Strengths

Okay, let's talk about the SWOT analysis. You may have performed a business SWOT analysis, but this is going to be specifically for your staffing situation. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You can look at the attachments to get an idea of questions to ask, and also a blank canvas, so that you can record your own SWOT analysis before you start recruiting.

Let's go through strengths:

Identify financial benchmarks such as staff expense percentage and staff productivity rate. If you're starting with a healthy staff expense percentage, such as around 18 to 25%, and a healthy staff productivity rate, that means your staff is producing per hour between $90-$120. Anything above that, you’re probably getting to be a little short staffed or a little bit burnt out. Anything below that, your staff might be sitting around with not much to do. So, $90-$120 is the ideal staff productivity rate. 

Next, list stable departments and reliable and long-term employees in good standing: key employees you feel give you a competitive advantage over competition due to superior knowledge and/or experience. These are your Marines. They’ve got lots of knowledge. They have lots of experience. They play nice. You love these people. List staff with cross-training skills, maximum efficiency, and flexibility to prevent bottlenecks throughout the patient care cycle. What that means is having a staff that's diversified to relieve those areas of pressure. For example, maybe every day at 4:00 everyone comes in to pick up their glasses. Wouldn’t it be nice if a couple of your technicians were trained to do adjust and dispense? That way your opticians can continue doing their frame fits and selling. 

Reasons employees come and stay with your organization or retention: benefits, culture, leadership, business hours, etc. You might actually have a strength in the type of culture that you’ve produced. Maybe your employees could go somewhere else for a little bit more money, but they just love your office so much because of the people they work with, the support they feel, the safety they feel, the hours they work. They know they have it good right where they're at!