Veterinary Voices

What makes a great leader?    

Are people born natural leaders or can leadership be developed and taught?

What’s the difference between a LEADER and a MANAGER?

Did you realise that when you, or someone on your team is a great leader (or not) it affects your clinic’s ability to attract and recruit great vets and nurses?   

Three differences Leadership vs Management

1. Process vs Vision

2. Organising vs Aligning

3. Position vs Quality

Five Qualities of Effective Leaders 

Here are five leadership attributes and qualities that effective leaders have in their personal and professional lives.  These are men and women who inspire others to take action and set a course for future success. 

1.           Become more self-aware and prioritise personal development.

2.           Focus on developing others

3.           Encourage strategic thinking, innovation, action and diversity

4.           Ensure you’re ethical and civic-minded.

5.           Practice effective cross-cultural communication

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

One small word - four different situations when you probably don't even realise you're using it + examples of how to swap to a statement more empowering and powerful (without being bossy or aggressive).

A world first (as far as we can tell) initiative from VetStaff - we're looking for pilot veterinary clinics to be part of our Beta Launch. 

You don't have to be an existing VetStaff client to participate.   If you want to DIY your own recruitment then this new initiative is perfect for you.   To find out more email [email protected].

Everyone and everything we do at VetStaff is underpinned by two core beliefs.  

The first is that we believe all veterinary professionals deserve to work at a vet clinic job of their dreams where they’re respected and valued.  

The second is that all vet clinics deserve to have engaged and motivated employees working for them who love Monday mornings.  

If that sounds like the type of recruitment agency you’d like to work with, then please check us out at vetstaff.co.nz 

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Pressure is not Stress - Nick Petrie - Presenter at the NZVA 2022 Conference - VBB session

Nicholas Petrie

What "human rumination" is.

Julie shares one of the ways she gets out of downward rumination spirals when she recognises them playing out in her life.

Nick Petrie's White Paper - Pressure is Not Stress - 4 steps to be resilient in disruptive times

Dr Jane Ough - Companion Animal Veterinarian and Conservationist - part 3 of 3

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

VETERINARY CLINIC SALARY DATA

Dr Mark Hosking, CEO of Franklin Vets, is a member of the NZVAs Veterinary Business Branch – the VBB.   

At the recent NZVA Conference he introduced BBVet, an Australian company which runs a series of surveys tailored to the New Zealand veterinary profession. 

Clinics that contribute to the data, will have access to high quality benchmarking information to be able to make meaningful decisions in their businesses.     

Having quality, reliable data enables business owners to drive better business decisions.    For example, 

• When it comes to wages and salaries – are you in the race or totally off the pace?
• Fees survey – make sure you don’t get left behind! And 
• Profit and expenses survey – can you do better?

If your clinic contributes to this data, you’ll be able to participate in, and receive benchmarking information from, a series of professional and independently run surveys tailored to the New Zealand veterinary profession and you can have all of this info for the very reasonable monthly subscription of just $69pm.   

The only way you can access the info is by contributing to the surveys and you'll be able to:

• Have the option to participate in any survey that the NZVA and BBVet offers
• Get access to interactive graphics and scenario planning, and if you want it,
• Get access to a hard copy PDF report

 The Veterinary Business Branch of the NZVA has worked with BBVet to ensure the survey structure and questions are suitable for the New Zealand veterinary market.   

You can “cut and dice” the data - for example by species or region.   Obviously, the more participants there are, the more valid and useful the information will be.

And just in case you’re wondering, the NZVA has been in touch with the Commerce Commission.   The Association has received general advice that it’s acceptable to run this survey, providing the information is not promoted or used as a way to organise price fixing or collusion.   

The NZVA may use the information gathered to foster conversations in the advocacy space.
The only people who will be able to see your individual data will be BBVet, who need to do so for administration purposes. 

The NZVA will be able to access macro information only (no site-specific information) which will be important for its advocacy work.   

No-one will be able to view any scenario planning you do at a site level.

To find out more about BBVet and the man behind everything, you can visit the main website at http://www.mpvconsulting.com.au/.

To register your clinic’s contribution to the salary data, visit portal.bbvet.net/nz/

Dr Jane Ough - pt 2 of 3
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Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Dr Jane Ough is a Senior Companion Animal Veterinarian at South Wairarapa Veterinary Services.   

Dr Jane’s time and pathway to the veterinarian she is today is quite different from the usual career path of veterinarians.  

She’s from the BVSc Massey class of 1982.   

Today, Dr Jane enjoys orthopaedic surgery especially mending broken farm dogs. 

Dr Ough became concerned about climate change when her two daughters were children.   She gained a diploma in Environment and Sustainability when her children were little, through the Open Polytech in 2010. 

Dr Jane is a passionate conservationist.   And I mean passionate!  She and her partner Jeremy have retired two thirds of their small farm in the Wairarapa and covenanted it with the Queen Elizabeth II Trust. 

Working one day a week for QE2 for 2 years Dr Jane said improved her understanding of native forest regeneration.   She now spends this day a week on her own covenant, and, working with the local catchment group, helped set up and is helping South Wairarapa Veterinary Services take Climate Crisis Action to run a more sustainable business.   

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

The third and final episode with Iain McLachlan – CEO of the New Zealand Veterinary Council.

We talk about:

• the veterinary shortage, 
• the nursing shortage, 
• why the NZ VC doesn’t include two of the world’s top 10 veterinary science universities in its List of Recognised Institutions, 
• when it's going to update that list of Recognised Institutions, 
• what clinics can do if they absolutely cannot manage their after-hours obligations, and 
• what “limited registration” means.

Today Iain and I talk about:

• How VCNZ is helping kiwi vet clinics employ vets whose overseas qualifications aren’t recognised here.
• How VCNZ is supporting NZ clinics get more vets working under what’s known here as Limited Scope Registration.
• What needs to happen for allied veterinary professionals and VNs to be able to do more in-clinic that helps free up Registered Veterinarians so they can do more of the work that legally, they’re the only ones who can do whatever it is.  
• He explains what VNs and Techs can legally do in NZ now.
• We talk about consumer education and who can do what to help with that – especially around the expectation / perception of fees.  
• He talks about what VCNZ does and what its “job” is.
• And then we wrap up with what Iain’s been doing as a way to manage his mental health and stress levels.   

Tune in to hear about the last development and changes taking place at VetStaff.   And just in case you didn't know:  

there are two basic beliefs everyone at VetStaff has and which underpin everything we do – and that is 

1. we believe that all veterinary professionals deserve to work in a job of their dreams where they’re valued and respected and
2. we also believe that all veterinary employers of choice deserve to have the best staff – ones who’re engaged, committed and are excited about going to work each day.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

The second of three episodes with Iain McLachlan – CEO of the New Zealand Veterinary Council.

We talk about:

• the veterinary shortage, 
• the nursing shortage, 
• why the NZ VC doesn’t include two of the world’s top 10 veterinary science universities in its List of Recognised Institutions, 
• when it's going to update that list of Recognised Institutions, 
• what clinics can do if they absolutely cannot manage their after-hours obligations, and 
• what “limited registration” means.

Today Iain answers the questions about:

• why the Council won’t allow an overseas qualified vet with considerable years of expertise in their chosen field – for example as a dairy vet or equine vet – work in NZ without requiring them to sit additional exams covering species they have no intention of working as a veterinarian in.  
• What Iain would say to overseas qualified veterinarians who have to sit the AVE exams and answer questions about species they have no future intention of working in. 
• How and why the Australians are involved. 
• Why can’t the AVE exams be held in NZ to help allay the Covid-induced backlog of overseas qualified vets waiting to sit those exams in Brisbane. 
• What Iain would say to overseas qualified vets who’re seeing reports in the NZ media about the shortage we have here of veterinarians but they’re unable to help alleviate the situation because they cannot legally practise as a Veterinarian. 
• What the smaller vet clinics can do when they’re absolutely overloaded and cannot handle another night of being on call. 
• And we talked a bit about the business opportunity for a telehealth after hours service or overload service to be started and/or expanded in NZ.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Today we start the first of three episodes where Iain McLachlan – CEO of the New Zealand Veterinary Council – and I, talk about the veterinary shortage, the nursing shortage, why the NZ VC doesn’t include two of the world’s top 10 veterinary science universities in its List of Recognised Institutions, when is it going to update that list of Recognised Institutions, what clinics can do if they absolutely cannot manage their after-hours obligations, and what “limited registration” means.

Back in April this year, VetStaff conducted its annual Veterinary Sector State of the Nation Survey –  the results are interesting.

For example, one third of the respondents said they weren’t earning enough to live on and were going backwards financially, one third said they were earning just enough to live on, but not enough to contribute to a rainy day savings account, and one third were earning enough and were able to contribute to a rainy day savings account.

Now, when you hear those numbers it’s pretty easy to think that given two thirds of the respondents were going backwards financially or were earning just enough to survive, that the mix of respondents must have been two-thirds vet nurses and one third vets.

After all, it’s no secret that nurses’ pay rates really do need some serious increases beyond just the CPI.

However, that wasn’t the makeup of respondents at all.   In fact, the split of vets and nurses came in exactly equal with 42.7% of the respondents being vets and exactly 42.7% were nurses.  

The balance of just under 15% was made up of admin staff – like PMs and HR managers as well as veterinary technicians.

I haven’t crunched the numbers that deep, but it’s kinda fair to surmise that there are some vets who aren’t earning enough to contribute to their rainy day emergency fund.

The Vet Council cannot control pay rates – that’s not its function.   Yet I was surprised by the number of respondents who somehow thought that was a power the Council had.   I asked lots of other questions of Iain that came from the survey, but I didn’t raise the question of pay rates because it’s beyond his and the Council’s control.  

Iain McLachlan is the CEO & Registrar of the New Zealand Veterinary Council.  He’s responsible for leading and managing the Council as well as carrying out the functions of the Registrar, as set out in the Veterinarians Act 2005. 

The New Zealand Veterinary Council is NZ vet sector’s governing body.  It’s responsible for the governance of the organisation and, ultimately, for making sure functions per the Veterinarians Act are carried out and adhered to.
 
 The Council has a team of eight staff and seven council members.

The eight staff are led by Iain as CEO and Registrar.   He’s supported by Veterinarian Dr Seton Butler – the Council’s professional adviser.

Iain and his team report to the Council’s seven Council members.  

Three of the Council members are elected by veterinarians, two are lay people appointed by the Minister of Agriculture – currently Damien O’Connor, MP, one member is a veterinarian also appointed by the Minister and the seventh member is the Academic Programme Director of the undergraduate veterinary programme at Massey University.

Iain reports to a collective team of brains, experience and credibility.

Mr Iain McLachlan is a practising lawyer – that means he holds a practising certificate from the NZ Law Society and has been admitted to the bar as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand.  Just like it’s an offence for someone to call themselves Veterinarian when they don’t hold a practising certificate, so too is it an offence to call yourself a practising lawyer when you don’t hold a practising certificate.   

As a practising lawyer, Iain gives legal advice to the Council.
 
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Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Part 2 of the "Qs to A recruitment agencies before working with them" series.


This episode specifically for the vet clinic - the HR manager, the Practice Manager, Lead Veterinarian or Veterinary Nurse who's charged with "recruitment" inside a vet clinic.

In this episode Julie South of VetStaff details the questions you need to ask and the answers you need to listen out for.

The questions are:

1.       Is the agency a specialist or generalist? Check out their website

2.       What exactly do you get for the fee they charge?   

3.       Does the agency get the job seeker’s permission to send YOU THEIR CV?

4.       Referees – who does them?

5.       Contract negotiation

6.       After the new employee starts

7.       Professional coaching for the first three months after the new employee starts

8.       Protect your clinic’s brand by hiring the right recruitment partner

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics

Not all recruitment agencies are created equal.   Some recruitment agencies use the "spray and pray" method.   They'll get a job-seeker's CV, then spray it all over town (to their database) and leave it to the employer - the vet clinic - to do contact the CV owner, set up the interview, interview, and negotiate direct.

Recruitment agencies that do this could be breaching the NZ Privacy Act, which states that a recruitment agency needs to seek permission to share info from the job seeker before releasing it.    I'm not sure a "global disclaimer" is quite what the Privacy Commissioner has in mind with "get permission to share info".

Sending your CV all over town is nothing you can't do yourself.   But if you want more support, coaching, negotiating input and then onboarding support at your new job, you need to find a recruitment agency that does this as standard.   

VetStaff is a full-service recruitment agency - it means we do all of this and more.

Here are 9 questions job seekers should ask a recruitment agency before working with them:

1. Is the agency a specialist or generalist?
2. Interview process by them
3. What is their process for applying for jobs on your behalf? – NZ Privacy Act
4. Do they provide Interview Coaching?
5. Will they give you Interview Feedback?
6. How do they approach your referees – what permission do they seek?
7. Will they negotiate your contract for you?
8. What steps do they take to help with onboarding at your new job?
9. Do they provide professional coaching after you start at your new job as a way of supporting you and your career?

Next week we'll look at questions vet clinics should ask a recruitment agency before they start working with them.

Could Your Kind of People recognise Their Kind of Clinic?

A job ad may catch a vet’s or nurse’s eye. But it’s their own due diligence that determines whether they apply—or keep in touch.

Culture Story Centres turn real experiences from inside your team into credible, discoverable recruitment evidence, giving vets and nurses meaningful reasons to choose your clinic.

Explore Culture Story Centres for veterinary clinics