Think onboarding is something you’ll build once you’re bigger?
When you have seven or eight people on your team, one poorly trained person has a huge impact. Onboarding isn’t just about your next hire. It’s how you define what good looks like for everyone already in your practice. If you never define it, everybody creates their own version, and the standard slowly drops as you grow.
Tenure isn’t the same as mastery. Without a clear standard, even your longtime team members can’t know if they’re operating at the level you want.
Here’s how to start simple:
- Define what good looks like.
Pick one role and write down what someone should know at 30, 60, and 90 days. What behaviors do you expect? What does excellent performance look like? - Assign one trainer.
Stop training by committee. Others can help, but one person owns the new hire’s development, checks their progress, and fills in the gaps. - Normalize feedback from day one.
Set up regular check-ins before anything goes wrong. When feedback starts on day one, it becomes how you do things here, not a punishment.
You don’t need a 300-page binder. You just need to start. Build something small, use it, and add to it as you go. When you roll it out, explain your intentions so your team knows you’re raising the bar, not criticizing the past.
P.S. If you’re the only one in your office who knows what “good” looks like, you’re the bottleneck. Join our free live webinar, The Doctor Bottleneck: How to Build a Practice That Grows Without You Driving Everything, on Wednesday, November 18th at 7PM Central, and learn how to build leaders who own training and standards for you. Register now HERE.
