Evaluate every position
Jackson remembers one sleepless weekend during the company’s early days. He kept tossing and turning, while in his head he
wrestled with the idea of having employees focus on everything
related to one task as opposed to multiple tasks, but this hadn’t
been done in his industry before. When he returned to the office
that Monday, he decided to try it, despite people telling him he
was nuts.
Instead of one person handling most aspects of an account, he
would have specialists handling individual components.
“The relationship when you sold to the client was they’re buying
you — they were buying your credibility,” Jackson says. “Well, all
of a sudden, I’m going to sell you, you like me, and I’m going to turn
you over to a friend you don’t know even know. That was a dangerous handoff, but it worked.”
It worked because it allowed Jackson’s employees to focus
on being the best at fewer tasks as opposed to mediocre at
everything.
“It is easier to scale the business than it is for me to scale one person does everything,” he says.
When a business is smaller, people have more responsibility. As
you grow, you have to adjust their responsibilities so the individual
parts run smoothly, as well — after all, it doesn’t do the machine
any good if one part burns out.
Jackson says to start by evaluating every task in the company —
from opening mail to depositing checks — and then review every
employee’s responsibilities each year. When you look at the tasks
needed and the position responsibilities, then you’ll see the common
denominators of tasks that should be handled by one person.
For example, in human resources, reference checking and credentialing require someone who’s good at detail orientation and
customer service, so you look for someone who excels in those
two facets and give them only those responsibilities. Doing this
ensures that you have people doing what they’re best at and doing
it well.
“You process map everything first, and then you break those
down into relevant activities, and then you put people inside of
those,” he says. “Then the larger you get, the smaller and smaller
the number of things you do becomes.”
For example, the company now has one person whose sole
responsibility is to open mail. Shifting people’s job responsibilities
every year may seem frustrating, but it’s crucial to successful
growth.
“By doing that, you’re able to scale and able to grow faster and able
to recruit faster,” Jackson says. “It is easier for us to find somebody
who can open mail. The qualifications for that are easier than to find
somebody who can do payables, receivables, closing the books and
opening mail.”
The other part of the assessment and responsibility shifting is
using technology to automate processes, as well. Sometimes you
may not be able to automate everything, but some aspects of a job
can utilize technology, which still helps the growth cause. Doing this
also helps to maximize efficiency and keeps the machine oiled and
scalable.
“You can’t grow without the ability to have a foundation and platform to scale,” Jackson says. “You can get short-term, but you’ll
stall out. You can get to $10 million, maybe $20 million, possibly
$30 million, but after that, you stall out if you don’t have your
processes mapped and positions and job descriptions redefined.”
<<
HOW TO REACH: Jackson Healthcare, (770) 643-5500 or www.jacksonhealthcare.com