Employee lifecycle: practice strategy 

This month, we are taking an in-depth look at how a practice develops a long-term strategy. We are encouraging practices to formulate the loose goals and make them more tangible and visual to staff. 

Practice strategy is about setting clear long-term goals by understanding the practice's competitive position within the private practice sector and can be determined through a SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis is a planning tool to assist practices in understanding their internal strengths, weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. 

Strengths – what is your competitive advantage over other practices in your area? This could be a strong brand reputation, efficient process, skilled workforce or innovative services.

Weaknesses – what hinders your practice's performance or puts your practice at a disadvantage compared to your competition? Is there an area where the practice lacks expertise or are you operating with outdated technology?

Opportunities – are there external factors which will positively impact the practice, such as new technologies, changes in regulations or industry trends?

Threats – what are the factors that pose risks or challenges to the practice such as economic downturns, supplier issues or regulatory changes?

A SWOT analysis provides a structured framework for practices to assess internal and external factors to assist in informed decision making and to practically apply to the business. This would typically be done by following the described steps:

1. Internal assessment (strengths and weaknesses) – identify through analysing business data such as financial records, employee information, utilisation data and any other relevant data to determine what the practices strengths and weaknesses are.
2. External assessment (opportunities and threats) – studying market trends, customer preferences, the private practice/medical as an industry, competitor analysis and any other relevant data.
3. SWOT matrix – make it visual, this is where your search engine is your friend.  There are lots of ways to display the above two points visually and your search engine will give you lots of examples of this. The visual representation will assist in the comparing and prioritising different factors.
4. Strategy formulation – we have reached the fun part,  all the data analysis internally and externally comes together and we get clear insights into leveraging our strengths, capitalising on our opportunities, how to address weaknesses and overcome threats. 
5. Action plan – we take the strategy formulation and we develop a plan of action! Communication is key to a successful action plan as this is where developing the vision for your practice comes into play and the setting of obtainable goals for staff will drive performance.
6. Review and open to change – regularly revisit and update the SWOT analysis as and when the internal or external environment changes. For example, if your practice implements new technology there may be an element where the technology doesn’t work as expected. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are there further opportunities or has this created an operational weakness?

	Workplace Relations Support  Workplace Relations Support can assist members with general advice on anything related in this article. You can contact us via phone (07) 3872 2222 and email support workplacerelations@amaq.com.au.
	Workplace Relations Toolkit  Workplace Relations Toolkit subscribers receive advice in relation to how to develop a practice strategy and effective ways to communicate this to staff.
	Workplace Relations Consultancy Workplace Relations Consultancy can provide comprehensive tailored advice to assist members with the development of their practice strategy and effective ways in which to drive performance.