How Does Your Vet Team Know They’re Great?

Answer: you tell them.

Thanks to the negativity bias, all humans, RVNs and vets included, do not assume they’re doing a great job. Not only that but they’re naturally more likely to assume they’re doing a bad job.

Negativity bias is the tendency not only to register negative stimuli more readily but also to dwell on these events. 

Verywell Mind

I’m sure I’m not the only one to have 4 good consults, 1 slightly bad one, and to then only think about that one negative experience and use that to dictate my overall feeling for the day.

Some reassuring positive feedback from leadership can make a huge amount of difference to anybody’s day, and quickly flips around their negative self-evaluation and narrative

And why should Leadership care?

If employees are appreciated, they feel motivated. And if they feel motivated, people are very often more productive.

Who should give good feedback?

The onus on feedback is most commonly laid on management or leadership. Yet, positive feedback from colleagues is also a great way to feel accepted and motivated within your team.

If you notice a colleague doing particularly good work, make a point of telling them! It’s 5 seconds of effort, but can have hours of lasting positive effect on your workmate, and for me, that’s absolutely worth it. The knock on effect is that they’re more likely to pass on positive feedback to another colleague which in turn helps facilitate an overall more positive and supportive culture at work.

Positive feedback, according to Jamie Birt (career coach), helps individuals recognise their skills where they might not have seen a particular talent in themselves before. Thus forming a culture of nurturing talents and creating a robust team built on many different strengths.

When positive feedback is coming from leaders, it can be structured in a particular way to be more impactful and meaningful for the receiver.

Structuring Good Feedback

Great positive feedback can be broken down into these 4 points:

1. Be specific with what you’re praising your employee for so that they can implement the same behaviours in the future.
2. Deliver the feedback as close to the time of the event as possible.
3. Mention how their contribution will benefit the practice overall.
4. Deliver feedback directly to individuals as well as the whole team. Therefore personal effort will not be seen to go unrewarded, but when the team works together well, the collaboration is also acknowledged.

And don’t wait until an annual review to give good feedback!

I think everyone would agree that constant showering of praise would feel false and less meaningful for members of the practice. So a balance of frequent, in the moment deliveries of positive feedback which are sparse enough to be significant must be aimed towards.

Benefits of Positive Feedback

According to the HBR, positive feedback is critical for learning. People aren’t always good at knowing when they’ve done something correctly or particularly well. If you tell them, they learn to repeat and reuse those techniques or contributions in the future.

Positive feedback from leadership and colleagues alike boosts confidence! In such a stressful and intense industry as veterinary, lack of confidence can be crippling and have disastrously negative effects on patient outcomes and safety, as well as vet retention and job satisfaction. Praise for the work you do as vets and RVNs is really effective at boosting self-confidence in your skills, decision making and knowledge.

A vet practice with plentiful, meaningful positive feedback fosters a culture of increased motivation and productivity because people feel valued. When people feel valued, they’re much more likely to go above and beyond for their team or leaders because they know they will be recognised for it.

The Bottom Line

Be specific, direct and timely with praise when you want to give positive feedback, and encourage colleagues to give positive feedback to each other as well as to expect it from higher up!