This episode is to help veterinary clinic employers AND employees navigate the troubled waters of Covid-19 vaccination rollouts

Given there’s been a bit of talk in the media lately about vaccinations and testing – or lack thereof - and the government’s commitment to get Godzone Aotearoa New Zealand’s population vaccinated this year, today’s episode is all about the Covid-19 vaccination rollout and how to manage it in your clinic.

In this episode:

• can someone decline to give "vaccination" information to their employer?
  • What to do if they do - what are your options?
• As a kiwi veterinary clinic - what do you need to do to ensure you've done everything right and you don't end up with some kind of employment law or privacy law case being taken against you?
• Do you have to have the jab?

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 Alejandra Arbe-Montoya a PhD candidate from the University of Adelaide and Julie South discuss:

• Why veterinarians are leaving clinical practice,
• Moral Distress – what it is and why it needs to be included as part of the curriculum at vet school,
• How setting personal boundaries can help when you find yourself morally distressed,
• What types of communication you need to practice,
• How to handle Moral Conflict, and
• What being a Conscientious Objector means in the veterinary context.

When Dr Ale's not doing her PhD research, she works as an emergency and critical care companion animal veterinarian in Adelaide, Australia. 

A few years back, Ale was close to calling it quits on her veterinary career.  She’d had enough and wanted out.   Not any more - today she's a staunch advocate in improving veterinary wellbeing in-clinic!

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

Does the thought of negotiating have you breaking out into a sweat or in hives?

Would you rather do anything but negotiate?

Many veterinary recruitment deals are lost - the dream candidate, the dream job - because the veterinary clinic or the candidate - didn't know how to make the job happen.

There are many cases for using a professional recruitment agency in your veterinary clinic's hiring process.   

For me - Julie South - one of the really important aspects of when a recruitment agency comes into its own (and very definitely earns its fees) is in the times when negotiation is required.

Imagine losing your prime dream candidate because you didn't know how to get the deal across the line?

Imagine feeling that your dream job isn't worth negotiating for - that you're not worth the effort - how sad is that?

In this episode Julie South introduces some of the negotiation tactics and strategies she uses and she backs them up with expert negotiator Chris Voss - author of "Never Split the Difference" and real case examples with various clips of Voss's.

This is a must-listen-to episode if you'd like to have a few inside tips on how to improve your negotiation skills.

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

What's it like working in New Zealand as an overseas-qualified veterinarian?

This episode is the first in the library collection about what it’s like for an overseas-qualified veterinarian to work in New Zealand as a veterinarian.  Because, as I’m sure you know, not all overseas qualified veterinarians can actually work here as a veterinarian without re-qualifying first.

Dr Rose Unsworth and I talked about all sorts of things:  

• the differences in pet insurance uptake and how that manifests in-clinic,  
• different induction processes for locums at different clinics,
• and the varying health & safety rules and regs in different parts of the world.

If you’re listening to this show and you’d like to work as a veterinarian in New Zealand please get in touch with me - I’ll put all of my contact details on the show notes page for this episode – but if you have pen and paper handy right now, you can email me at [email protected].

Likewise, if you’re an overseas qualified veterinarian working Downunder and would like to share your experiences as a guest, please get in touch, because I’d love to have you on the show.   

Topics covered:

• 35, 40, 45 & longer working weeks
• working with pet insurance and working without pet insurance
• going on call outs by yourself
• health & safety - limits to how much you can lift
• paperwork - who does what
• is there a vet nurse shortage in New Zealand
• how providing excellent mentorship requires more experienced veterinarians
• job satisfaction - what it is and what it isn't

To get in touch with Julie South:

Email:  [email protected]
WhatsApp:  +6427 282 4155  

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’s show is especially helpful for existing locums of any kind:  veterinarians, nurses and vet techs as well as the clinics that hire them.  

If you’re a locum, you’ll seriously want to listen to today’s show because it could save you a whole bunch of financial grief and headaches.

If you’re listening from Australia – or when the borders open up you’ll be heading off and working in Australia – then this is for you as well.

This app takes away all the financial compliance headaches.   You know the sort I’m talking about - – making sure you’ve put enough money aside to cover your tax, ACC, expenses, invoicing, getting paid, raising invoices, paying yourself.

In this episode Julie South and James Fuller chat about: 

• do you need to have a limited liability company?
• are you paying (or setting aside) too much money for your tax?
• how do you know how much tax to pay?
• what if you're "known" to the IRD or ATO?
• do you need to protect yourself with a trust?

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

In today's episode:

My thoughts on whether I think we have a veterinary shortage (or not).

The shift I've noticed in the last nine months or so - since we've come out of AL4 Lockdown in 2021.

Examples of a few job offers I've been involved in this year where each job-seeker has been over-the-moon with the offer of employment.

One of the benefits of using a recruitment agency if you're a job seeker

What needs to happen when you want to work only three or four days/week.

Employee engagement (or disengagement) - what happens - the good and the bad.

What to do if you get bad reviews from Indeed and/or Glassdoor job board websites.

Glassdoor's policy of not removing negative reviews - even if they're untrue.

The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2019 - some findings and how they might impact your recruitment results.

• Millennials - 13,416 participated in the survey across 42 countries (including NZ) - 49% said they'd quit their job within 2 years if they had a choice.
• Generation Z - 3,009 participants across 10 countries (including NZ)

Why websites are essential today (why not to rely solely on Facebook or Insta).

Pages your veterinary clinic website must have and how these make a difference to getting better responses to your job advertisements:

• Meet the team - why and who
• Current vacancies - what to do if you don't have any
• Social Responsibility - what to do when you do and are
• Staff testimonials - the three different types and how to get them
• Your gear, kit & tech - why it's important to showcase and the best way to do that

Special launch offer - VetStaff's HEART prog - Healthy Employee Attraction & Retention Training prog - get the Employee Engagement Temperature at your clinic tested:  [email protected] | Julie South | 0800 483 869 (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

This week I want to start a conversation, a discussion – with YOU.   I want to know what YOUR thoughts, opinions and ideas are on a letter I received over the weekend.

It’s an Open Letter written by a practicing veterinarian in a small town who tragically lost her veterinarian husband to suicide three years ago.   

The full text of Dr Jasmin's letter is on episode 18's Paws Claws Wet Noses show notes page for this episode so you can read it yourself.

It’s written to the Veterinary Practitioners Boards of Australia, the Australian Veterinary Association and anyone else who cares to read on… and is sent by Dr Jasmin Klocker – a mixed practice veterinarian in NSW.

The Australian CVE – the Centre for Veterinary Education - will invite comments from the AVA and the Veterinary Boards which will be published in Issue 303 in June 2021. So if you want to contribute  / participate in that conversation you can virtually head over the Ditch and do that there.

In this letter Dr Jasmin shares how it is for her working in Australia.  It’s because her experiences didn’t sound that much different to what life on this side of the Tasman is like for veterinarians here in Godzone Aotearoa New Zealand, that I wanted to share this with you.

Also, because I was sent a copy of this letter – by a practicing kiwi companion animal veterinarian, and Dr Jasmin also gave me her permission, I believe it’s definitely worth bringing to the attention of veterinarians on this side of the Tasman.  

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

At the beginning of this year, I had the opportunity of catching up with a VetStaff locum for lunch.  

We solved all the problems currently facing the veterinary sector and the world.

Over lunch, Dr Sam shared a book she’d read called Compassionomics – a book designed to answer a few questions – one of which was “does taking time for compassion make doctors better at their job?”

I’m a Kindle woman, so I bought the Kindle version.  It’s also available in paperback and Audible versions.    I’ll include all links to where you can buy the book, if you’re interested, on the show notes page for episode 17 at PawsClawsWetNoses.fm.

The full, official, title is “Compassionomics:  the revolutionary scientific evidence that caring makes a difference.”

I like meaty books and at 375 pages, this sure gave me something to get my teeth into.  The book was published in 2018 by Fire Starter Publishing.  

Apart from the fact Dr Sam said it was a good book, I bought it because I wondered whether there might be any crossover from human health care to animal health care.  

While I was reading, there was always a little part of my brain wondering just how much could be transferred to the animal health care sector.  I’m sure that plenty could – just in a different way.

Some musings I had, for example, were:

• Could veterinarians, for example, positively impact the health outcome of sentient animals through compassion?  
• What difference would the expression of compassion to the patient’s owner make to the health outcome of the patient?   
• If the client felt more compassion towards them, would they be less aggressive towards the veterinarian?   
• Would animal doctors hear fewer emotional blackmail and accusations about not caring otherwise they’d work for free?

Purchase it from Amazon:

ISBN-13: 978-1622181063

ISBN-10: 1622181069

Kindle
Audio book
Paperback

[NB:  I have no affiliation whatsoever to Amazon]

The Roseto Effect

• Could the learnings here - the Roseto Effect - be applied in veterinary clinics to make a difference?
• Can community and caring make a difference in veterinary clinics?

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

If you're a new veterinary graduate - veterinarian, veterinary nurse or veterinary technician thinking about, or already living in, rural New Zealand then this podcast is for you because you could be eligible to apply for the $1,500 Virbac Rural Women New Zealand Animal Health Graduate Grant.

Links and people mentioned in today's show
Virbac New Zealand
The team - Katie Turner - Digital Product Manager
Virbac's values

Rural Women New Zealand
Rural Women New Zealand current Board
Rural Women New Zealand - values
Rural Women New Zealand - different funds and grants
Virbac Rural Women New Zealand Animal Health Graduate Grant - apply online

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

Given that Covid-19 has been brought front-and-centre back into our lives and our businesses this week, I thought it might be a good idea to have a chat about the latest business subsidy available to clinics – and thus their teams – this week, what to do if one of your team members tests positive – the subsidy available to you, and then what you need to do if you or someone in your clinic needs to cross different alert level borders.

The government has recently made changes the suite of financial support available on account of the pandemic’s impact on Godzone’s businesses.

In today’s episode we’re going to cover:

• The Covid 19 Short-Term Absence Payment subsidy – this affects employees and self-employed contractors
• The Covid-19 Leave Support Subsidy, and
• How to get the paperwork so that you or your team can cross borders

This episode is helpful for employees, self-employed locum contractors, HR & Practice Managers and clinic owners.

On the financial side of things, this episode is especially helpful if you’re wondering how you’re going to afford to cover an employee’s wage if they’re awaiting Covid-19 test results and are at home isolating, or if you’re the employee worrying about whether you can financially afford to be at home awaiting test results.

And if you’re part of a clinic – or you’re a locum – who needs to travel across Covid-19 imposed alert level borders to work, then this is also for you.

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