David Kinnane

9 ideas to increase engagement and reduce burn out by designing work your team will love

2 June 2022 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

If less than 20% of your work consists of things you love to do, you are far more likely to burn out. Practice owners should design work with love in mind:

Encourage staff to set goals, both for their career and personal life.
Invest in each employee’s ongoing education, either directly through training or by giving employees time to pursue their own projects.
Stay connected with your alumni.
Don’t over-rely on standardised competence tools: there is more than one way to be a great speech pathologist.
Organise around teams: workers who feel part of a team are 2.7 times as likely to be engaged, 3 times as likely to be highly resilient, and twice as likely to report a strong sense of belonging.
Hire interesting speech pathologists: each person’s “loves and loathings” can be combined with others to make the team greater than the sum of its parts. Assign projects based on each individual’s strengths and interests.
Discard rituals that erode team trust, like staff rankings based on output-based KPIs.
Pay individual attention to each speech pathologist. Supervisors who check in 1:1 every week drive their team member’s engagement up 77% and reduce turnover by 67%.
Schedule once-a-week 1:1 supervision check-ins. Ask four key questions:
- What did you love about last week?
- What did you loathe?
- What are your priorities for the next week?
- How can I help?

Source: Buckingham, M. (2022). Designing Work That People Love. Harvard Business Review, June 2022.

This infographic also appears in a recent issue of Banter Booster, our weekly round up of the best speech pathology ideas and practice tips for busy speech pathologists and speech pathology students.

12 early career tips for Australian speech pathologists and students considering a career in private practice

1 June 2022 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

About a quarter of current Australian speech language pathologists (SLPs) joined the profession after May 2019; and about half of all SLPs work in private practice.

If you are an early career SLP in private practice – or if you are an SLP student considering private practice as a graduate – here are some early career tips:

You’ve made a great decision: We have a clear purpose. Demand is rising. Our practice scope is widening. Our evidence-base is growing. Technological innovations are accelerating. We’re striving to become more diverse; and to reflect the communities we service. But we’re short on numbers, with mushrooming waitlists. We need you!

Big questions: Who do you want to serve and how? Who do you admire, and why? What’s your timeline? How are you learning and growing? What seeds do you need to plant now? What relationships do you need to build? (Hiatt, 2021)

Long-term relationships and meaningful work > money: You need to be paid properly. But, on our deathbeds, few will care about money or business influence as much as we think we do. Meaningful relationships and useful work matter more. (Coleman, 2022)

Constant change: SLP work is complex, the profession is evolving, and general economic and health system volatility and uncertainty continue to increase. Stay open to possibilities, and keep your options open – don’t deskill. Stay curious. Read widely across many disciplines. Keep learning. Be flexible so you can adapt to change.

What employers want to know: What will it be like to work with you? How will you affect existing team dynamics? Can you learn? Do you take initiative and contribute? Do you take feedback constructively and act on it? Do you ask good questions? (Gallo, 2022)

Criteria to evaluate job offers: Do the practice’s vision, purpose, and strategy intersect with your goals? Do salary and incentives support team and individual growth? What is the job content and caseload? Workload. Respect. Supervision. Training. Safety and compliance. Quality control. Systems and resources. Clear career path. Turnover and burnout rates. Flexibility.

Getting up to speed: Figure out the ‘informal org chart’. Find leaders (supervisors, mentors, colleagues) who help to get things done. Make people around you feel valued, with good listening and engagement. Look for gaps and help fill them. (Cross, 2021)

Professional learning curve: Aggressively expand your ‘Circle of Competence’. Invest and track new technical, communication/advocacy, and leadership skills. Get educated on business: strategies, people management, systems, cost structures, break even, and cashflows. Learn, then share new knowledge. Apply new skills as soon as you can. Contribute new ideas!

Hanging in there! “Patience is annoying…But the truth is, in almost all cases, our most meaningful goals require effort and perseverance – and time…You might have to keep making the effort, even when it seems pointless, boring or hard. There will be dark moments when it’s unclear whether you’re making any progress at all” (Clark, 2021). Don’t give up too early! Professional growth is not always linear and is often a result of conflicting variables.

Don’t job hop for the sake of it: Consider moves only if they’ll increase your skills and opportunities. Fast leaps may not lead to long-term success and contribute to burn out. Don’t be distracted by titles – focus on substance. Think about whether the move will help or hinder your ability to achieve your long-term goals. (Hamori, 2010)

Don’t ‘specialise’ too soon: In the long-term, specialists often prosper. But, if you are unsure, stay general and focus on learning transferable skills. If you decide to focus on one practice area, choose one that’s growing quickly. Retaining intellectual breadth is important. (Gulati, 2012)

You only get one reputation: Relationships matter more than jobs and transactions. Think long-term. Respect your colleagues. Don’t burn bridges. Stay ethical. When you run into conflict – and you will – take the high road and stay professional.

For more, free private practice tips, check out our ‘12 Days of Tips for SLPs in Private Practice‘ series.

For more information about proper supervision of speech pathologists in private practice, download our “How to Supervise Speech Pathologists Properly in Private Practice” book, templates and video course on our Banter Speech & Language clinic website. ⁠

Alert for Speech Pathologists in Private Practice in Australia: do you know about the new rules for casual employees?

6 May 2021 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

In Australia, new rules about casual employees came into effect on 27 March 2021.*

The new rules aim to:

make things clearer for employees and employers when figuring out if someone is a casual employee; and
give casual employees the right to convert to part-time or full-time employment in some circumstances.

We welcome more certainty about when someone is – or isn’t – a casual employee. But employers need to consider the new rules carefully when:

hiring new employees; and
implementing systems to make offers of conversion to casual employees when required.

There are also some tricky transition rules to consider for the 6 month period from 27 March 2021.

For a great summary of the rules, and what they mean for employers, check out this article by Jack de Flamigh, a partner at law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has also published some useful information about the new rules. You can access these here.

Note: As always, this alert is informational only. Nothing in this alert constitutes or is to be taken as legal advice. Speech pathologists and other employers should seek legal advice before doing anything in response to the new rules.

*See the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia’s Jobs and Economic Recovery) Act 2021, which amended the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).

Speech pathologists in private practice: How to sleep better

14 February 2021 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

Between 12-15% of Australians meet the criteria for insomnia.

Insomnia is linked to an increased risk of mental health issues and chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

Risk factors include having existing health conditions, older age, and being a woman.

Long-lasting stress is another contributor – something often experienced in private practice.

Having a task-oriented mind-set and perfectionistic tendencies – both common traits for speech pathologists – also increase the risk.

Potential solutions include:

prescription sleep medications, but they have side effects and often don’t get at root causes;
herbal remedies like valerian and melatonin, which might slightly improve sleep time and quality (although the evidence to date is not compelling);
consistent bed and wake times, dark, quiet and cool environments;
avoiding screens, alcohol, and caffeine too close to bed;
undertaking cognitive behaviour therapies for insomnia (CBT-I) to reassociate bed with rest, relaxation and sleep, challenge beliefs that you are a “bad sleeper”, learn to be realistic about sleep, and adopt better sleep behaviours to match time in bed with time sleeping; and
using FREE online resources like the “This Way Up” insomnia course, developed by St Vincent’s Hospital and the University of New South Wales.

Speech pathologists in private practice How to sleep better

Principal source: Tufvesson, A. (2021). Losing sleep. LSJ, 74, 52-53.

Key resources:

Child Safe Organisations: Why you need a Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy

7 October 2020 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

If you work with children as an NDIS provider or a health provider, you need a Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy that is consistent with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations published by the Australian Human Rights Commission (the National Principles).

It is also important that your Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy:

forms part of your Risk Management System; and
is consistent with your:

Why you need a Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy

All NDIS providers and health providers who engage with children (face-to-face, online or both) should adopt the National Principles. Part of this process includes having a Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy. By way of context:

following the 2013 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended national action, including the development of National Principles for Child Safe Organisations; and
in 2018, the National Principles were endorsed by all Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments to provide a consistent approach to embedding child safe cultures within organisations that engage with children.

You can read the National Principles here.

Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy Template

Our 16-page Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy template is designed to help NDIS providers and health providers to respond to, and implement, the National Principles, as a step toward becoming a child safe organisation. The Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy is drafted to:

form part of your Risk Management System; and
to sit with with your:

Child safety is the most important obligation of NDIS and health providers who work with children. It’s also a key risk area that warrants attention at every level in the organisation. We wrote the template to help NDIS and health providers start the process of being Child Safe Organisations.

You can access lots of material, including the National Principles, free training modules, and other resources developed by the Australian Human Rights Commission here.

GO TO THE CHILD SAFETY CODE OF CONDUCT AND POLICY