Welcome therapists and group practice owners! I’m Nicole McCance, a Psychologist turned Business Coach for therapists. It’s not too long ago that I grew my practice to 55 therapists in only 3 years, so I really get how tricky boosting team morale can be! Part of building a therapy team (that you’re proud of) and that will help you scale your practice is considering the 4 biggest factors that influence your team morale.
Since you’re here reading this, I have a sense that maybe there’s something going on in your team’s culture and you want to improve it! Before we get into my actionable steps, I want to check in with you about one very important thing…
My question for you is: How is your team morale right now?
Now I know this is a big question but it’s an important one – so really take the time to think about this. Here are some questions I want you to ask yourself:
- On a scale of 1-10, where would you rate your team’s morale and why?
- Do you have any concerns about team morale?
- How does it feel to be in the office with your team? Are they interacting with each other? How is the energy? (If you are a bricks and mortar practice)
- How would your team describe the culture at your practice?
Once you reflect on all these things, then you will have a clear starting point!
As my practice kept growing, I found it more difficult to keep connected to the team. So, this really got me thinking about what actually impacts culture and morale in the first place. What I learned as I kept growing and bringing on new therapists to my practice was that leadership matters.
So basically, improving your team’s culture and morale will help you scale your practice. So even if this can feel tough at times, I want you to remember this is how you achieve sustainable practice growth for therapists!
Your leadership really matters.
I always say everything trickles down from the leader, and I know that could feel like a lot of pressure, but it really is true. Before you panic, I want to remind you that as a therapist, you have everything it takes to be an exceptional leader! You are empathetic, a great communicator, and able to problem solve on the spot.
If I’m totally honest with you right now, I can admit that at the beginning I wasn’t the best leader (and that’s okay too). We didn’t learn any of this in grad school – we learned how to be great therapists instead. So, it took diving deeply into my personal growth and nourishing my new identity as a leader, until I saw actual change in my practice’s culture.
So, I have a few questions for you to think about your leadership:
- How do you communicate?
- Are you an effective communicator and leader?
- Are you transparent with changes as they come up? (ie. new booking system, new operations manuals, vacation policies..)
- Are you a dictator? (this can cause distress for your therapists)
- Are you collaborative? (this is the sweet spot)
- Are you super flexible (like almost too flexible and scared to make any changes.)
Take the time to seriously think about this. If you were a therapist would you want to work at your own practice? Would you like your leadership style? Everything starts here! When you make slight improvements to your leadership, you will get your therapists feeling valued and happy!
The 4 biggest factors that impact team culture and morale
1. Collaborative Leadership
As I evolved in my leadership, I realized just how important collaboration with your team is! You might be thinking “Nicole, how do I strike a balance between making the changes I need for my practice and having my therapists feel like their opinions and needs matter too?”
For me personally, I already had many of my policies and procedures in place. But I know many of you are still in the building phase of your practice, so you are probably working on creating policies or systems or maybe that’s not on your radar yet. No need to worry, this means you create all the positive changes as you create feedback processes and systems.
AND always be clear when communicating. Let your therapists know what they can expect and be human! Let them know if you’ve had a hard day and forgot something. It’s great to model safe vulnerability in your practice and if you lead – your therapists will follow (and feel cared for).
2. Clear Communication
I would suggest having a communication platform to communicate with your team! I personally love using Flock as a messaging platform that can keep you connected with all your therapists.
When I was implementing some big changes, I would create anonymous polls for my therapists to vote whether or not they agreed or disagreed. It gave my therapists the sense of safety they needed to actually communicate how they felt about it, instead of fearing backlash for being honest! If you’re not doing this now – don’t worry. You can slowly start adding polls to even gauge the overall team morale or to get feedback on ideas for team meetings, trainings, or parties.
If you know me, you know I love systems and processes (they make our busy therapist lives so much easier). So what I did was create a feedback process that I delegated to my admin to distribute. I loved google forms as a way to check-in with my therapists to see how they were feeling about working at the practice.
I asked questions like:
- How satisfied are you working here?
- Is there anything you dislike or would want to change?
- How connected do you feel to the team?
3. Rewards and Recognition
This one seems straightforward but we can easily forget about it while growing our practices! Your therapists need to feel valued in your practice. Now how they feel valued will of course depend on the therapist. But after having 55 therapists in my group practice, I noticed that giving rewards and recognition works so well!
Take the time to do the little things for your therapists by:
- Having your admin check in on your therapists love languages (what they really need to feel cared for)
- Celebrating their wins, like when your new therapist converts consult calls….literally whatever little wins, you want to celebrate them.
4. Space For Connection
Create your office to foster connection. For example, I added a table for therapists to sit and enjoy lunch and breaks together.
This was such a gamechanger! Having a kitchen bar table gave my therapists a space to co-mingle and chat between clients. We also had cupboards where each person had a bin with their own snacks they could bring from home because of course, I want them to have a little home within our office.
Boosting Morale in Virtual Practices
I won’t lie to you. I found it a bit more difficult to boost team morale in my current virtual business (The Clinic Growth Map) compared to my bricks and mortar practice.
But…it is POSSIBLE, so here’s what you can do:
- Create a chat just for recognition: I would either have you or your admin start shouting out all the little wins in the chat which will encourage your therapists to start doing this too.
- Create a book club “coffee and books”: This creates a chance to bond and learn together. It could be really neat to have books from different modalities circling, so you’re team training and building relationships between your therapists.
- Buddy system: A buddy system can be a great opportunity to connect your therapists and have peer consultation at the same time. Maybe you have a rotating schedule where your therapists can meet and discuss their learning curves and ideas. Or maybe you just start with pairing your new therapists so that they don’t feel alone as they’re getting started at your clinic.
- Open workspaces: This is when your team meets on an open zoom call and just do their work together. This is great in providing accountability for things like notes and treatment plans! My team at the Clinic Growth Map does this a lot and they love it. It keeps them connected and on track with their work.
Save this blog for when you are READY to start making some big changes to your team’s culture – your lovely team of therapists will thank you! This is part of the key you’ve been missing to sustainable practice growth for therapists.
And if you know other therapists looking to scale their practice sustainably, then send this blog their way, so we can help them too!
All it takes is one change at a time to make a big difference in your team’s morale and culture. I hope all my tips and strategies help you as much as they helped me grow my practice.
You’ve got this! I’m cheering you on every step of the way.
Your business bestie,
Nicole
