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In this interview, we get great insight from Sheera Bursch, who works in a remote leadership position for a veterinary hospital. Sheera’s position involves inventory management, HR duties including payroll and employee benefits, as well as developing and fine-tuning critical processes for the hospital’s operation. In this talk we cover the challenges she faces in the veterinary industry and how they translate over to other organizations, what to look for when hiring your ideal candidate, and important systems for streamlining communication and organization.
One major challenge Sheera and her team face in the veterinary industry that I know many businesses can agree with: Lack of help. Being short-staffed and finding the right fit for their team is definitely a challenge. When looking for your ideal candidate, remember a body is just a body, consider how this new employee will add to your company culture. It’s not as important for candidates to have all the skills you’re looking for, they can be trained, but what can’t be changed is their personality. Things Sheera looks for when she is interviewing a potential employee are positivity, active and engaged listening, and a growth mentality.
When Sheera joined her team in this position, one thing she had to change was the communication style, it was just not working. Right away, she created a guide and implemented Slack, a digital HQ tool that organizes and divides communication into private and public channels for employees. Frequently used channels by Sheera for the veterinary hospital are an Inventory/Backorder Channel, Practice Management, Medical Team (as well as position specific channels), Hiring Channel. This tool eliminates text, emails, and sticky notes and allows important information to be shared in one accessible space relevant to those that need it.
Do you have a great team and great business but your staff is running around scattered? What do your organization systems look like? Sheera shares some simple tips on how she organized their inventory, a crucial element to keeping the veterinary hospital running smoothly. When starting a new organization system, she urges businesses to remember you don’t have to fix it all at once and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Identify your biggest struggle, chip away slowly, and seek out guidance from others who have already done it.
When it comes to challenges, pain points, and making changes in your organization, Sheera’s advice is to handle the big problems quickly or they are going to lead to bigger problems. This means losing dead weight employees and hiring ones of value and putting your energy into systems and processes that are going to improve your work environment and company culture.
For Sheera the three best parts of her job are having a hand in all parts of the business and helping the puzzle fit together better, genuinely enjoying her team, and The End Goal: Helping Patients. If you’re interested in learning more from Sheera or getting help implementing some of the systems she’s been successful with, you can find her on LinkedIn.
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What’s Inside
- What’s it like to work in a remote leadership position?
- Hiring: What to look for in an ideal candidate.
- How to identify and handle the biggest pain point in your organization.
- How to use Slack to improve and streamline communication.
- Creating organizing systems to improve processes within a business.
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