a culture where they have some autonomy and some freedom to do what they need to do. Like I t I tell my CVTs all the time, I can't do what you do, but I trust you to get it done, you know, and they're helping each other out. So I do think that it's just a matter of everybody has something to do with it, but it has to start with leadership in in living it.

SPEAKER_02

Um and if someone listening is losing people right now, how would you say they go about finding out if it's culture compensation? Exit interviews or feeling it or just talking to the person?

SPEAKER_04

You should definitely have an exit interview. I think it's the only way to gain information. I think people might be totally honest when they're on their way out the door when they could have been more honest during the length of their employment. Maybe it wasn't something that your hospital caused either. It's just a as Jenny said, there's different life circumstances that people are encountering. Could be family, could be education, could be religion, could be political. People just, you know, have heard something, they feel it rubs them the wrong way, and they've made a decision, which is too bad. Especially in this day and age. People are so sensitive.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

To hearken back to the state interviews at a prior employer, not our current employer, Mark, but uh they asked me to look into state interviews, and they're like, Oh, I read the book on there's a book on state interviews, I read it, and then I presented it to the owners of like, I think this would be a great to put in. And they said, We have a great culture, I don't think we need to do this. And then I was like, Well, I know of someone that you consider a higher performer, and they just this is before working from home was a big thing. They're moving pretty far away, like, and I'm like, I think if we talk to her and like maybe put something and like, no, no, we're good, we're good. She left within like three weeks. I'm like, all right, well, um, Star the T leaves, but yeah, she said that sometimes it's hard to uncover those problems before they leave because people don't want to have that awkward conversation. So um it's good when you could bring it up and have that open forum.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, I've been there when Jenny has had her door open and we had to close it because people are just so vibrant and lively outside and that they're just happy.

SPEAKER_00

They're obnoxious, is what they are.

SPEAKER_04

And it wasn't from the sugar.

SPEAKER_00

It was No, it's not all the caffeine and all that.

SPEAKER_04

Just the general state.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think I think that it's really hard when you have owners who are like, no, everything's fine, everything's fine, everything's fine. Everything is not fine. It's never fine. Your team is never fully going to be satisfied. That's the reality of it. And so having constant conversations is important. And the more you have those tough conversations, those accountability conversations, the easier they become. One of the best books out there to help explain different forms of conflict, which is, you know, we don't like conflict, but realistically, everything is conflict. If we have differing opinions, you know, like Mark, you were just talking politically. I mean, talk about conflict, right? But can you have different political views and still be friends with each other? I hope so. But so there's this book called Radical Candor, and it really talks about the four different types of conflict resolution, when they're appropriate, when is it worth the fight? When is it not worth the fight? When does it have to be? You know, during COVID, we really did have to do a lot of it's my way or the highway because we didn't have a choice. We didn't know the CDC is saying this. So this is what we're gonna do. And there's not room for discussion. This is what we're gonna do. So that's a time when we didn't really get to have team meetings and discuss. So, how does everybody feel about it? But I talked about Paisley pause earlier. We had a team meeting. What does everybody think? Is everybody on board for this? What do you guys think the criteria should be? I want their buy-in, so I want to have this conversation. But if you're not, if you have owners that are really like, right, have their blinders on and know everything, like you said, Chris, oh, everything's fine. What do you mean? Everything's fine. It's probably not. And if they're not willing to change, you should probably update your LinkedIn to premium and start looking for a job. Because if they have blindies on, they're not going to see it until they're ready.

unknown

All right.

SPEAKER_02

Mark, flip side, culture's great. And then they realize they're losing people there because of compensation, but then they're like, hey, I don't know how much I can pay and run this practice and make sure we have everything. Would you be able to work with them and say, like, based on the revenue you're bringing in, this is what you could comfortably pay and run the practice, or where they should they start there?

SPEAKER_04

I mean, you should definitely talk to your CPA. Hopefully, you have a veterinary CPA. The problem is most people look at their percentages, which Jenny and I were talking about this before. Oh, my percentages, I can't deviate from my percentages, and they're like guidelines. Please do not beat yourself up. There's more room in your hospital to pay people better if you do other things better. So revenue can be created, pay can be created. You need a starting point. You need an honest examination with yourself about what you want to do and with your CPA spouse. You need to bounce your ideas off many people. Some people answer shop too much, though. They want to come to a consensus amongst a whole source of Google consultant, CPA, financial planner, their classmates. First, talk to your CPA, look at your financial statements, look at the direction your hospital is trending, look at the MIT living wage study. It's a benchmark. I mean, you know, Jenny's area, the minimum, you know, for a single person with no children, it's$25.58 an hour. That's the basement of pay. Can you do that? Maybe you can, maybe you can't. Urban area, I mean, if somebody has a child,$46.79 an hour for one child, a single person with one child. That's over$100,000,000 a year if you add in healthcare, profit sharing, CE, uniforms, etc., daycare, if you're funding daycare. So there's a lot of possibilities, and there's a lot of ways to bring the veterinary profession compensation up below the doctor level. But you have to start talking about it. And if you're just focused on percentages, you'll never get there. You have to focus on reasonable compensation and reasonable revenue and reasonable profit.

SPEAKER_03

Because they're all interrelated. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02

If someone Jenny, I know you're a master of culture, and that was a great s where we should start on um getting the conversation right. If someone wants to take a baseline of, hey, where's my culture at and how can I make it so my team's thriving and staying, where would you say to start?

SPEAKER_00

Um, you mean how to like get a temperature on your culture? Yeah. I think you're really looking at what you were talking about is how to tell if a team member's disengaged. If the majority of your team fights you every time you try to make a change, that's a culture issue. And you have to really start having the conversations to swap that around. And one of the ways that we did it was we came up with our culture points. So I said, what, why are we here? was really what it, why I know why I'm here. Why are you here? And not just why are you, you know, I want you to think about why are you in Vent Med? Why are you at this practice? You know, some of my team is at this practice because they really like the mixed animal emergency, you never know what's going to walk in type of vibe. Like yesterday we had two goat distos first thing in the morning, you know, and then we had to breed a horse, and then we had, you know, a dog dental that needed 18 teeth pulled, and plus all the appointments going on. So that is really great. That's not good for everybody. There are some people that really want an eight to five. I don't want to have to really stress about, you know, skin issues, ear issues, whatever. So why are you here? So we came up with why do we think Deerfield Veterinary Clinic is here? And, you know, one of them was exceptional customer service. Yes, patients, but exceptional taking care of the people. And I said, what does that look like? So then this took nine months for us to really work through as a team. What were our four four culture points, which was excellent customer service, a good and happy team, you know, team collaboration, patient service, and safety and cleanliness, you know. So those are kind of our four culture points. And I said, okay, but what does that mean? What does that look like? So, like for excellent customer service, smiling at everyone when they walk in, smiling when you answer the phone. You know, it might be something like when we euthanize a pet, making sure that they have ink paw prints, clay paw prints, some of the fur, you know, these things that are mementos, you know, having books available for kids who are going through it and don't understand. So all of these are signs of customer service. You know, what is good teamwork, you know, being honest with each other, holding ourselves accountable as also our team. So, anyways, this whole process took nine months. And I think when people talk about culture, they go to these conferences and they come back and they're like, I'm gonna fix our culture. It takes years to come close to getting it right. And then you have to keep working on it. It's not a, what is the set it and forget it, Mark? What was that?

SPEAKER_04

Bopeel.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's the rotisserie chicken cooker. You cannot set it and forget it. You have to constantly work at it. So, first you have to figure out what is your your why, like why are you there? You have to figure out who your leaders are in your team that are going to be able to help you and that are on the same page as you. And do they want to be leaders? And then you really want to start working on, okay, as a team, why are we here? What are we doing? How do we make that work? What does it look like? But it's a lot, you have to take the time to do it. And the problem is we're very good at working in our practice and not on it. And we have to work on it because otherwise your culture morphs into something that you don't want it to be.

SPEAKER_02

Mark, I'm not sure if you can sense this from your advisory, but do you see that the um veterinary practices that you work with an advisor that have a good culture, they're more profitable or they are not losing as many people? Can you sense that, or do you see that in the financials? We do see that.

SPEAKER_04

Uh people that are delegating more to staff tend to retain more employees. We see that all the time. We have a lot of insight into new employees being hired, and we see some practices that have, I think, poor cultures because they're always offboarding employees from the payroll system and onboarding new ones. It's kind of like you know, the FedEx commercial where they get like 99,000 rings because I keep saying, oh my god, they're they're hiring more people. Oh, somebody left, and it's a it's a you know, revolving door. You don't want the revolving door because pet owners sense that when somebody isn't there that they've you know worked with for years or a year. You want to continually maintain your patient base and your employee base. It's key. People like consistency. I'm the biggest non proponent for change. If I go to see my veterinarian and the vet tech who was there or the veterinarian is no longer there, I'm like, what happened? Sometimes it's a you know plausible explanation. You know, spouse got transferred, they moved out of the area, you know, taking care of parents, but sometimes there's no explanation. I'm like, oh boy, I don't like change. And I a lot of people don't like change. So I think it starts it starts giving giving questions about maybe why did they leave? Is there something wrong with the hospital? You don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Patients don't like change. I mean, like we have some of our animals do much better with certain doctors, certain technicians than others. And why are we here? We're here to take care of animals. That's the number one reason people go into vetmed is to take care of animals. We just happen to take care of the people who come in with the animals, you know, and we have to work at that as well. But our patients feel it and hear it, and they know if a place doesn't feel right. You know, you can walk, I love my dentist. I walk into my dentist and they're all laughing. They have a puppy named Winston who runs around everywhere. He's so freaking cute, and I love him to death. And they're like us. I like going there, even though my doctor has now basically retired, my my dentist who I've been seeing for the last however long, right? And that's fine. She's older, she should be ready to retire. But I still keep going there because I like the dental hygienists, because it's the same ones that I've seen forever. And they're laughing and they're joking around. And I really enjoy that. And if you think about that as a dentist's office where most people hate to go, I mean, you can feel it when you walk in the door. And I think your clients and your patients can feel it when they walk in your door as well, not just looking at the financials, but yeah, the the clo the teams that I was talking to one of my um manufacturer representatives, and I said, So we're still booking out three months in advance. We have been consistently for I don't even know how long. But I see on all these forums on Facebook, how are you getting people in your door? My doctor's only seeing five appointments a day, like all of this stuff. And I said to one of my reps, I said, What are you seeing out there? And they're like well-managed practices keep their appointment books full. So awesome.

SPEAKER_03

All right. So let's do a little recap of this episode.

SPEAKER_02

So if you are looking to improve your culture, I would go back and read some of those books that Jenny mentioned. Jenny, what was that one book that you you talked about earlier?

SPEAKER_00

Radical Candor is a really good one. Another great one for culture. Well, anything by Simon Sinek. I just anything. Leaders eat lasts is a great one.

SPEAKER_02

And if you are worried that your compensation isn't matching up, definitely use the old Google machine, look up that MIT study, talk to your CPA, reach out to someone like Mark and say, hey, I want to make sure that my practice can support what I want to pay or I'm losing people. Can you please look at this? So some practical things for our readers to look away. Yeah, when it comes down to culture and compensation, culture is definitely gonna help keep people there, but you need to at least give them that compensation that's gonna be able to live their life and thrive as well. So any final words, Mark or Jenny?

SPEAKER_04

Well, I did a wage and compensation study for a client to find out how much corporate was paying versus what private practi independent practices were paying. And corporate in some instances was lower for CSR assistant and technicians. They may have had a little better benefits or standardized benefits, but private practice is the place to be, as I can say. And I told that's what I told this hospital owner. So it may sound rosier to work for corporate, but you're gonna get more delegation, more responsibility, and I think theoretically better pay.

SPEAKER_02

And we need to turn them to Dart Leadership Mark. That's gonna be a blog for our website, so you just gave yourself some work or just sent it to me.

SPEAKER_04

And Jenny, Simon Sinek before I I was kind of like, eh, but now I think he's a cool guy.

SPEAKER_00

He is a cool guy. Do you his podcast, uh, A Little Bit of Optimism, is such a good podcast. And it's so good for leaders, for people who are just, you know, he did if you haven't seen his TED talk, what's your why?

SPEAKER_04

I did, I thought that's what it when I after I saw that, and then I started looking at more things.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it's a great, it's one of the most, the highest rated TED talks ever, and it is 100% worth it. My, I guess my ending for this would be if you're going to focus on your culture, please don't expect it to happen overnight, but do it with intention. Take your time and know that it is worth every single second. Dr. Dave Nickel consistently talks about different values of what we do as owners. And so if your owner is trimming toenails, that's like a$10 value. But if your owner is working on strategic planning and your culture, that's like$100,000 values. Yeah, it might be more fun to, well, never, it's never fun to trim like a chihuahua's toenails, but it might be more fun to roll around on the floor with puppies, but it's also very, very, very valuable to take the time to work on your practice, not just in it. That's a Dr. Peter Weinstein little plug right there. Don't work on your practice, or just work on your practice, but work. No, don't just work in your practice. You need to work on it. Okay, I need more caffeine.

SPEAKER_03

With everyone, thank you, and we will see you all next episode. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the veterinary survival show.

SPEAKER_02

If you have any questions for Mark or want to learn more about how LGA supports veterinary practices, visit our website at lga.ca. Again, that's lga.cpa.