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The Spicy Noodle Challenge has helped keep morale high at Invision Optometry.


SAN DIEGO—Call it “pandemic fatigue.” Or, better yet, as San Diego-based eyecare professional Michael Kling, OD, sees it people have begun hitting the “pandemic wall.” This is the feeling many of us have as we near the six-month mark of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. It’s particularly true for those who work in a retail or customer/patient-service type of environment where patience often is running at very low levels.

“With crisis fatigue setting in, your staff may need a morale boost,” Kling wrote recently on the Review of Optometric Business website in his essay titled, “Signs Your Staff Needs a Mid-Pandemic Morale Boost–and How to Do It.”



Michael Kling, OD
There are a number of signs that morale is flagging, Kling noted, and then he offered several ideas that he has used to keep his employees’ spirits up so they are primed to provide the best care possible to patients. At the top of that list, though, is communication, he said, followed by fun staff challenges, videos and even a “Spicy Noodle” event that has been a big hit with staff.

Kling told VMAIL, “Like all things that are important to maintaining our office culture, frequent, open and honest communication are key to maintaining a strong, positive culture. We always try to reinforce the ‘why’ behind everything we request of our team, including the importance of maintaining a strong culture.”

Here is one sign Kling said ECPs and office managers should watch for in terms of identifying staff hitting the “pandemic wall” – employees bickering and becoming testy with each other over little things, like who was last to do a particular task. This is likely attributable to “a subtle undercurrent of stress and unpleasantness” that the other doctors in the Invision Optometry (Vision Source) practice here “worried would eventually be picked up by patients,” Kling noted.

To address this situation, Kling said he drew upon his belief that communication is critical to successfully managing a practice. “I have always favored a direct communication with employees, in which I share with them my concerns and discuss together how best to allay those concerns and address challenges,” he wrote in the ROB essay.

Other tools he found helpful in the effort to improve employee morale: using Slack to communicate within the office, which has allowed the practice to create communication channels for different purposes. Two of these channels are devoted to employee morale-related communications. One is a social channel in which we communicate about staff office contests that are just for fun.

One of these staff challenges is the “Spicy Noodle Challenge” and another is the “Shout-Out” channel, where staff recognizes co-workers for small achievements. “Recognition is often for the little things that make patients’ experience in our office more hospitable and enjoyable,” Kling wrote.

“We also try to get together as a team socially once or twice every couple of months outside the office,” he added. “Across the street from our office there is a restaurant with a large outdoor patio where we have been able to meet for socially distanced drinks and appetizers.”

Read more about how Kling and his team are tackling the “pandemic wall” here on the ROB site.