Jack O'Brien: Hey, hey, good morning, good evening, and good night. Oh, I've got something to show the YouTubers, Ben, if I may. Go for it. Well, we were talking about, you know, tell them, show them, involve them. And so I found the Chinese philosopher that is Ben Lynch. Oh, gee whiz. It's straight from your LinkedIn profile. It's been Confucius Lynch.

Ben Lynch: That's great. I love the top bun there. So you should use chatGPT to create an image of me. Well played. G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode.

Jack O'Brien: How do you create a sense of belonging for a new practitioner? Ideally you know their coffee order and so that first hour is really about connection. What we're sharing on screen now is an onboarding checklist. How soon should a new team member start seeing patients, clients? Sooner rather than later.

Ben Lynch: Because so often, especially in the younger, you know, new grads or early career therapists, the B word comes out and you're like, you don't know what I used to see, how many clients I would have.

Hannah Dunn: Open support. In our zero to 100, we actually have a before you join the team page.

Jack O'Brien: Gold star, Hannah. Gold star.

Hannah Dunn: Fantastic.

Ben Lynch: You live for my validation, don't you? This episode will be right up your alley if you're looking to build the caseload of a new practitioner. We're diving into their onboarding experience. And trust me, you want to hear Hannah's take on how to make them feel welcome before their very first day. Plus, Jack shares how to talk performance expectations from day one. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organised and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email helloatclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast, and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. It is episode 317. Welcome back, folks. My name is Ben Lynch. I'm again joined by Hannah Dunn, Director of DOTS and OT Service in Melbourne. Hannah, school holidays are coming up. Are you going to the snow? Is that on the cards?

Hannah Dunn: No more snow. We are going camping, though, with two different groups of friends, which will be awesome. Down to Naples Sea and then to Wye River.

Ben Lynch: I hear you find out who your real friends are after a camping trip.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, that's right. Some of my friends go to cabins though, so I mean, is that camping?

Ben Lynch: My wife and I were talking about camping the other day, and we both arrived at the same conclusion. We would be doing glamping. It's just like, no, we did that as a kid. We're well beyond that. Jack, I know you love doing it, and welcome to the episode. Jack O'Brien, former physiotherapist and middle-aged man in Lycra, as you owned up to recently on a pod. How is the prep for the triathlon going?

Jack O'Brien: It's this weekend, Ben. So a half Ironman, 70.3, and the taper has begun. The exercise physiologist will understand the taper. The carb loading is about to begin for all those dietitians. It is a good week. I can confirm it is a good week.

Ben Lynch: After having a pizza three nights in a row over the weekend, I was doing carb loading.

Jack O'Brien: We had pizza two nights in a row and I had leftovers for lunch just before we hit record.

Ben Lynch: Oh, so good. So good. Well, uh, that's good. Aren't triathlons and Ironman the same thing?

Jack O'Brien: Uh, yes. Ironman is a distance of triathlon. I'm doing a half Ironman just for those, uh, who would be picking apart the details is half, not a full.

Ben Lynch: Okay, there you go as well.

Jack O'Brien: Hannah, you're a closet iron man, iron person, aren't you?

Hannah Dunn: My husband's done them and I have done one in a three person, so I only did the half marathon distance of the run. Well done, well done.

Jack O'Brien: There's a few Clinic Mastery coaches. Bridget Linden inspired me in a triathlon. Shane Bennett, not Shane Davis. And a couple of our members, Ryan Twist, podiatrist in Melbourne is all over it. So there you go, Ben.

Ben Lynch: Well done. That's very nice. The endurance to go through that, and that's quite a bit. I've seen you practicing. I've seen some of the Lycra shots. Looking good, JRB.

Jack O'Brien: Thank you, mate. Yes, speaking of looking good, we had a few good-looking, I believe, never met them, join our community in the last couple of days. So, welcome to Karen in the Business Academy, Jackson in the Business Academy, Tamid in the Business Academy. We've had a graduate from Elevate to our Business Academy in the last couple of days as well. And one thing that did come up this week, Hannah, is that the summit is coming up in March, the Grow Your Clinic Summit. This is a big flagship event, hundreds of clinic owners, the Melbourne River Promenade. However, it is a members-only summit. This is like the number one conference for health professionals for the year, if you ask me. But it's members only. So Ben, if listeners are interested in the Grow Your Clinic Summit March 2026, tickets are available for members only. You can send an email to ben at clinicmastery.com and Ben will take care of you. You're welcome to join up. Join us as a member and then you can join us at the summit.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, and it's two days.

Jack O'Brien: Two days, Friday, Saturday, tax deduction, check with your accountant. Cocktails are on us. And it is a what a time to be alive.

Ben Lynch: One of my favourite times of the year. A lot of folks bring along their team members, especially the leadership team. Hannah, you've done that the last couple of years, right? What's been the experience and the reasoning behind bringing your team along?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think it's been an amazing opportunity for the team to hear from some of the other coaches around a lot of the things that I'm implementing. They say, when I say Ben, they're like, oh, that's what Hannah says. That is where I have got a lot of this stuff from. And so it gets a lot more buy-in, it gets them on board, it gets them leading. So this year was my most incredible summit because Louise, our operations manager, who's been on the team for eight years, has just said, I'll just deal with that project. I'll do that. So I'm not even leading these things anymore. They're taking ideas from the summit and saying, we're going to run with these projects. We've got the info. Leave it with us.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, very nice indeed to bring them along. I think you bring your team along the journey with you and you create sustainable growth and they love getting an insight. We always say it's great to hear it from someone else because it's not quote from mum and dad, you know, with you got kids, you know, you've been telling the kids this thing forever and then an aunt or an uncle says it and you're like far out. I've been saying that for ages. So it's always good to get an independent voice and to dovetail that Jack. of sharing my email address. Folks can hit me up, BennettClinicMastery.com if you are on SPLOSE, Halaxy, or NuCall, because we are integrating A11y into those platforms so you get real-time data to support the management of your team. We've got a priority list. If you get early access and a good deal, just send me an email and I'll help you through the next steps.

Jack O'Brien: So that has been at clinicmastery.com for the A11y integrations for Summit. If you're not a member yet, but you're interested in joining, so you can join us at the Summit. And for members, if you are listening along, you have a members-only discount code. I will not be sharing it publicly here, but you have your 83% off discount code. So feel welcome to check us out in Slack or your emails if you are an Academy or Elevate member, because tickets are sold out the last three years, I think we've been doing this since COVID. Yeah, COVID disrupted things. It will sell out probably by Christmas. So get your tickets early.

Ben Lynch: I just started watching Clarkson's Farm, you know, Jeremy Clarkson. Someone, a few people had said it's lighthearted, it's funny. Anyway, they start in season one in 2019 and then it rolls into COVID. And I was like, oh my God, like what a world we all lived through, especially the Melbourne folks. Just crazy. Anyway, I don't want to digress down that too much because, Hannah, in a conversation that we had on Slack, you said something that got my attention. I thought it'd be a perfect place for us to begin. In a previous episode, we had the very dynamic Joey Coleman. And he wrote a book which circled around the community called Never Lose a Customer Again. And from that book, it was essentially like the first hundred days of a new customer's journey. Do everything you possibly can to set them up for success, whatever that looks like in your industry. And you'll essentially have a client for life. And we thought, what if we applied this to team members internally? So we created our own version of this journey for new team members. Well, a few years later, Joey wrote a book called Never Lose a Team Member Again, and we had him on the podcast. We're like, hey, Joey, here's what we did with your first book, and this so aligns. Having said that, so many folks go through all this process to recruit somebody, And then it's like, what do we do to give them the best possible start? And you made a point in a thread, which was, how do you create a sense of belonging for a new practitioner before they even walk in the door for their very first day? So talk us through it. How do you go about doing it? And have you seen others do it?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, definitely. I think there's quite a few things that Clinic Mastery has taught me and I'm sure many others in our community. And one of the things that we get a lot of positive feedback around is sending a gift or flowers the week before someone starts just to say, hey, we're so excited for you to be joining us. We can't wait to see you. That tends to stand out from other jobs that they've previously had. The other things that we do is also like, for example, we've already signed on some of our new grads for next year. And so now till next year is a long time to wait to join the team. So thinking about what those key points are that we can invite them in. So we invite them to our team day. We have previously invited them to Christmas just to have a couple of those touch points before they start and to get to know the team a little bit. No expectation that they come because we know that everyone's busy, but it's still nice to be included and invited into those things.

Jack O'Brien: That's an interesting scenario, Hannah. I know I've coached a number of clinic owners who have, you know, even now, like September at the time of recording or August recruited for next year. And the start date is literally like four months away. And that can create as many problems as it solves, right? So I'm curious, when I have coached a number of clinics, there's a number who have offered the job to someone, they've accepted it. And then in the subsequent four months, they've walked away.

Hannah Dunn: Yes.

Jack O'Brien: How do you think about that or protect against that type of thing?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, I think doing these touch points is one way to protect against that. But I also think just having a realistic mindset that these people like they are going to have other job opportunities potentially. And so making sure that they know that if they've got any questions, they can come back to you that, you know, we might say something along the lines of, We know that there are going to be recruiters in your inbox. We're really excited to have you here. If you get someone in your inbox and it is making you question it, please feel welcome to bring that to us. We're happy to chat through any of those questions that you might have about the differences between the roles. And usually we're offering it to a therapist who has been on placement for eight weeks with us. So they've already experienced the culture. They already sort of got that buy in. But for someone who hasn't offering them opportunities to say any time you want to come into the clinic to hang out with our team, let us know. We understand you've got holidays coming up that might work well from not being at uni or whatever works for you.

Ben Lynch: So you're getting involved in CPD, you're getting involved in team events, like seasonal ones, like the Christmas party, you're getting them involved in team days if you've got one of those scheduled between now and their start date. And you're also giving them sort of like a welcome gift. Is that how you position it? Yeah, absolutely. Talk us through how you actually frame it up to that team member about getting them involved before their start date. Like you said, it can be a little bit optional. It depends on what they've got. Talk us through, like, how do you actually say that or frame it up to them?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, we give them a call and say, hey, we've got this. We just had a team day on Friday. Gosh, that feels like it was ages ago, but it was three days ago. We had a team day on Friday and we did reach out to those OTs and say, hey, this is what's happening. We'd be keen for you to join us. Totally understand if you've got other commitments, but if you can join us for part of the day, we'd love to see you. We let them know what we're doing on that day. On Friday, we were doing mat evaluations and training. around positioning. So that's quite exciting to come to. It's a pretty big skill to learn. So that's the way we do it. We have previously considered adding a Slack channel and giving them email addresses and giving them access to all our PD. We did feel that was a bit overwhelming and a bit too much. And then we also felt like if they do walk away, we've given them our intellectual property with that PD side of stuff. But I think you could drip feed some if you wanted to, like have a couple that you offer. or we do a professional development once a fortnight inviting them to that.

Ben Lynch: Yes.

Hannah Dunn: I think we're realistic that people are going to walk away at times. Things are going to change in a six months period of time. And so just being prepared that while we've created as much security as we can for them and for us, things can change. And so we're also prepared to hear why something's changed for someone as well.

Jack O'Brien: I really like that, Hannah, that you kind of preempt some of those conversations, like you will have recruiters in your inbox and you will have questions and come to me. It's like you're making sure that the conversation is open, that they don't hide, that they know the expectation when those things come. I think about what's the problem we're trying to solve. We're trying to solve for us as the employer, we're trying to solve a vacuum of applicants. We're recruiting now in August or September for someone to start in January or February because the pool is bigger. And so how can we do things that protect against that? I know in our clinic, we occasionally would have put on these before they graduate and get their qualification, we put them on as assistants casually. And so that way the roster can be flexible for them. And for us, there's no costs unnecessarily, but it will get them involved. And I love the principle of inviting them in. And it triggers that law of reciprocity where When we make people feel like a part of the team, they're less likely to fall away from the team. I know clinics that will get the business cards printed up for that team member, get the uniform printed if you embroider it. You might add their email address so that they've got steve at clinicname.com.au. They feel like they're a part of the team, include them in on your CPD, include them in on your social events. I really like that. And I think there's something in that for clinic owners to think about how do I make this person, this future employee feel a part of the team now so that they don't kind of get cold feet or find greener grass somewhere else. We water the grass and make it greener on our side rather than looking somewhere else for it.

Hannah Dunn: And I think having all that information, like we've spoken about job offers previously, but just around having that in a written document where they can revisit it and it's not just all verbal and they sort of forget about those exciting things that you've been able to document.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point, Hannah. We've talked about not just sending the position description and contract via email without having a conversation first. How many times have we heard the story that someone reads the contract, they get scared off by a clause that's pretty normal that's in there, and then they decide to go somewhere else? So being able to have regular conversations is important. I just love the notion that we get them involved before their first day, as small or as significant as it might be in terms of a time commitment. We're just looking to get them involved rather than just say, all right, welcome to the team. OK, we'll see you in six weeks or four weeks or four months, depending on the timeline for them. Get them involved for it. What do you think, then, are some of the core objectives that you have in mind, Hannah, when it comes to onboarding a new practitioner specifically, maybe different from a receptionist or an admin? If you think about what are you actually trying to accomplish with them, what are some of those objectives that you're trying to meet during their onboarding?

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, we want to make sure that we are welcoming them on the first day and that we're not leaving them just to arrive at a clinic with a team who doesn't know that they're even turning up and that we've got someone there ready to show them through the clinic. We're really, we're getting our 0 to 100 in place, which is a CM document around the first 100 days that someone is with you. It's their onboarding document and it's just a wow factor. Everyone is always so well for any of our clinics that have a 0 to 100 in place. And I think what we're really trying to work out in those first couple of days is around where are their skills, where are the areas that we want to sort of fill in the gaps a little bit, and where is that information that they can get, while also making sure that they understand what are our systems and what are our expectations that may be the same or may be different from another organisation that they've worked at previously.

Ben Lynch: No. So, you're looking at, like, one, make them feel welcome. Have someone orientate them, make sure they know who to go to, where to go, etc. So, make them feel welcome. I love that. Number two is assess their skills. Essentially get a good understanding for where they're at clinically so that we can design, you know, what do we need to add more of or add entirely into their onboarding. And then thirdly, give them an awareness of some of the systems that are in the clinic, where to go to understand certain elements of the clinic, so they can do their job particularly well. So they're kind of three key objectives that you're trying to achieve, that you're kind of focusing on through that zero to 100. I always love I mean, I hate LinkedIn just as a platform. It's a bit of a dive. But anyway, when logging into LinkedIn and seeing people posting their images of the zero to 100 document that is a CM asset that walks through the first hundred days of a new team member's journey and a clinic sort of promoting it as, you know, here's the type of experience that you get at our clinic. I feel really proud of the work that we've done to design really great experiences for our team, not just clients, but for team members as well. Jack, when you think about the onboarding of a new practitioner, what are a couple of objectives that you think clinic owners ought to pursue to make that a really fruitful onboarding?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. When I think about onboarding and induction, I'm really thinking about the first moment, the first hour, the first day and the first week. And how can we maximise those moments and create great first impressions? And you've always got to zoom out and go, well, what are the objectives that we're trying to achieve? For the person, the human in front of us, we want to reduce their anxiety, calm down that sympathetic fight or flight type unknown response, and we want to put them at ease. And so that first moment, ideally, you want to be there to greet them at the door, shake hands, give them a hug, whatever's appropriate, smile, open hands, body language that is relaxed and welcoming. Use their name, look them in the eye and then help them to feel like they're in control. And so, if we've got a space for them where they feel like they're welcomed and they're included at their desk with an arrangement there that's really welcoming and comforting. Can we show them around, make sure they know where the bathrooms are? Typically when you're nervous, you need to do a nervous wee. And so show them where the bathrooms are, meet the, introduce them to the rest of the team, help them to make eye contact, shake hands, use their name. Often at our clinic, we would, I would make sure that everyone else in the team knew the name and ideally their partner's name of who was joining us and that they were primed, ready to shake hands, look them in the eye and use their name. And so that first moment, first hour is really important. Ideally, you know their coffee order and you've got their coffee or their tea or their water sparkling or still ready to go. And so that first hour is really about connection and making sure there's some good emotional and energetic synergy.

Hannah Dunn: You make a good point, Jack, around there being a space for them. I think so often they might be taking over someone else's role. So that person is in that clinic room that they will have or and they can feel a bit shoved around at times in some clinics. And so it is such a simple thing that can be overlooked so easily.

Jack O'Brien: I didn't get this perfect by any stretch. Often where you were in confined spaces or you're right, there's that where we haven't got a space yet. We're expanding. We're just like, but you can make excuses or you can make it happen. So, it might be that we make space in the staff room, the team room, the kitchen room. But at least we've carved out a bit of space in there. Zero to 100 document is on the table or their business cards and a gift or a book is ready to go with their name written card in there or a gift for their partner if you're able to do that. That making spaces is really significant.

Ben Lynch: One of those things that you spoke about, Jack, the first moment jogged a memory for me where we'd often share the phone number, email address of the new team member with some of the existing team members once we've welcomed them to the team, we've given them the call. We've sent the email that's saying, hey, welcome, you're the successful candidate in the role. Really thrilled to have you as part of the team. We'll be in touch in the next couple of days, as it so often goes. And then to get two or three or four or five messages from existing team members just saying, you know, hey Hannah, it's Ben here from so-and-so clinic. Just heard the good news that you got the role. Congratulations, really excited to meet you over the coming days. And they get this kind of flurry of positivity to reinforce it from other people that haven't met yet. It just, it's like such a simple thing to be able to do to kind of layer it on. We talk about the milestone, the moment and the multiplier. the milestone being, hey, we've made the call and given them the offer. The moment is that conversation or just around it where people acknowledge it and celebrate it. And the multiplier might be, like you said, Hannah, not necessary, but just kind of adds to it, which is they receive flowers or a bottle of wine or something like that, maybe ideally on the same day or, you know, in the days following, just to really make that a wonderful experience for them initially. But I think that's really good. So a strong emphasis and alignment between you both as I just take a couple of notes on the welcoming and really trying to understand how do people feel when they join the team and how could we sort of counter that? Okay, maybe they're feeling anxious, so how can we make them feel at ease? You know, what are some things? It's also a good thing, depending on your team, to actually throw it around the room and workshop it together. and say, have you got any ideas for how we ought to do this? Because one of the questions I was going to have is, how does your current team members experience inform or give you some insights about the next onboarding experience? What role does feedback or review play in you getting better at this? Jack, as you said, we've all made mistakes. How do you actually thoughtfully and in a kind of a systemised way, make sure that this experience for this person is good, but that we're going to learn from it and pick it up and apply it next time. Hannah, how do you actually do that?

Hannah Dunn: We have a process and a procedure. In our 0 to 100, we actually have a before you join the team page. So we have people who are responsible for that page and ticking things off as well. But we have a three-month review that is an actual review where I sit down with the new team member and one other team, their supervisor or mentor, and we get feedback from them about some of the questions we ask. What did we miss letting you know about? Is there anything you're missing from a previous role? What are we doing well? What have you enjoyed? Those sort of questions. But we check in in that three months. It's not just about, hey, you've completed probation, period. It's also about, like, let's just get a bit of a review of whether we missed anything that we can level up in.

Ben Lynch: And is that just a conversation? Do they fill in a form? Talk us through some of the mechanics.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, they fill in a Google form that gets sent out. It's in their 0 to 100 in the two weeks before their three-month review. It says to book in your three-month review and to complete this paperwork. And so it's a questionnaire that then comes through and then we have those answers to then go into a discussion with them. And then they may have thought of other things over those couple of weeks and we can add them in.

Jack O'Brien: It's really good. I love the formality of that. We would do a similar thing, but also on the fly. And if I'm leading the induction or going through this zero to 100 process, if I noticed something that doesn't quite fit or doesn't feel right, I will iterate on the template that we've got set up for the next person. And I would also share that with the team member that we're onboarding and say, Hey, I need your feedback. Cause there's going to be a physio that comes after you. How can I make their induction better? Cause it, Capturing their insights with fresh eyes. Someone only has fresh eyes once and so getting their insights and experience and literally letting them see us edit the template for the next person.

Hannah Dunn: Yes.

Jack O'Brien: It is us embodying and showing our core values of maybe it's, you know, that we are world-class or that we make things better, we make it happen. They see us editing things. Oh, yeah, right. These guys are onto it.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. I'm going to ask you if I get a gold star for this Jack in a minute on our zero to 100, every page that they do, we've edited the template. They, once they take everything off, they get a star at the top of the page and it says completed. And the last action item is I've provided feedback on anything that was missed in this week. Love that. Thanks.

Jack O'Brien: There you go. If you're watching on YouTube, I've given the, uh, the red balloons.

Hannah Dunn: So yeah, that has been really good for us to action that, which is awesome.

Ben Lynch: So then what are some of the objective or maybe even subjective elements for your own assessment that this has been a successful onboarding of a new practitioner?

Jack O'Brien: I'll say utilisation. So go to your dashboard and ultimately, what is the objective? We are looking to create a seamless, enjoyable, thorough experience so that these practitioners can help more people. I think, that would be my opinion, is that the point of an induction is so that this new practitioner can feel happy and fulfilled in their role and that they are performing at a high level as sustainably and as soon as possible, which is utilisation.

Hannah Dunn: And I would add two things to that while including that being that they understand their pathways and what the opportunities are and that they understand their rewards program and how that works for them.

Ben Lynch: Talk us through the pathways bit. What do you mean?

Hannah Dunn: Like whether they know that at what point they can take on project work, how do they become a team leader? How do they progress into being a recent graduate instead of a new graduate?

Ben Lynch: Okay. And how do you know that? Like, do you just literally ask them, like, what's your process for actually figuring out whether that has been achieved?

Hannah Dunn: We do have a question in our, in that zero to three months about whether they understand that. And then we also ask it at all the six and 12 months around whether they understand the shaded direction of dots and how their role fits into that.

Jack O'Brien: Gold star, Hannah. Gold star.

Hannah Dunn: Fantastic. You've made a lot of shaping over a lot of years.

Jack O'Brien: You live for my validation, don't you?

Hannah Dunn: The other thing I was going to ask you, Jack, is about how quickly people pick clients up. Because this was something I don't think I was doing particularly well and have edited over time.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, well, this came up, if I recall, as a discussion in our coaches roundtable level up sessions. And the question was like, how soon should a new team member start seeing patients, clients? And there was a variety of different responses. If I recall, the essence of the conversation was sooner rather than later. It's like, because you get better and you develop and understand by getting the reps in. We can tell someone or we can show someone, but if we involve them, as the great orator Ben Lynch often says, if we can involve them and they'll feel what our new client journey seems like, they'll feel what the initial consult should look like by doing initial consults, not just reading a process on Allie and looking at a playlist on Allie. It's like, no, no. do the work and get the reps in. Ben, I attributed that quote to you. I assume it's your original?

Ben Lynch: Well, it was until the other day, and Dan Gibbs, I think on a huddle, read out some version of a quote, and it was this Chinese proverb. It essentially said the same. I'm like, There you go, maybe in a past life I was some sort of philosopher. No, I love that like process, like we use that in the recruitment sense of tell them, show them, involve them. And if you can get to the involve them part, it's just such a richer experience for everyone. And yeah, certainly cuts through a lot. So Hannah, you said that you've made some mistakes. Absolutely. tell us more, like what, what have been some of those learnings that you've had and what has it led to?

Hannah Dunn: Um, so I was such a fun, friendly boss that I gave them two weeks of no clients and they could just shadow and have a really fun time. And then we'd get into it. And then I took it back to one week. And then one of the CM coaches, I can't recall who might've been Ben or a Chinese proverb, who knows. Um, said to me, like the subconscious message we're sending there is it's hard to see clients, so we're not going to make you do that. And so by saying to them like, oh, it's too hard to see clients this week, we just want you to focus on the learning, is really sending that message that sets you up to say, look, it's hard work seeing clients. But if we get them in and it's just part of what we do, and it's just expected that that is part of the job and a big part of the job, and that it's easier to do that around the other work, such as onboarding, then that is probably a better message to be sending. And so that doesn't mean full client days every day, but maybe that means the morning is onboarding, getting through that zero to 100, and the afternoon is seeing a couple of clients and having some time to sit on on sessions or whatever that looks like. But that was really big messaging for me to be like, what is the message we're sending?

Ben Lynch: Well, Jack, you raised a really good point. OK, the single most important thing, the single best indicator of success, really, of a great onboarding is utilisation. Let's go backwards a step. How do you frame that up from the very beginning so that you give yourself the best chance of succeeding?

Jack O'Brien: We know that when we hire someone that ultimately they're coming into our clinic knowing our core purpose, our painted picture, our core values, and that is to help more people to become the best version of ourselves, to grow as professionals. And so there's this culture around high performance. Yes, you want to feel all the lovey-dovey feels, but we're also here to do good work, to be good health professionals and to help as many people as possible. And so there's already that underlying ethos And to Hannah's point, we want to get them saying not, we don't want to, we don't want to overwhelm people, but we also don't want to underwhelm them. We just want to whelm them. So, what's the right client load for the first week? That's going to vary from profession to profession, from individual early stage career to more experienced and further in their career. But it does look like seeing clients at least in their first week and potentially, probably even on their first day, dare I say it. Now, I'm curious, Hannah, if I recall again that coach's level up session, we spoke about whether we should give new team members one or two patients a day across their five days, assuming full-time, or should we, to paraphrase, load up two days a week and then three and then four? Do you recall where that conversation went, Hannah?

Hannah Dunn: I don't recall where it went. Do you know where it went?

Jack O'Brien: Yes, I do. There's a leading question. Learning from Shannon Davis. So, we ended up getting to a place where we'd say we want to load up one or two days a week so that our team members feel what a full day feels like. So rather than them get used to seeing two or three patients a day, every single day, it's like, no, no, let's get used to a full day. And then realise that this is actually quite comfortable to see six or six and a half billable hours in a day, in a impact hours, in a NDIS or PED setting, in a musculoskeletal context to see eight, 10, 12 appointments a day, one day a week is very comfortable. And so we can build that to two or three days a week, seeing 10 or 12 patients in a physio context. And it's, They've proven to themselves that this isn't burnout territory, that it's very sustainable. And in fact, it's very fulfilling and satisfying. And so the takeaway message for listeners is to think about how can we fill one, two, three days a week, full days, rather than five half full days.

Ben Lynch: I think that process of being able to go back to back is so important for you, sharpening the skill set of starting and finishing appointments on time, preparing for appointments, that really prepares you for bigger caseloads moving forward. I'm interested in this conversation going down the line of the burnout point that you mentioned there, Jack. Because so often, especially in the younger, you know, new grads or early career therapists, the B word comes out. And you're like, you don't know what I used to see, how many clients I would help and support. So I wonder, Hannah, Do you even address this proactively? Do you talk about burnout proactively with your team? Or is it the elephant in the room that we just wait to make a noise before we address it?

Hannah Dunn: I talk about people who see two or three clients a day can sometimes feel much busier than those who see five or six. And that can be due to the way in which we're setting up exactly what you were just talking to, like making sure we're efficient in all those you know, note writing, getting our appointments finished on time. Also, just the pre-planning of appointments, like people who have two to three and don't book their future appointments and then spend appointments booking future appointments can really feel like their calendar's full. So we talk about it in the sense of the more efficient you are, the higher the billable actually feels easier than the lower billable and the inefficiencies. Um, we don't use the word burnout, but one thing that someone, there's been so much that I've watched on burnout and about how to address it. Cause the word definitely comes out and it's not, we're talking about early because I feel like I don't want to be like, you might burn out. Um, but. that when it does come out, just asking like what does that really mean, what does that look like, getting an understanding of not just using that word. But I watched a really interesting video that I think was shared in one of the CM channels that was a YouTube clip around people feeling burnt out because they're talking about burnout, like it's not an actual

Ben Lynch: We did a great episode with clinical psychologist Sean Goldberg, also a member of CM, where we talked all about burnout. So we'll clip that underneath the episode here. You can go back and listen in and watch that because it does come up, Hannah. And at the start of a new practitioner's journey, we've got a great clean slate to pre-frame a lot of these things moving forward about their caseload, about how they show up as a teammate. And so the opportunity may be to talk about this in a way I was interested in whether you address it sort of head-on or is there some other ways? I like the tact of talking about, you know, flow. And I think that's the brilliant thing of shadowing high performers. Be super careful as to who you get that new team member to watch and sit in on. Because if they can see the high performers in your team that, you know, in a probably speech OT site case where maybe they're doing five, six, seven billable hours in a day. They go, wow, that's totally achievable. You sort of handled it with, you know, grace and ease and you got through it. And, you know, insert the MSK case. So I think shadowing the right person is super important. I love the way that you frame that up. So, Jack, just to get really specific here on your utilization point. Are you advocating that clinic owners explicitly call out the goals of utilization within the first three months so that the new team member knows exactly the expectations?

Jack O'Brien: Yes.

Ben Lynch: I was like, Jack, the answer is yes.

Jack O'Brien: I feel like I'm in a deposition in like illegal cases. I'll just answer succinctly. Yes. Yes, Ben, because, you know, expectations clearly communicated is a far healthier relationship rather than assuming that they know or surprising them. They didn't know maybe they've come from somewhere else and they've got pre-existing expectations. And it's not like we're not talking about crazy, unachievable high bars. We're just talking about what is the expectations of the role. You got into healthcare to help people. And part of the role here is helping people that's sustainable for the clinic. It's sustainable for your salary and rewards. And ultimately the more people you help, the more fulfilled and satisfied you're going to be. We got into, we're here to help people. And so none of us want a job where we're sitting around twiddling our thumbs, you know, getting out the dustpan and brush or scrolling death, scrolling on social media. That's not what we come to work for. We come to work to have a full caseload of ideal clients. So let's get after it. And that's when you'll feel most energised.

Hannah Dunn: And I have people saying to me, like some of the people I coach and other people that I talk to, like, oh, yeah, those team members aren't on rewards yet. I'll talk to them about rewards when they get higher up. For us, we introduce rewards at interview stage. We want you to know what your opportunities are. We introduce it in a way that we say, when you start with us, there will be a quarter in which we're building up your numbers. Maybe I need to move away from that, but we'll see. We say there's a quarter in which you'll be building up your numbers. We're not necessarily expecting you to hit these numbers in your first quarter, but by the end of the second quarter, we consistently see our team hitting these numbers and that can change for everyone. You just let us know where you're at and we'll work with you to support you. And then that's when we talk about, Often if you're not hitting these numbers, it's due to some inefficiencies or flow and that's our job to make sure that we can close those gaps.

Ben Lynch: It's a really good point of owning it. I love that sort of framing. We're here to help you succeed, for you to see as many patients as possible or do as many billable hours as you can, whilst maintaining this flow and a sense of ease that you feel capable to do it, yeah? And there's gonna be some tough days and some easier days, but we wanna make sure that we've supported you with the training, the onboarding, that you can do this regularly. And so that's where the feedback opportunity comes in, right? Is I need you to let me know what you need from me. And also, whenever you identify those problems, come with some solutions. We've spoken previously about the beautiful one, three, one model, like one problem. Here's the problem or challenge that I'm having. Here's three solutions that I've thought about. And here's the one that I think might be the best. And we're starting to create problem solvers from the beginning. Otherwise, you open the floodgates to feedback, and you get all the problems and none of the solutions. And then you create a problem there for yourself. So I think framing that up is really valuable. One thing that we spoke about previously on another episode from Marcio, and he shared with me that in the recruitment process and in the onboarding process, they speak to the fact that there are a fast-changing culture. Like we're always trialing new tools, new tech, new methods here because we want to provide the best possible experience for our patients and for you as a team member. And so whenever they're installing something new, they don't get that response of, oh, something else or something new because they've pre-framed it and anchored to it. So I think what's the point here is, being super deliberate for a new team member about these are the key messages that we're going to come and anchor back to ongoing. And that just helps future conversations massively. And we're going to get it wrong moving forward. That's why we come back to a checklist Which I might queue up the screen here, JB, but it looks like you're chomping at the bit to say something.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, I am. I don't want to interrupt as long as you're finished. All right. All right. I will. To Hannah's point earlier of that preempting that the recruiters will be in your inbox, I think it's a really pertinent fact that we tee up that You will hit a barrier at some point where this goes from easy to hard. That's really normal because we're growing and growing feels a little bit uncomfortable. When you go to the gym and you lift lightweights, it's lightweight, baby. It doesn't, you know, feel it. But when it starts to get heavier, that's when you're getting stronger. When it starts to feel difficult, that's when you're getting better. Lean in, don't lean out. And where, who do you come to when it starts to get hard? Come to us. You don't go gossiping, you know, at the pub on a Friday or to your other burned out, bitter and twisted health professional friends. You come to us and we talk about it and we've got ways to help you get through that and stretch your comfort zone. Cause if we're not growing and stretching, we're actually shrinking and dying. So when it gets hard, this is good. Come to us.

Ben Lynch: And. That's why we love putting in some version of personal mastery sessions or learnings in zero to 100, right? Things around, you know, how you find flow in your schedule, in your day, how you stay positive, how you build resilience. So we're often referring out to podcasts, YouTube videos, et cetera, books that are great. In fact, we have the Mentors Academy, which is a free resource on our website for folks listening in and members have access to this, because we often get asked, hey, do you have any YouTube videos or podcasts or books that you could recommend on this topic? And we've got client experiences, leadership, decision-making, resilience, and the rest. And you can use that as a guide for a bunch of resources that you could include publicly available in your training. What we're sharing on screen now is an onboarding checklist. This speaks to kind of before your first day and leading up to your first day. The other asset that we were referring to, the 0 to 100, we typically do in a slide deck so it can look really on brand. You can add images of your team, of your clients, and it's really quite a nice visual flow of that team member's journey. But what we're sharing on screen is one tab of about six or seven in your recruitment hub, your recruitment ecosystem. So for members who are tuning in and listening, head along inside the learning portal to owning your recruitment agency. This was a five-part series that we did at the end of 2024 with an abundance of resources. This is just one part of one of these resources. where we have a checklist of all the things that we would do in preparation for somebody's first day, including, have we sent the offer of employment, the email, and then the relevant documents? Have we captured their information? What bank account are we going to pay you to? And what's your super fund, et cetera? Have we sent them a welcome gift? And you can see you can add to this over time. Preparing for their first day, some things that are set up like their email, their access to, you know, Gmail, Google Drive, Microsoft Workspace, what do they call it, Office Teams. There aren't too many people who use that anyway. But, you know, for those two, and I'm going to really irritate those two anyway. Play on 0 to 100, making sure you've actually designed it, edited it from the past experience. Does it reflect the new version? And then have we got some important things from a HR perspective, their registration number, their insurance certificate? CPR, first aid, etc. And it kind of continues on as I scroll down my screen here. If you're listening in, come over to YouTube and check this out, get some inspiration from this and create your own. But this is just one part of the overall recruitment ecosystem where you track right from applicants all the way through to the successful onboarding of the successful candidate. Hannah, when it comes to ticking this off, is this the sort of thing that you get the practitioner to tick off? Is it done by the practice manager, the clinic owner, who actually makes sure that this gets done and done in a timely manner?

Hannah Dunn: We have two people that get allocated as a mentor to a new team member. And so we have often an operations manager and whoever will be their ongoing mentor. And so sometimes it's the team leader and the mentor, but we have weekly, so they'll meet fortnightly with each of those two people weekly with each of them and sit down and make sure all that's ticked off. And prior to them joining, it's always the operations manager who's ticking that off.

Ben Lynch: Okay. Yep. So they're meeting weekly. And then do you set up like a dedicated Slack channel? I know some folks use Slack, some use like Google chat as an example. It's like a private channel with a new team member and the relevant mentors or supervisors.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah, all of our team have their circle. And so in their circle is, yeah, their mentor, our finance manager, and operations manager, and they're themselves. So any questions they want to ask?

Ben Lynch: Yep. So what do you think are maybe some of the non-obvious yet really highly valuable actions in onboarding a new practitioner so that they just crush it in their first hundred days? Jack, what do you think are not particularly obvious that you see clinic owners overlook regularly and you think, gee, add this in and it makes a meaningful difference?

Jack O'Brien: Probably the key one that comes to mind for me is mastering the initial consult and management plan processes. And particularly when we're hiring someone with experience, maybe it's one year, maybe it's 10 years experience, we assume that they're good at initial consults. And my observation across hundreds of clinics is that when you double down on training your new team member in your initial consult way, your operating model, And that goes through how we greet people and how we make them feel, how we do assessments, how we deliver our findings, how we talk about our therapy plans, how we deliver our management plans, whether that's physical, email, first consult, second consult, how do we rebook? These things are critical to make sure that we ingrain these pathways and patterns with new team members out of the gate.

Ben Lynch: So where do clinic owners fall short? Is it lack of repetition? Is it lack of structure in the first instance that those things even exist, like you're talking through? Where do they fall short?

Jack O'Brien: I'd say lack of emphasis in their zero to 100. They kind of skim over it. Here's the process, go and read it in your own time and good luck rolling it out. So lack of emphasis and then lack of accountability or support. What we need to do as clinic owners, or if you've got a mentor in your team or a clinical lead, we need to be… It's not micromanaging. Micromanaging only feels like that if you're insecure about something. We need to be close with our support. And maybe we're shadowing or double consulting when it comes to those initial consults, reading through the clinical notes, going through case studies and testing their clinical reasoning, testing their differential diagnosis, getting them to explain and justify why they did what they did, not from an interrogation perspective, of course, but to to reinforce learnings and to ingrain these pathways. So lack of emphasis in the training and lack of intentional close support in the first couple of weeks.

Hannah Dunn: Hmm. And I think also to add to that is the lack of opportunity to shadow later down the track. So whether that be in the second or third month, that even 12 months on having those opportunities still be available. And that is known that if you have a cancellation, you can jump in with someone else if that's what works.

Ben Lynch: How do you make sure, Hannah, that they use that time effectively and they're not just kind of passively sitting there bludging?

Hannah Dunn: through their utilisation rates, through their calendar as well. So we get them to put in indirect time in their calendar and they write in what they did in that indirect time. So if they went and sat in on a session with someone else, they would be adding that next to the cancellation because it wouldn't come up in their utilisation.

Ben Lynch: Do you get them to take notes or report? How do you actually know, okay, I know you sat in there, but what did you do? What did you get out of it?

Hannah Dunn: I'd like to say yes, but this is an area for improvement for us.

Jack O'Brien: Well, what I would do if I were you, Hannah, is I would ask that new team member to, if they're going to shadow kind of an ad hoc shadow, jump over into your Slack channel with your clinical mentor and just pop in there, your one or two insights and one or two actions that your behaviour will change just to get them to document right down there to consolidate their learnings in their men with their mentor.

Hannah Dunn: Yeah. Perfect.

Jack O'Brien: And I think you're welcome Anna.

Hannah Dunn: Perfect. And that's my actual item. And the other thing is having people sit in on their sessions. Like I think that also gets forgotten. Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: Peer review. Yeah, that's right. We want a culture of a peer. It's not this hierarchical, like senior mentors, a junior. It's like, you know, a mentor can critique a senior, at least in our clinic. It was very flat in that context of like, we're all peers. We've all got something to learn and we've all got something to offer. And so, if I had a young grad sitting in with a senior team member, I'd ask that young grad what advice they would give to the senior. How could that senior get better? You take, you know, the best way to learn is to teach. You teach us how to get better. And so, we're creating this fostering this environment where it's not hierarchy. I'm not offendable. It's we're all getting better together.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. I think one of the early things for a new team member to do is run a CPD session. If that's not viable, then create a resource that's used internally either for clients or for practitioners in how they take care of a certain condition or patient type. It's a really great way for them to contribute to the group. and also sharpen their skills as well, their clinical skills. This has been really insightful to hear how you think through creating a great experience for a new team member. I think that's something that we love hearing. We work and interface with clinic owners every single day, which is a great joy and a great privilege. I get such a kick out of hearing those clinic owners share their team members wins of, you know, them achieving things on their desire statement or graduating from, you know, practitioner to mentor or supervisor, that it's like creating amazing places to work is such an awesome outcome of running your own business, right? Because there's so many hard things that happen, so many HR headaches, But when you get that feedback about team members and their progression, you know, the meaningful difference that they make in their clients' lives, it gives me the warm and fuzzies. So I love starting their journey from this perspective with a really meaningful approach to them, building their utilisation, as you said, JB, and feeling competent to be able to serve a whole bunch of people in their day and in their week. That's a great outcome. For those Clinikoners who are listening or watching, get over to YouTube. Come and see our stuff. Hit subscribe. We do screen shares. We show you behind the scenes and a whole bunch of stuff. What is the one action that you advise a Clinikoner could do off the back of this episode J-O-B to land the plane here?

Jack O'Brien: The one thing, the one thing, the one thing that a clinic owner could implement from this podcast episode, I would have to say, as I buy myself a little bit of time to let the neurons connect, I would say, uh, greet your new team member with a smile and a handshake at the front door and use their name in that first couple of minutes. Make them feel welcome. Connect with the people. It's all about the who it's all about the person. The processes can come later, connect with the person.

Ben Lynch: Wow, said from a spreadsheet guy, he's talking about feelings. Good on you. Well done. Look, that's called personal growth. Jack O'Brien, well done. Hannah, what about you? What's the one action for folks?

Hannah Dunn: I definitely think getting that zero to 100 in place, if it's not already in place, is critical. There's a lot of research around people making a decision about staying in a job in their first 100 days. And if you can smash out that 100 days, you will have a longer term team.

Ben Lynch: I would say that too, Hannah. I think a version of a checklist of the things that you're going to work through, through their first 100 days. And I had this conversation with a member, Steph, just last week. It was like a hundred days. It's so much like, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get it done or at least not get it done before they start. Cause they're starting very soon. I said, hold up. What we can do is just be like a week ahead of them or two weeks ahead of them. And this is what you're going to do. And then that buys you time. Just like Jack, you needed some time to answer that question. It's okay. You haven't had enough coffee yet. So we can buy ourselves time. Secondly, to your point, Jack, I think a lot of people try and do one-off things for 100 days and forget repetition. I know you made a great point about shadowing subsequently in the months afterwards. Brilliant point. So if we're talking about like, here's how to do the initial assessment at our clinic, and they learn that in week one, Let's repeat that in week five or week six. Let's come back and really channel mastery, doing it at a world-class level. So it doesn't have to be all new things. You can repeat and do it well.

Hannah Dunn: And on your point about your conversation with Steph, like we're not giving them the 100 days in day one. We are giving them week one. Then we're releasing week two. Yeah.

Ben Lynch: Buys you some really nice time, which is fantastic. Jack, Hannah, thank you again for your very practical insights. For folks who've made it this far in the episode, thank you so much. Would you mind jumping into your podcast player and hitting a five-star review and sharing some words if you can? I don't think you can on Spotify. You can just give it like the five stars. Yeah, you can comment on the episode. You can give a five-star review and give us comments. We'll read them out. Exactly. No, we so appreciate it if you're loving the pod. We'd love a review. It really helps spread the word. Right. We'll catch you on another episode very soon. We're going to return back to some of the marketing stuff, which is all about filling the books of a new practitioner in subsequent episodes with our special guest, our bestie guestie, Peter Flynn. All right. We'll see you on another episode very soon. Bye bye.