Flex appeal: It's all in the planning

Flexible scheduling, job sharing and other creative solutions can help medical practices recruit and retain quality employees -- even for the smallest of practices. But don't let flexibility become chaos.

By Carolina Procter, AMNews staff. Aug. 13, 2007.

At a two-physician internal medicine practice in New Bedford, Mass., one of the office's most experienced, talented lab assistants struggled to juggle family and work.

She was having to spend more time in the morning readying her four children -- all younger than 12 -- for school. That posed a problem at work, where her shift begins at 6:30 a.m. She was frazzled, and her employers noticed.

"It was a difficult time," said Nauka Patel, who is the practice's office manager. "We saw she was overwhelmed."

Though the lab assistant hadn't hinted that she might look for work, or decide to just quit, Patel and the physicians wanted to make sure she didn't think of leaving. So they did something many small practices believe they can't do -- create flexible schedules for staff.

Experts say job sharing, flexible scheduling and other creative human resources solutions help practices keep quality employees happy, which in turn translates to profitability. There are guidelines to follow, but overall, offering such perks helps recruit and retain experienced employees whose personal lives aren't conducive to the traditional work day.

"I don't see any reason why somebody should be miserable at work," said Kirk Moore, MD, a solo plastic surgeon in Salt Lake City.

Dr. Moore allows his three-person staff -- an office manager, patient coordinator and receptionist -- to set their own hours and work from home when necessary. When he moved his practice from Idaho to Utah 18 months ago, he decided that since he doesn't like being tied to a desk, he wouldn't ask his staff to work that way, either.