Optometric Management Tip # 288   -   Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Staff Lunch Policies

A recent tip article focused on office policies and I recommended that all practice owners write an office manual. Even doctors who already have a policy manual generally find that it is an evolving document that undergoes occasional revisions. In this tip and in more to come, I'll cover some of the topics that we all wrestle with as we try to decide on the details of employment policies. There is really not a right or wrong way to do these things, but I'll share what I do and give you some food for thought.

Patient service first

The motto in my practice is "We look at everything we do from the patient's point of view." That overriding philosophy is what builds success over time. I've seen many practices where the policies are primarily decided with the wants and needs of the doctor or staff in mind. As much as possible, I believe we should base the policies on the wants and needs of patients.

Because of this approach, I believe in keeping the office open during the lunch hour. While it is certainly nice for the staff and doctor to just close up shop, I don't like patients to find the office door locked or to have phone calls routed to voice mail. Remember that lunch time is the only opportunity many people have during the day to take care of personal errands, like scheduling appointments or picking up glasses or contact lenses.

Policies for small and large practices

How you manage to keep the office open depends on the size of practice. Many small practices simply do not schedule any appointments during the lunch period, but they require employee(s) to eat lunch in the office and take care of any drop-ins and phone calls. Many employees like this arrangement because they are paid for the lunch period and in smaller practices, there is not much lunch time activity anyway. I would probably make the lunch period one hour long in this case, to allow employees to have enough time for a nice break even with interruptions. Of course, food should be eaten in a break room, back office or lab, rather than the front desk.

Keep in mind that lunch breaks are not always started precisely on time if the morning patients take longer than expected. Since we need the afternoon appointments to start on time, we must allow for that by making the lunch period long enough or placing a block-out before lunch.

As the practice grows and there are more employees, I like to hold lunches in two shifts, with half the staff working the first shift and the other half working the second shift. Again, management would designate a period of time when no appointments are scheduled. I use one hour and thirty minutes in my office, so each lunch shift is 45 minutes long. This allows me plenty of time in the middle of the day to finish the morning patients, catch up on management issues, return phone calls and enjoy a relaxed lunch. Employees punch out on a computer time clock software program when they go to lunch and they punch back in when they return to work. In this scenario, staff members may go out to lunch or eat in the office. Our office manager supervises who is assigned to first or second lunch so we maintain good office coverage, but we try to honor requests when possible.

A few more points
Best wishes for continued success,

Neil B. Gailmard, OD, MBA, FAAO
Chief Optometric Editor, Optometric Management