Episodes
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Hire the Smile: 5 Tips To Prepare Your Veterinary Practice To Open
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
In this episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss five tips that will help your veterinary staff and practice as everything begins to reopen. We will be discussing leadership, communication, appreciation for staff, workload and future thinking.
HR Wins & Fails:
Footage reveals Ohio state senator driving during Zoom call
Canada’s new entrepreneurs, ineligible for government assistance, are bearing the brunt of lockdowns
goodnews_movement
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Hire The Smile: Managing Disruptive High Performers in Your Vet Practice
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Tuesday May 04, 2021
In this episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss a common challenge in many vet practices, dealing with a high performer colleague that is also disruptive or difficult to handle. We discuss tips for dealing with this type of personality, why this person is this way, and methods to ensure you are hiring people that align with your workplace culture and core values. Stay tuned for the end of the episode, where we share some productivity hacks that can make your life easier.
Articles mentioned:
The ‘good’ doctor: It’s time to stop treating character like an afterthought in medicine – and everywhere else
Managing a Top Performer Who Alienates Their Colleagues
Productivity Hacks:
Pocket
The Pomodoro® Technique
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Hire The Smile: Employee Goals to Improve Practice Performance
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
Tuesday Apr 20, 2021
In this episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss how to properly set attainable soft skill and hard skill goals based on performance reviews.
Articles Referenced In This Episode:
Popular Goal Setting Techniques Managers Should Avoid
HR Fails:
London, Ont., meat plant shut for 2 weeks amid COVID-19 outbreak affecting 82 workers
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Hire The Smile: Making Difficult Conversations Easier
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Tuesday Apr 06, 2021
Referencing Forbes article A Psychologist’s Secrets To Holding Tough Conversations by Kevin Kruse and the book Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss the elements of having difficult conversations and what you can do to make them easier and more effective.
Fails:
Federal Court approves class-action lawsuit claiming RCMP
doctors sexually assaulted recruits
Amazon's denial of workers urinating in bottles puts the pee in PR fiasco
Wins:
How Kim Ng, Major League Baseball's First Female GM, Finally Got the Top J
Reddit - MadeMeSmile
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Hire The Smile: Using Feedback To Your Advantage
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
Tuesday Mar 23, 2021
In this episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss how to receive feedback as an employee and as a leader. Following the book, Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, we discuss the three triggers that govern how we react to feedback and how to change behaviour on a surface level vs. changing your overall mindset. We also refer to the article, How Leaders Can Get Honest, Productive Feedback by Jennifer Porter where we talk about the importance of modelling the behaviour you’d like to see from your team, how to receive feedback to better ourselves and lastly, how to ask others to help you make the desired changes based on the feedback given.
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
Tuesday Mar 09, 2021
In today’s episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline are joined by Dr. Ivan Zakharenkov to discuss further research on why the veterinary profession experiences severe burnout and how corporate groups buying veterinary practices can do great things for the profession.
Dr. Ivan “Zak” Zakharenkov is a veterinarian and an entrepreneur committed to creating products that empower the healthcare team to live their passion. It was Ivan’s own personal journey from practicing veterinary medicine for 12 years and experiencing severe burnout that led him to explore the psychological triggers of burnout and business methodologies that veterinary organizations can apply to eliminate them. Researching this topic, Ivan obtained an MBA degree in International Healthcare Management and wrote a dissertation “Implementation of lean thinking to improve the employee experience.” Today Ivan is leading VIS, a technology company helping veterinary groups adopt a management methodology that combats burnout while accelerating business performance. Here is a link to Ivan's burnout study: https://vetintegrations.com/insights/burnout2020/
For more information or to contact us please email info@oculusinsights.net or find us on all of the social media channels.
Tuesday Feb 23, 2021
Hire The Smile: Fear Free Feedback
Tuesday Feb 23, 2021
Tuesday Feb 23, 2021
In today's episode with Dr Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline, the conversation surrounds articles that discuss how sandwiching criticism between compliments is confusing and counterproductive and how voicing your good intentions can help soften how others receive negative feedback.
Tuesday Feb 09, 2021
Hire the Smile: Redefining Burnout
Tuesday Feb 09, 2021
Tuesday Feb 09, 2021
In today’s episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss burnout and reference the below podcast episode and article.
Why Burnout Happens — and How Bosses Can Help
https://pca.st/episode/5832032f-0310-426c-9fbe-969b361c6fc2
Christina Maslach has been studying the causes of burnout, and its impact, for decades. She says that, in a year when everyone feels overwhelmed and exhausted, it’s more important than ever for managers to recognize when and why employees are suffering and take steps to solve those problems. In her framework, burnout stems from not only large workloads but also lack of control, community, and/or reward and values mismatches. She notes that leaders have the ability to pull many of those levers to help their workers. Maslach is the author of The Truth About Burnout and a forthcoming book on the topic.
Do You Know Burnout When You See It?
This article from the Harvard Business Review talks about understanding the subtle warning signs of burnout, taking steps to mitigate it before it’s too late, getting creative about how to relieve some of the pressure on burned-out employees, and work collaboratively with them to understand what they need.
As always please reach out to us with any questions or ideas! Links below or find us on all of the social media platforms.
Tuesday Jan 26, 2021
Hire the Smile: Making Employee Performance Reviews Easy
Tuesday Jan 26, 2021
Tuesday Jan 26, 2021
In today’s episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss a topic close to both of their hearts, employee performance reviews. The foundation of the discussion surrounds two articles, each with a different approach to employee performance reviews.
For more information or to connect with us please follow us on social media or visit www.oculusinsights.net
Are Peer Reviews the Future of Performance Evaluations?
Why this manager put workers in charge of their own raises, career development, and reviews
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Hire The Smile: The Customer Isn't Always Right
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
Tuesday Jan 12, 2021
In today's episode, Dr. Mike Pownall and Katie Ardeline discuss the premise that the customer is not always right! The discussion begins with an article about customer entitlement and the effect that has on staff, drawing comparisons to the veterinary industry. The second article talks about how some overworked practices are trying to reduce the number of problem clients on their books.
As always if you have any questions or would like to hear us discuss a topic please reach out to info@oculusinsights.net or visit www.advicebyoculus.com and www.oculusinsights.net
Articles:
Practices using pandemic to shed problem clients – report
The Customer Is Not Always Right
Book:
Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business