Have you ever heard statements such as: “It’s not MY job!” “I’m expected to do WHAT?” “How do I do that again?” “I forget what you showed me.” “You didn’t tell me to do it THAT way.” “I didn’t know that was part of my job description!”
In all likelihood, these comments are a result of no job descriptions, incomplete job descriptions, or out-of-date job descriptions.
Job descriptions are an essential part of hiring and managing your employees. They should include: the purpose and responsibilities of the job; who do they report to and take orders from; the individual tasks involved with the position; the methods used to complete the various tasks; and so on.
Many healthcare positions involve protocols and procedures that need to be learned step by step, often very specific to THAT practice as these can differ from practice to practice.
Here’s a hot tip:
When you, or one of your staff, are showing a new employee the steps of a procedure or protocol, video the whole thing. I use my big Samsung tablet for this but you can even use your cell phone’s video capabilities. Then download these into the computer in a file called job descriptions where the written descriptions for each job are located. Now you have written and video’d job descriptions. These can be referred to until the person has it down cold or re-watched if an error is made.
