3 minute read
Kevin Bryant, NZVA CEO
from VetScript June 2020
by VetScript
Reacting now while planning for the future
NZVA CEO Kevin Bryant outlines the next steps after months of heavy COVID-19 restrictions.
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ANYONE WHO KNOWS me knows I’m a people person. I’m a believer in the potential of people to achieve great things when contributing to a team where everyone’s pulling together and where each member of the team is valued for their contribution. The upside of this is high levels of job satisfaction, high trust and loyalty between employer and employee, high staff retention rates and ultimately great business performance.
One of the keys to achieving these outcomes is the quality of the leadership in the business, as opposed to management. It’s relatively easy to be a manager but it’s a whole lot harder to be a good leader, day in and day out.
As I write this we’ve come out of two weeks in the ‘waiting room’ (Alert Level 3), and all our thoughts are tuned in to transitioning to Level 2.
The NZVA team has been totally focused in the past month on bringing you information that’s as up to date as possible on what’s in and out of scope under the various alert levels as well as assisting with human resource-related enquiries and supporting collegiality via Zoom meetings. Internally we’ve been working hard to support our own team as everyone came to grips with working from home offices, dealing with the wide range of challenges associated with supporting members – who in turn have a wide range of expectations – and keeping the NZVA as a business going.
As we move into the next phase of what I’ve heard some people say is “the new ‘C’ word” – COVID-19 – the priority for the NZVA is to continue what we’ve been doing and focus on supporting business recovery and sustainability, for without our businesses we have no veterinarians and without veterinarians we have no association. This has been a crippling time for many and not limited to clinical practices – we’re all suffering.
I hope that by the time you read this we’ll have a number of initiatives rolling out in the business support space, similar to our efforts in the past months in the wellbeing space. These are likely to include ongoing Zoom meetings to share experiences with business owners, workshops to assist those seeking support to rebuild businesses, Q&A sessions with experts, the establishment of an owner/manager mentoring scheme, and targeted CPD offerings on topics such as business models, leadership, coaching and mentoring.
We need members to support each other, with business owners being honest and frank about the ‘state of play’ in their businesses, and employees being open to being part of whatever solution keeps the businesses going. I recall discussing with a business owner the torment he was going through in having to tell his staff that they needed to work seven days a week to ensure the survival of the business, followed by his joy when most of the team said, “We get it and we support you.” It’s this sort of collegiality that we need going forward.
Unfortunately some businesses interpreted the scope of Level 4 – in terms of the services they could provide to clients – inaccurately, and this resulted in business being poached from those that were following the guidelines more strictly. While competition has its place, I believe that in this environment we can achieve far more positive results (and have done in the past few months) by focusing on the challenges we all face, namely clients’ expectations, their views on costs, and our ability to deliver quality services for the animals in our care.
Having said all this, it’s even more clear to me now that our veterinary profession really is a champion team. I know many members hold the view that their profession is undervalued by others in this country. It’s my hope that the amazing contributions of veterinary teams in the pandemic response will help bring a sea change in perceptions of the value that veterinarians bring to communities throughout this land of ours.
