We Need A Call-Out Policy

An associate is struggling with their perception that the management team is not holding an otherwise exceptional team member accountable for excessive call-outs, resulting in gaps in coverage. This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Stephanie Goss and Dr. Andy Roark respond to an email signed from “A motivated associate who needs my support team to show up to work and the management team to hold them accountable.” They discuss a team member who is excellent at their job but has chronic migraines causing constant absences. Andy and Stephanie aim to move from frustration to a positive mindset to tackle this mailbag question, head on. Let's get into this episode…

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Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss: Hey everyone. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. And this week on the podcast, Andy and I are back in the mailbag. You guys have been just jamming out the questions lately and we've got a good one. 

We got an email from a motivated associate who needs their support team to show up to work and a management team who will hold them accountable. And this one was fiery. There was some disagreements between Andy and I maybe on how to deal with it. And I really enjoyed talking through some of the ways that you can approach this both from an action step and a headspace perspective. 

This was fun. Let's get into it.

Announcer: And now, the Uncharted Podcast!

Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back! It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie-This-Ain't-Texas-Goss. I don't even know if that's the line.

Stephanie Goss: You— it is. You had to do it. You just had to do it. Oh, man. Tyler, Tyler and I were literate. Tyler Grogan and I were literally just having a conversation this morning because Tyler had not heard that song yet. And we were having a conversation earlier as a team about what an earworm it is because it's everywhere right now. I mean, Queen B. Like, she is the queen and it is everywhere. And Tyler was like, I haven't heard it because I don't listen to the radio. And she's like, oh wait, then I opened Instagram and all, like, all she had to do was open Instagram and everybody is using it for their reel music. She's like, now I know the song you're talking about.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Stephanie Goss: It's a good, it's a good song. It's a very catchy song.

Dr. Andy Roark: It's catchy. It's– I think it's sort of weird. It reminds me of like–

Stephanie Goss: Look, Beyonce is in her country era and we just gotta give her that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly, that's exactly it, that's exactly it reminds me of like Lil Nas X when he was just like,

Stephanie Goss: In his country era

Dr. Andy Roark: like pink cowboy hats and I'm like, like I appreciate him being himself, like I do get that, but it's like, I didn't see, that's a hard left turn.

Stephanie Goss: Have you seen the video of Snoop Dogg and Matthew McConaughey singing country together?

Dr. Andy Roark: No.

Stephanie Goss: Oh my god, that's a video you need to see. It's the thing you didn't know you needed in your life, because it is fantastic. But everybody apparently is in their country era right now, so, you know. As a fan of early 90s country music, I am here for it.

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh.

Stephanie Goss: And…

Dr. Andy Roark: I thought you were going to say as a fan of early 90's Beyonce, I am not here for it. That's what I thought you were going to say.

Stephanie Goss: No, as a fan of early 90s country, I'm here for the country era, so everybody can just keep on keepin. How's it goin Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark: It's crazy. It's, it's bonkers, but it's good. Yeah, things are good. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, it’s a busy summer coming up. June is bonkers because it's that time of year. Like there's graduations, there's kids getting out of school. There is all of that stuff, but we're going to Hive in Minneapolis. We've got AVMA.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yup, we'll be there.

Stephanie Goss: And those things are like the same week.

Dr. Andy Roark: We'll be there for the Tech and Practice Manager Hive. So, UVC at Hive in Minneapolis. It's gonna be, it's gonna be great.

Stephanie Goss: But I'm just so excited because I, this is, in a way, this is kind of, like, a dream come true, although the schedule is bonkers and I would like it to slow down, please. Because also this means, like, my kid is, my last kid is starting high school after this year and I'm not ready for that.

But I, you know, I love getting to go out because the one thing that I have heard from my friends who are just out across the country and who have small little to no CE budgets is like, Oh, I wish you guys did stuff closer to me. And I'm so excited to kind of be all over the place this year and have some opportunities to do some things regionally in places where I'm hoping to get to see more of our friends. So, I'm stoked about that.

Dr. Andy Roark: You know, when we do live events, they're hard to do. They're hard to do because you and I both have very strong feelings about how you really train people. And you can't do that in lecture, like in, you know, stadium seating, where you just pack people in. And so, Getting space that has round tables and where we can bring flip charts in and we can move people around and have projects and discussions like it's a logistical lift.

And I'm really proud of our road show because I feel like we did everything we could to price it in a way that would let people who were local come and bring a couple of people with them. And so I, in my mind, having the practice manager and the medical director and the customer service lead and the tech lead come together and all get the same experience, their heads are going to blow off.

Like, I mean, it's cool. I mean—

Stephanie Goss: That’s what I’m hoping for. Not the heads blowing off, but the coming everybody coming together because that would be quite messy.

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly right. Oh–

Stephanie Goss: That would require a lot of pap– require a lot of paperwork. No, thank you.

Dr. Andy Roark: And then there’d be like– that’s part of the logistical work I’m talking about. It is gonna be so good, there's gonna be police tape at the end. Like no, that's awful. But, no, in all seriousness, like, it's, I mean, just imagine though, like, imagine taking your medical director lead, and your lead technician, and have them do this program together, just the deep dive work on their practice.

There's just, there's nothing else like that that you can do in two days that's going to just completely mind meld people and have them see a vision together and give them a new language to communicate with each other. It's just like the potential is incredible. And so,

Stephanie Goss: I think I'm excited about it because I agree with you and I do think that we have some really strong we have some really strong I have some mentors in the field who do multi-day presentations and I've had the good fortune of actually going and doing some of those like multi-day style events, with some really awesome people in our industry, Patterson Yu and you know, back in the day, Mark Gerberman used to do, that was one of the very first ones I went to was What's Up Front That Counts.

And our whole CSR team went and it was great to be able to go together. And to your point the thing that was always missing, and I remember this vividly because I went as a CSR lead, I went with our practice manager and our practice owner. And, we went to a thing that Wendy Meyers was doing and it was all about customer service and we were changing the game and heading towards more white glove service.

And so it was perfect for what we were doing. And we came away with that and we were so excited. And to your point, we had spent the day like drinking from the fire hose and she has so many great ideas and we were soaking it all up. And. Then I was like, when the hell do we actually talk about this?

Because then we went back to the practice the next day and it was like all of these great ideas and no, we didn't have the foresight to have the planning time to sit down and talk about what are we going to do about it. And so I'm excited. For us, it was, you know, we get so excited with teaching people and we're like, yeah, we can jam even more content in here and is an intentional choice to back it off and say, Hey, let's pick a smaller, a smaller chunk and let's focus on the essentials and then let's build in the time to actually do the work and the activities to get them thinking about how are we gonna bring this back and do it in our actual practice. And I think that's the thing that I'm most excited about to be able to do with people is not just sit quietly at your table work time, but actual like interactive, let's talk about how we're doing this in our practices kind of time.

So I'm, I am pumped. It's going to be a good summer.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I completely agree. It's just, I'm fired up. I, it's

Stephanie Goss: You sound so fired up. This is where I catch Andy off guard because he's just like, Stephanie's on a roll and I'm just gonna let her start talking and then he's like, oh wait, she's done and now it's my

Dr. Andy Roark: I'm answering, I know, I was answering emails. I'll be honest, I just, I was answering emails, I was like, we haven't, to be honest, I forgot this is a podcast and I thought you and I were just talking, and I was like, I'm in a staff meeting with Goss and she's, just running and so I'm going to answer emails.

Stephanie Goss: I can't with you. Okay, let's dive into this because we have got, You guys are getting good insight to what our relationship is actually like. Um, We've got a great mailbag topic today. I am excited about this one. So I'm going to start with our signature because I thought it was so great.

Our email letter was signed from a motivated associate who needs my support team to show up to work and I need a management team to hold them accountable. I was like, Ooh, this is going to be a fiery one. Like I read that part first and then I went into the mailbag and it is great. It is an associate veterinarian who's struggling.

They work for a small animal practice. There's two doctors, so there's a practice owner and a, and this associate. The practice is relatively new, and so they're still building things. They don't have all the systems and protocols and policies. And one of the things that they don't have in place is an attendance and a call out policy for the team.

And so, they're, they are, this associate is struggling because there are several things happening right now. It seems like they're a little bit overstaffed because they're a newer practice and they're still kind of getting things up and running. And so at this point, there are lots of days where multiple someone or multiple people call out versus everybody showing up.

And so it doesn't seem as dire as it would if they were like fully booked and they needed all hands on deck. And she said, it just feels like this culture is starting where it's just acceptable to kind of be like, eh, I'm gonna call out today. And be, and there's no process. So that was issue number one.

And they said, you know, I feel like the management team is recognizing this, and from their position it feels like they're not doing anything about it. And so. they're also struggling because there is one team member in particular who is absolutely amazing. they're, like, I loved how they described this team member because you always ask the question, like, when we're thinking about building our team, like, who is that rock star that you would work with again and you wish that they could clone and it sounded like this person was that person.

And they are really struggling because this person is such a rock star and they're dealing with some chronic health issues that cause them to call out a lot. And so at this point they have been calling out more, it feels like more than they're actually at work right now. And so the associate was like, look, I have empathy.

I understand that there's a chronic illness in place here. And because they're a small practice, everybody's all up in everybody's business and they know why this person's calling out. Yeah. And they're just like, look, how do we get the management to deal with it? Because this is a problem. Like the team is starting to get frustrated when people call out.

It feels like this person is setting a bad example because they're such a rock star. I feel like the bar is a little bit higher for them. And so it was It was, this associate is just like, I, don't know what to do because I feel like I'm in a position, because it's a two doctor practice and I work directly with the practice owner, I feel like I can say something, but I'm not exactly sure what to say.

And so I, cause I don't know what to do. They're like, I'm frustrated. Everybody's calling out. But like, how do I say, hey, manager, do your job and put policies in place? It's kind of the gist of it. And I thought it was such a great— I totally, I'm excited to get into it, because there's so many pieces to unpack here.

Dr. Andy Roark: I like this a lot. I think I want to talk about this illness because I do think this is important. So it is a chronic illness. It's migraine headaches and I want to talk specifically. I think that's a really important kind of flavor for this, but also let's be honest about migraine headaches.

And so let me start here at full stop. My wife gets shots for her migraines. And my younger daughter has to get picked up from school for migraines. So it ain't, it's not like I don't know about migraines or take them seriously. I do. And migraines are particularly sticky for the team because you see the person and they're fine.

They look great. Everything looks great. And granted I know there's other medical conditions like this too where you see the person and you because they're not visibly ill–

Stephanie Goss: It's, yes, it's, yeah. The invisible illnesses. Yep.

Dr. Andy Roark: It is. And so, but I did want to make that because I think that is important to talk about when we talk about the team and stuff like that.

It's one thing if somebody's going through cancer treatments, things like that, and people go, yeah, this is a thing. Migraines are hard because they're often lifelong. And there'll be long periods where we don't see them at all and then we'll see them. And it's, it can be…

Stephanie Goss: Well, you don't see the symptoms, like when someone is going through chemo and they have no hair you see that, right, it's visible. And when someone is suffering from a long term chronic illness like migraines, if somebody is getting nauseous from, smells because they feel a migraine coming on, you might not see that until they're puking in the trash can at the front desk, right?

So, like, that, I think that's the hard part is that it very much falls in that invisible, that invisible illness or invisible disability category.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. And then a lot of people, and again, I, this is true with, so there's invisible illness too, is you can have someone who calls out and then they show up the next day and they're totally fine.

Stephanie Goss: Right.

Dr. Andy Roark: And some people are going to go, were you really? Did that really happen? I don't know a way around that because I said as the husband and father of migraine sufferers, like, I, I understand that it's real.

I have also been a human being and known human beings for a long time, and there are some people who will take it out and maybe not quite tell the truth. And you know, and then they just, they take a day off and you can never know. And you should not question the person who's having an illness necessarily.

I don't want them to have to prove that they feel horrible. That's not what we want to do. But anyway, but all of this, I think this is important flavor of the, of the, issue. And I, just, I think it's worth kind of bringing out and talking about it. So anyway, let's start with let's start with headspace if you were this associate vet. Okay, and so the first thing that I would say and she might not need or he might not need to hear this. We're gonna say she. I'm just guessing. She might not need to hear this.

But if it was me, I In my younger days as an associate, I had a tendency to catastrophize a little bit and I would see things and go This is be this is becoming a pattern and before you know it Nobody's gonna show up for work and it's gonna be me And the kennel kid, yeah, and we're all, we're gonna go, and the emergencies are gonna roll in, and I'm gonna do something wrong, and I'm gonna lose my license, and you know where I'm ending up?

Stephanie Goss: In a box in the forest. 

Dr. Andy Roark: In a box in the forest, by the stream. That's where I'm gonna end up. And like, that was it. And so, the first thing I want to say is, I see you, I hear you, I understand where you're coming from. You're not wrong. Resist the urge to catastrophize. You know what I mean? Like, okay, we're seeing this thing.

We're starting to trend in a direction. We can work on this without grabbing the steering wheel and yanking it. So this can be some subtle Kung Fu possibly. And so anyway, I just, I always have to start with don't catastrophize. When we start to approach problems like this, and I said the invisible illness is important, right?

I am a. I always think about a Rawls Veil of Ignorance. So Rawls Veil of Ignorance is this psychology experiment where you try to imagine a system, right? Try to imagine a system with different types of people in it, and they have different roles and different statuses in an equitable system.

Theoretically, you would be okay being randomly assigned into that system, meaning you would feel that things were fair if you were dropped into this vet clinic as a kennel tech. 

Stephanie Goss: hmm. 

Dr. Andy Roark: It's like, you might, like, you might prefer to be the veterinarian, but you wouldn't feel that things were wildly

Unfair.

Yeah, exactly. And so, when I look at, things like this, it's very easy for me, as a person who does not have migraine headaches, to look and say, I need people to show up, and if you're not going to be here, you need to prove that you're sick. But it, but then if I look at Rawls Veil of ignorance and say, But Andy, what if you're not the associate?

What if you're, what if you're the front desk person who has migraines? I would say, this is some sucks. Like, this is, like, I'm supposed to prove that I'm sick. That I'm nauseous and vomiting in a trash can at home, like, that's what I'm supposed to do? That, I, that doesn't, I don't like that and that doesn't feel fair on this side.

And so, and then also you know, we look at the other employees and I. If I suddenly slap restrictions on them on how much they can be off and we haven't had that before, they're not going to like that. But if I'm then the doctor and I'm shorthanded and people are unreliable and balls are getting dropped and I don't, like that.

And so ultimately the goal with Rawls Veil of Ignorance is to try to say, Hey, What is a system that everyone can look at? And it doesn't mean they like it, and it's important. It's not a system that makes everyone happy. It's a system where everybody can look at it and at least go, Eh, I see why that is the way that it is.

And so start with Rawls Veil of Ignorance as your guide. Like, what can we do that, that nobody's gonna feel singled out, and no one's gonna feel totally cheated on. What is the thing that I would be okay, if I was the one having the headaches, would I be okay

with And so, so I always start with that. 

Stephanie Goss: I think, too, it's important going, I was thinking about this. I, while you were talking about Rawl's Veil of Ignorance like, I, Going back to your catastrophizing piece, I also think as I was reading through this, the question went through my head, like, are these two things related?

And I think from a headspace perspective, that's really important because it's really easy to say, well, this person who's a rock star and a leader in the practice sets a good example or sets a bad example. And because it's easy to say from the outside, Because this person is calling out more frequently, the rest of the team sees that and then the rest of the team is choosing then to call out.

It's really easy from the outside to look at it and connect those dots. And I would say from the catastrophizing perspective and using your concept of Rawls Veil of Ignorance, part of empathy is putting yourself on the other side of the equation and saying Is it possible that these two things are completely unrelated?

And what would happen if I disconnected those dots in my mind? And now if you're looking at things as independent prob problems, Are they actually as big of a problem as you think that they are? And I think that's some of the headspace work that I would say that we probably need to do here, because these are two separate problems, I think. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I like this a lot. I think you're, I think you're spot on. It's funny how teasing problems apart into two different problems. Now you're like, I got more problems. But, each problem is much– it's when you stick to problems together, they seem unsolvable, because there's too many tentacles coming off of them.

But when we can take them apart, I think you're really I think you're really right. And the other thing too, is as I've learned as I've gotten older, I the best thing, really, is to take this problem, break it into two problems, and then lay them on the calendar, spread apart a little bit, so it's not like, I have to fix all these things!

It's like, okay, first we're going to work on this, and then, 

Stephanie Goss: We're gonna work on that.

Dr. Andy Roark: We're going to work on that and like it feels, but so I really, now we're getting in some good project management headspace. I really like this. Remember that the goal is finding and maintaining balance where people have some freedom.

They don't feel like they're chained to their desk. And also we don't wake up in the morning wondering what kind of staff we're going to have to work with. I think, you know, it's about making the staff know that we care about them. Yeah. And their health is important, and we're not trying to make people do a forced march.

And also, if we live in complete uncertainty about how much help we're going to have as an employee, that's not healthy, it's not good for our patients. We have to find a balance where everybody gets the support they need, including our clients and patients. And that's the ultimate goal, right?

I think another point to remember here, right? Not all call outs are created equal, which is just, you know, some people call out for very legitimate reasons, and some people call out for less legitimate reasons. And again, it's always but we don't, but we don't know. We often don't know what's going on with people.

Stephanie Goss: And the flip side of that is that I would say it doesn't matter because when, it doesn't matter why somebody's calling out and taking a day off if there's a policy in place. The conversation that we're having right now is existing because there's no policy in place because from an HR perspective, I shouldn't want to know.

I shouldn't know why people are choosing to call out. If they have time, it's their time to take, and then there should be policy that dictates, okay, if someone doesn't have time to take, like potentially someone who suffers from chronic illness, then there is a step A, B, and C. And I think this whole conversation is happening because there is no policy in place. And so I think that's really important. Like, yes, not all callouts are equal. And it feels that way as an employee. God, do I know the feeling of that. And at the same time, it's none of our damn business. It's not the manager's business either.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yep, and you're, exactly right, and that's where I was going with that is, all call outs are not created equal, but you cannot have a system that's based on how legitimate is this person's call out versus that person's call out. Like, that is no man's land, and you can't be there.

And so you're exactly right, so I am going, that's very much how we walk up to. We need to have a policy that does not care about What, what is going on with people or what's going on in their personal life or how they feel or things like that. We just, we can't make that. I think one thing that I would say here too, going into this conversation, if we're going to talk to the other veterinarian and try to get a pulse of this going, in defense of not having a policy, not saying it's the best way to go forward because we're clearly seeing, hey, we're starting to see a problem and we're going to probably need a policy.

I am a big believer in not sweating policies too much, unless there's great risk of not having the policy or we're starting to see a problem, at which case we can make some adjustments, you know what I mean? And so what I mean with that is oftentimes. And I can tell you how I grew my business. We did not have a policy.

We did not have a call out policy, things like that. And part of it was because I, and when it's not a problem, I was like, Hey, you know, we have a small team.

Stephanie Goss: Why would we need that?

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly what we, I mean, I could see how we would need that if we had 20 employees, but when we have six, you know what I mean? Like it, it doesn't feel like that big a deal.

Part of it is just life experience. You come along later on and learn like, okay, it's good to have a policy in place. But I. I do, I'm always forgiving of people, I think, who have done stuff because they really want to make a good life for their employees or their like, and I can see, I think choosing good intent is not our management is stupid and lazy and they didn't do the obvious things.

I think assuming good intent would be, hey, I believe the management was here, probably wanted people to have some freedom. They didn't want people to feel policed. They want to be supportive of people and let them get what they need. Great. If you get into that headspace, it will help you talk to the rest of the team in a very positive, supportive way that makes them feel seen and also opens up the conversation about how things are sort of changing now and why we're going to want to start to put some policies in place without making people feel defensive of what we've done in the past.

Stephanie Goss: And I think it's really important to make the distinction that our writer did not assume malintent here. Like, they were not, they did not, like, nothing in the letter said, oh, they're, lazy or, you know, just not doing their jobs. And I want to, I think it's a really important point about assuming good intent and we've talked about this in podcasts previously and you and I both have had experience with this because what was said was that, you know, the management team is recognizing the frustration and the stress that is happening with the team that's showing up.

And they said the management team recognizes this, but have not done anything about it. And the thing that I think is really important from this, let's assume good intent and recognize that as someone in HR, we cannot always tell you what is going on behind the scenes. And so I think assuming good intent when it comes to addressing the concerns, it's really important to ask yourself again the question of, is it possible that things are happening that I don't know about. Sometimes the answer is legitimately no, because you're in a small enough practice, everybody's in everybody's business, and maybe you have the practice owner who is telling the associate everything, or the manager who is telling the associate everything.

That could be true. And I think from a headspace perspective, in general, we should ask ourselves, is it possible that there's more to this story? Is there possible that there's things that I don't know?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I completely agree. That's, I think that's good headspace. And again, I love that you called out that our writer did not sound that way at all, but those are things that just, again, headspace is about getting yourself in the right headspace to have the conversation, and so, and he was not reacting to anything that he or she said.

So anyway, alright, that's it. Let's take a break here, and then let's come back and let's do action steps. And when I do action steps, I think we need to split this into two, and I think we can do this and do it efficiently. I think we should talk about, Putting the protocol into place and starting to frame this up and then I think we should do real quick the we should address the problem of this CSR is amazing and does everything exactly the way that we want and nobody else does or they don't know how to do it like she does and that's a spreading knowledge problem So we'll address those separately because they're very different things

Stephanie Goss: That sounds good. 

Hey friends, our dear friend, Dr. Amanda Donnelly, just released a new book that you should have on your shelf as a practice resource, it's called Leading and Managing Veterinary Teams: the Definitive Guide to Veterinary Practice Management. Not familiar with Dr. Donnelly? Well, you should be. She recently did an episode on this very podcast about accountability in our teams. 

And if you missed it, you should definitely check out episode number 273. When the vet won't go faster because Amanda is a wonderful guest. And if you don't have a copy of her book on your bookshelf, you need to head over to Amazon and get yourself one today. You'll thank me when you're loading up your brain with tips and tricks on how to affect positive change in areas like culture, team development, daily operations in your practice, how to implement effective team training programs, how to recruit and retain the best employees and so much more. Amanda has absolutely jam packed this book with amazing resources and you can find even more on her website to download after you purchased the book. The resources are like a hidden treasure map and the book is the key, which is so Uncharted. I absolutely loved it. So head on over to Amazon and grab your copy. Now there's a link in the show notes below. And now back to the podcast. 

Dr. Andy Roark: All right, so let's jump into this. You and I are 100 percent eye to eye, and I think this is very much what our writer was writing about as well, is we've got someone, they're calling out a lot, there's no system in place, the rest of the staff sees this, and they're like, well, I mean, she calls out all the time, and why, I mean, I don't feel good today, or, my kid is homesick from school, or, like, like whatever, and so I, should be able to call out sometimes too and, there's a fairness in that.

And so you and I are eye to eye on. We need to introduce a policy that lays out expectations around people being able to call out. And that, that feels fair to people who have chronic illnesses or invisible illnesses, things like that. Everybody gets the same treatment. Everybody, there's a system that is fair.

Now that does not mean that someone who does not have a chronic illness might necessarily be able to call out as often as someone who does have a chronic illness. But it does mean that if they were diagnosed with such a thing, then they would have that ability, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. And so, anyway, let's, the policy, for me, to get a policy in place, one of the things that— the first thing you have to do is be able to clearly state the problem, and then communicate the pro, the consequences of that problem. Meaning the problem is not that Sandra calling out all the time. The problem is that we don't have a policy that lets people know what's expected as far as the amount that they call out or when they can call out or what what is acceptable for calling out and things like that.

And when we don't have that policy, other people don't know what to expect. You know what I mean? We're starting to have more callouts and it's not fair to the people who are on the floor because they don't know who's going to be there to help them and we can end up short handed in a way that if we knew ahead of time we could staff for, but we can end up in a bad place. And so that's why we need to talk about this policy.

Stephanie Goss: And I think the biggest problem, speaking from both sides of the coin here, from the manager's side and from the employee's side, the biggest problem with the lack of policy is not so, usually not so much when you can call out or how to call out like that's pretty standard. Like how do you let them know that you're not going to be in for the day?

Right? Like that. Nobody cares about that part. The part that people care about both the employees and the management is where's the line that says this is acceptable, and then this is not acceptable in terms of the quantity. I think that's the biggest challenge for the employees because I think everybody wants to know this is the standard, and then once we've crossed over, we're like do we go, that's where the flowchart should begin. I think that's how most people feel.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. No, I agree with that. I like the flow chart idea. And so anyway, I think laying down the consequences of not having a policy in an empathetic way, I think that's good. That's just to get people to not feel targeted, hopefully, and to not feel like management is coming in and they are taking away our ability to call out.

It's like, it's, we're not, we're just trying to get this standardized so that everybody knows what's happening and, we all have clear expectations of each other and we can have a certain amount of certainty and you guys can know what's expected when you call out. And so it's just about us.

We're getting big enough and we're seeing enough call outs that we just, we need to get some, we need to get some clarity here. And I think you can do that in a nice way. I don't know if this needs to be said, but I would say as we start these conversations, start with a clean slate. I don't think you can go in and start these conversations and say, Anne Shannon has already used eight of her days. Like, that's not gonna work. 

Stephanie Goss: Starting from today forward.

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly right. It's gotta be, it's gotta be a clean slate. Not, you know, not holding the past, but, against people, but let's get started now. And you say, but Andy, it's, you know, We're, 40 percent through this, through the year. It doesn't

Stephanie Goss: You didn't have a policy.

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly. You didn't have a policy and so you're going to suck it up and you're going to start now.

And now you're going to have a policy. But that's it. Amnesty is basically what I'm saying. You give them amnesty. And again, because this is about making the practice better going forward and not penalizing people for things in the past. That's just not fair. We don't want that.

So yeah, that would be it. Determine what constant constitutes an excused absence or what is a call out? What again? This is sort of an HR question too of what requires a medical note excuse, things like that. What kind of policies are you going to put in place that let people call out and say this is a medical issue.

And are you going to count that towards absences? You know, what is your policy going to be?

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, it's interesting. I could like either blow a lot of people's minds or really piss a lot of people off here. But I think it's funny because how, my thoughts have evolved as, a manager on, this and, The more we've done this podcast and the more we've kind of talked about things and the longer that I have, been a manager, it's funny because I look back at, I look back at the attendance policy.

I actually have my handbook from my very first practice. And I look back at some of the things that I helped write and also that I was responsible for enforcing. And I'm like, actually, there's part of me, and this is a good clinic where my owners, our practice owners, treated us amazin[gly] as team members.

I'm kind of ashamed at some of our attendance policies because of the way that it. Made people feel as an employee like it was that it was standard practice back in the day like you miss You know two or three shifts or whatever number in a row and you have to bring in a doctor's note

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Stephanie Goss: Look, I don't care if somebody like if somebody I don't want somebody just as an employee who has lived paycheck to paycheck. Do you know, do you know how hard it is to have to spend the money to go to the doctor if you have the stomach flu for three days?

Like, so, it's funny, I, the excuse absence piece has always been a tricky beast because there is part of me that says, well, there should be consequences for constantly calling out at the last minute, and the reality is, Do I, am I really more prepared if they call me at 7pm or 10pm the night before when they start puking versus getting the message at 8am when I get into the clinic?

Not really. I mean, maybe sometimes I can have somebody come in and it's not like a last minute rush in the day. And the reality is, like, finding coverage and dealing with that is my job as a manager. And I don't know that any attendance policy can work you out of that job. And so it's been interesting, like, I wound up in a place where I don't care.

There's no, there was no more excuse and unexcused. If you had time to take Then an absence was an absence and it didn't matter and the flowchart only started if someone called out and they didn't have time to take. Because as employers, if we're giving employees time off, why do I care why they're using it? Really? Because if I care, It only creates more problems for me, from an HR perspective, because that means I know more about their lives than I probably should know.

Dr. Andy Roark: So, so walk me through this. So walk me through your flow chart then, because if you're like, well, I'm not going to ask for a doctor's note and you know, how is that, how does that ultimately play out to be any different in your mind than not having a policy?

Stephanie Goss: So, so, I'm not saying not have a policy, but what I'm saying is, okay, if we give employees time off, especially if we give them sick time and vacation time, which I'm all…

Dr. Andy Roark: That's important. That's an important distinction because it sounded like you were saying, I'm just taking it out of their time off and I'm like,

Stephanie Goss: Well you, you could, so I've done it both ways. Because in Washington, you have, to give sick days, you have to give a certain amount of sick time. It can be one bank together, but anyways, neither here nor there. If you have time, they have time to take it. What if I have a policy that says, okay, if I give you two weeks of time off or three weeks of time off in a year, I still track the call outs.

I still track the attendance. And if you have time in your bank, I don't care. You're taking the time that we've given you. Use it. It doesn't matter if you decide at the last minute that you need a mental health day or that you're puking with a stomach flu. If you have the time to take, take it. Once we reach that, so I'm still tracking it, there's still a policy in place, and my policy starts with where the team gets hacked off, which is, okay, we get 14 days of vacation or 14 days of time off a year, and here's Sophie, who's now missed.

81 days in the year, right? Like the, problem for the team is the gap between what we get and where we end up. And so most of us don't start documenting the chronic problems until they've become really chronic. So if they have time off to take, they take it. And once we hit that point, then it becomes a what, where are we going with this call out? Is this something that happened on a one off? Okay, fine. Then they get like a point system, right? So if somebody calls out and they're like, hey, I have, that's when I do start to get into the reasons why. Because if someone doesn't have time to take and they say, hey, I had to call out because I, you know, am going through a medical condition.

Great. I want a return to work note. I don't care why you're missing work. I want to know how it's impacting you moving forward. So have you been cleared to come back to work with no restrictions or like our CSR? If they are a chronic migraine sufferer, then tell me how I can support you as an employee moving forward.

Because that's how I make the distinction for the team. Because there is nuance here with the ADA and what is considered a disability and what is not when we're talking about chronic disease. And so I think HR does have to wade into the waters in terms of knowing what's going on in the employees lives.

And I've just become a big advocate for, I don't want to have to care until we cross the line because that leaves me out of I don't care if you want to go take the night off or take the day off because your best friend decided to elope to Vegas, go. I don't care because I've given you the time to take off.

Now I'm going to let you take it. It's when we cross that line that we start to have a conversation. Problems. And so that's where for me, I want to deal with it. But I recognize that a lot of people are just like, Oh my God, I can't even, I can't even fathom that. But really for me, that's how I can be a good employer for them is.

If I'm giving you your time off, take it, and you don't have to tell me.

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, the idea of having someone who gets migraines go and get a doctor's note because they have a migraine. That's hard to stomach, you know? So, so, I think that's true. So anyway, that, but that's why I said, I think, I'm glad we talked about migraines because I think that's just a really good example of this type of thing where you say having someone who gets migraines go and get a doctor's note when they've got a migraine, which they get twice a month or since they and they have since they were a child that feels kind of like insult to injury, you know, in a lot of ways.

And so I think that we should just think through these things of what is your policy going to be? What requires a note and what doesn't?…. What is time off? What is sick time off? How do you want to navigate this? But ultimately we need to move people into a system where we can track these things.

And yeah, where we can track, the first thing is track them, but then the second thing is to have some categories and some buckets that we're kind of moving through. you mentioned this too about the return, conversation or the return note and talking to the migraine sufferers.

So that's on my list of action steps as well is, for I would highly encourage you, strongly encourage you to before you roll this out to the team, sit down with that person and talk to them so that they are not scared when they hear this, they don't feel targeted when they hear that. And just say, this is coming, be supportive of them, let them know kind of where they are.

This is not going to be anything sort of about the past, but we're going to be rolling this out. What can we do to support and help? But I wanted you to know that this is coming. And again, a lot of people that I have worked with who will have migraines, they will feel fear that…

Stephanie Goss: Oh, absolutely.

Dr. Andy Roark: What if I have, what if I have a terrible spell of this? What if I, what if this becomes awful and I'm not able to leave? Is that what you expect of me? And I just, I think we should have a compassionate, honest conversation with them about, look, there needs to be a system to work through this.

And it's just something because as we've gotten bigger, we've had, we have to have a policy. This is what I need from you and you know, these are the things that help me when you go out as best you can. Again, I know sometimes migraines come on and there's nothing we can do, but if you know the night before you first thing, when you start to feel an aura, if you could let me know anything like just, open communication, that's not punitive or anything like that. But how can we help each other? You can have that supportive conversation around the introduction of a policy and hopefully take fear away from this person or take shame away from this person so they don't feel like this whole thing is getting put in place because of me. There's some interpersonal work there.

Stephanie Goss: I think going back to our writer as the associate, I think part of what is important when you're The, when you're having a conversation with the practice owner and the practice manager about the lack of policies and where you're going to start with that, I think it's really important to recognize, and a lot of people do not, the distinction between having a policy for call outs.

Having a policy for call outs does not address the concern with the CSR who is in a bucket of leave of absence and time off for medical reasons. Those two things are not the same. And the rules that we have to abide by from an HR perspective are not the same thing. And so we have to, that's where I said it's important to help your practice owner and your practice manager establish the line and that way when the manager has the conversation with the CSR it should also be about the rest of the team, for the rest of the team to acknowledge, this is the conversation about calling out and what an acceptable amount of absences might be. And we want everybody to know that there are also circumstances which may qualify a team member for a leave of absence. And those two things are very different. And I think it's important for the whole team to recognize that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I completely agree. All right. So let's draw this to a conclusion here as far as the policy, because I feel like this is kind of the action steps and kind of where my head would be and then sort of how we would start to talk empathetically to staff and roll this out. I want to switch over real quick to the other part of this because I think it's really interesting. This is our migraine sufferer who goes out a lot. Holds the keys to the communication and customer service that we want to provide and so, 

Stephanie Goss: They are a rockstar.

Dr. Andy Roark: they're a rock star and so when they go out, it's, it, the team is really hurt because like we're, the Lake, Lakers and LeBron James goes out like that's a big deal.

And so, so, so what do we do with that? I think. In this case, I do think that we can go to this person and again, how we do it is important. I'm not training replacements for this person. I am going to this person and saying to him or her, you're fantastic. And you do these things really well and I would really like your help in getting the rest of the staff up, up on, what you do now in order to make this happen. First of all, it's very flattering when people come and say that to you.

Stephanie Goss: Sure.

Dr. Andy Roark: The role of good management here is not to say to someone, Stephanie Goss, I love what you do. I want you to train other people to be like you are. That's, it's too nebulous. I don't know what that means. I hear that all the time. All the time is people are like, Oh, she's amazing.

I'm going to have her train the staff. And I'm like, train the staff to do what? And they're like, be like her. And I'm like that does not work that doesn't work and what does that mean and so from a management standpoint I think we need to think a bit about what exactly does she do that's great and they're like she does everything great. I'm like, okay, then you need to pick something then you need to pick something. You need to make a list.

Stephanie Goss: List every good quality that she's got.

Dr. Andy Roark: Make a list And then, instead of going to her with this huge Herculean one or two year program, take the number one thing and go to her and say, hey, would you help me train people on this thing? And then put it on the schedule. And then just start clicking down the list. Too often we wait because we're like, this is going to be a big deal.

Make it a small deal and schedule it. And then schedule the next one. And just make sure you keep scheduling them. Because this dies when you stop scheduling it. But that's basically it. Create a list. Put them in place. Prioritized order of what is most important for you to communicate and that can be based on I don't know what systems are most important you're like, wow, we really need help when emergencies come in. Great.

Go and tell her you want to work on front desk emergencies. Or, look at pain points. Say, Wow, we really are dealing with a problem where the techs are getting mad because front desk people are doing this thing. Great. Take that pain point and give it to her and say, This is what we want to do. Set your tone.

Set your training on the calendar, make sure people have space to actually do it and follow through. Training like this is an investment and it will never be convenient. It will never be convenient to pull her and the other people off the floor. It won't. This is an investment and so you're going to suck it up and you're going to make the investment.

If you do that, the more training the other people get, the less it's going to hurt you when she goes out. And she's going to continue to go out. You know this is going to happen. It's unfortunate. I wish, God, I wish there was a cure for migraines. There's not. And so, anyway, that's, what I would sort of say with that, is the big thing is make sure she doesn't feel like she's being replaced. Break up what you want to do down into pieces, schedule them, get on the calendar.

The last part I'll say to this, I'll say is, this a lot of people say, she's amazing, and so she needs to train other people, and what I would say is, if you know why she's amazing, Then perhaps she doesn't need to train other people because you know what she's doing. Why don't you train other people to do it the way that she does it? And oftentimes someone who's really great at a skill is not the best person to train other people. You know, again, go back to LeBron James. He's an amazing basketball player. I'm not a huge basketball person, but he's amazing. I don't know that he's the best basketball coach. I have no idea. Those things are not related.

And so, sometimes having those rock stars and having them participating in the training as someone who agrees to role play with you, or to go first when we share around the group, how we do things, they can be wildly valuable participating with other people. And then the other thing is, if this is a stressful thing for them and you think they might not be able to make it to the event, you can still run the program. And so anyway, those would be the things that I would think about training.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, and I feel bad because I feel like we might have left the episode with our associate doctor feeling like, okay, great, so I just can't do anything about this. And I think that I think that you can. And I think there is, very much nuance and legalities, and I think that the best thing that you could do in your position is to say to your practice owner and your manager, Hey, I'm hearing and seeing some things with the team that make me think that there is concern over the perception of lack of fairness or lack of equity in this, situation here. What can I do to help support, maybe get an attendance policy in place, or some leave of absence policies in place, or, you know, just get the rest of the team understanding that things are being worked on here? Um, because that's really where you're at in your position, and they may be able to tell you, but they remember that they might not.

And so, I think the important thing is you absolutely should, yes, you should have an attendance policy. You should also have leaves of absence policies, and someone who has the skill and the qualification should be helping your team navigate this circumstance. Like, I don't want our associate to feel like they should just be stuck feeling angry and irritated. They absolutely, like, the feels are absolutely understandable and recognizing that someone should be working through this and recognizing this is not a, we can just slap a policy down and the problem goes away kind of situation. There's a lot of nuance to it and it's important to kind of work it through.

And so I think it is important for our associate to say. Yes, if you recognize that you have power in this situation because the practice owner will listen to you or you feel like the manager will listen to you, by all means, advocate for your team and speak up here and say, you know, not just Stephanie and Andy said I should have these policies, but like, these are policies that every practice should have.

Dr. Andy Roark: I agree. I don't want the writer to walk away feeling like they don't have action steps. So here I guess I let me summarize mine real fast and they're in line with yours. But I will tell you as an associate vet I've learned is, I've got scars I can show you. The way that I would do this is I would go to the manager, I would go to the owner, I would go to the power to be and I would highlight the benefits of an attendance policy.

I would go and I would talk about fairness. I would go and talk about clear expectations. I would go and talk about not wanting to get to a place where we are surprised to find ourselves short staffed. I would, talk about how much easier it's going to be to start this now than it will be down,

Stephanie Goss: Down the road.

Dr. Andy Roark: If, yep, if like that. So I would go there. I would not try to freak him out. I would not be like the every everything is gonna fall apart. Like I wouldn't do that. I would, but I would just go and I would talk to him and say, I think there's real benefit in this. I think we should talk about it. I would. I would not catastrophize, but I would talk about the benefits that come from a policy where everybody knows what the expectations are and just and start with that.

So I would start with that up front. So that's a nice thing. And then the second thing I would do, and I would wait a little while. Okay. Cause again, I, one of the mistakes I made is I would bring a pile of problems to management and overwhelm them

Stephanie Goss: Right.

Dr. Andy Roark: would get done or they'd shut down they'd be like,

Stephanie Goss: You? You overwhelming someone?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah with new ideas and enthusiasm about change. Yeah, it's happened. So then I would wait a little while and then I would come and say, hey There's a couple of things that I think our rock star at the front desk could help the other front desk people do really well these are the specific things.

Dr. Andy Roark: I would give them, I would give them two or three. And that's all I would give them. And I would have a list of ten, but I would give them two or three.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Then I’d say, hey, these are the things. And then I would hope that they would get excited about it and then I could just jump in and cheer how great the first things went and then say, oh here, if you need suggestions of other things here, I got a couple more, but I would do that.

So those would be my two big takeaways. Those are two different conversations, but I think you could have both of them and hopefully get them rolling the right direction. 

Stephanie Goss: I love it. I think that's I think that's a wrap I think

Dr. Andy Roark: I think that's it. 

Stephanie Goss: Um, okay, have a fantastic rest of your week Andy and everyone who's listening. I guess we'll catch you next time

Dr. Andy Roark: Thank you, Stephanie. Take care of yourselves, everybody.

Stephanie Goss: And that's a wrap on another episode of the Uncharted  Podcast. Thanks for joining us and spending your week with us. If you enjoyed this week's episode, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. It's the best way to let us know that you love listening. We'll see you next time.