How to Hire a Healthcare Supervisor Who Actually Leads
Hiring for a supervisory role in a healthcare practice is a pivotal moment. The person you choose will be the linchpin between your strategic vision and the day-to-day work of your team. They are the ones responsible for patient flow, staff morale, and frontline problem-solving. A bad hire can create a ripple effect of chaos and employee turnover, while the right one can unlock new levels of efficiency and team engagement.
So, how do you find that perfect leader? Let’s dive into a framework for hiring your next great supervisor, manager, or director.
Hiring a new manager is a vital moment in a clinic’s life cycle.
Defining the Role: Knowing What You Need
Before you post a job description, you need to be crystal clear about the level of leadership you're hiring for. In healthcare, these titles often carry different responsibilities and expectations. Here's a breakdown to help you define what your practice truly needs.
Team Lead: This is typically a senior staff member who takes on additional responsibilities without necessarily having formal supervisory authority. They are more like a peer-leader, helping to train new team members, organize daily work, and keep an eye on team productivity. They are a great example of a leadership role that doesn’t require a title or a huge change in pay, but does require a person with a sense of responsibility and a high level of accountability.
Supervisor: This is a frontline manager whose primary role is to oversee a specific group of employees. Their focus is on employee behavior, day-to-day training, and making schedules. They are often responsible for smaller administrative tasks like ordering supplies but are not typically involved in high-level strategic decision-making. They report to a higher-level manager or, for small clinics, a practice owner.
Manager: This role has a wider scope of ownership. A manager is often in charge of hiring, training, and performance management for their entire area. They have more autonomy to make decisions and are responsible for all the administrative tasks within their department. They are a critical layer of management that frees up the practice owner or top administrator to focus on other high-level priorities.
Director: This is a top-tier leadership role that usually exists in larger clinics (100 employees and over) that creates and executes the vision for an entire department or function, such as clinic operations, billing, or marketing. Directors delegate tasks, coach and advise managers, and are more involved in strategic planning and inter-departmental relationships. They are less involved in the day-to-day "doing" and more focused on big-picture leadership.
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The Right Skills for a Leader
While it might seem logical to promote your most technically skilled employee into leadership, that’s not always the best move. When you hire a leader, you're not hiring them to do more; you're hiring them to lead more.
Leadership skills should be considered more important than pure technical skills. While technical competency is a must-have, your new supervisor's key behaviors will be less about their own individual output and more about their ability to:
Hire and train effectively: They should be able to identify and onboard great talent.
Motivate staff: They should inspire their team to perform at their best.
Give meaningful feedback: They should be comfortable providing both constructive criticism and positive reinforcement.
Resolve conflict: They should be adept at navigating difficult conversations with staff and patients.
Evaluate performance: They need to conduct fair and effective performance reviews.
Build trust: They should be able to create a psychological safe environment where their team feels valued and heard.
Notice that most of these skills are what we call "soft skills." When you're interviewing, you’ll want to prioritize these over a candidate's ability to perfectly perform a technical task, because while you can train for technical skills, it’s much more difficult to teach people skills.
This is where the concept of the "Ideal Team Player" comes into play. As outlined in a great book by Patrick Lencioni, the best team members and leaders possess three key virtues: Humility, Hunger, and People Smarts. These aren't just buzzwords; they're the foundation of a successful leader. Humility allows them to share credit and prioritize the team; hunger gives them the drive to go above and beyond; and people smarts help them understand team dynamics and emotional intelligence.
Getting the Logistics and Timing Right
Timing is everything. Hiring a new supervisor is a significant investment, so you need to get the timing just right. Hiring too early can create an unnecessary bottleneck in communication and unnecessary cost, but hiring too late can cause significant problems with your team, including burnout and decreased employee engagement in clinics.
Here are some questions to guide your decision-making:
How many employees do you have now, and how many do you anticipate having in the near future?
What is the ideal employee-to-manager ratio for your practice?
Are your current employees feeling supported? How are your hiring, training, and retention results right now?
Is your team’s performance suffering because you or other senior leaders are too stretched thin to provide the necessary support and guidance?
Once you've decided on the timing, you need to get the pay right. Set a realistic pay range by looking at both internal salaries and external market data. Be ready to flex on pay for the right person, but know your firm lower and upper limits.
The Hiring and Onboarding Process
Once you know what you need, it's time to find the right person.
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Recruit Internally: Always consider your internal talent first. Promoting from within not only rewards loyalty but also shows your team that there's a path for growth within the practice, which can be a huge boost to employee engagement and retention. Even if you end up hiring externally, the process of interviewing internal candidates can give you valuable insights into your team's strengths and aspirations.
Look for Consistent Experience: Check for job consistency. While a few different jobs are normal, look for patterns that might be relevant to your role. For instance, if a candidate has a history of leaving clinical leadership roles in small-to-mid-sized offices, that might be a red flag—or it could be a great talking point for them to explain why.
Conduct a behavior-based interview. Don't just ask about past duties; ask for specific examples of their "wins." Have them walk you through a time they resolved a conflict, motivated a tough team, or created a new solution for a clinic problem. These stories will reveal their true leadership style.
Once you’ve made your choice, the onboarding process is just as important as the hiring process itself. Do not assume your new supervisor will simply know what to do. Provide them with a structured onboarding plan that includes training, a clear explanation of expectations and key performance indicators (KPIs), and an introduction to all key team members. And it’s very important to provide ongoing touchpoints.
Delegate Effectively and Let Them Lead
Hiring a great supervisor is a waste of time and money if you're not ready to delegate. You need to be prepared to give them the space to lead and make decisions. Be clear about your expectations from the start: What KPIs are critical for the role? When should they ask permission, make a recommendation, or simply run with their solution?
Remember, you're hiring a leader, not a drone. Give them the space to be creative, solve problems, and ultimately, take ownership. This will not only make your practice run more smoothly but also allow you to focus on the big-picture strategic decisions that drive your business forward.
If you’re grappling with these complex questions or need help navigating your own HR challenges in healthcare, you don't have to do it alone. For a deeper dive into how to build a hiring process that finds you the perfect fit, you might find my blog posts on hiring to be a valuable resource.
Consider how a strategic HR partner could lighten your load and accelerate your progress, ensuring you find the right leadership to guide your practice into the future.
Ready to build a stronger leadership team and empower your practice? Let's connect. Contact me to learn more about how fractional HR can help.
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