Veterinary practices rely on effective collaboration between employers and employees. Yet, when emotions run high, even routine conversations about performance or behavior can escalate into conflict. To respond well, leaders must first understand the contemporary workforce: its pressures, expectations, and changing relationship with work.
By grounding discussions in the realities of today’s employee experience, employers can set clearer expectations, uphold workplace responsibilities, and employ de-escalation strategies that strengthen rather than weaken relationships.
The Contemporary Employee
The veterinary employee of today faces a markedly different environment from that of just a decade ago. Several dynamics shape this shift:
- Mental health challenges. Research suggests depression among American workers has risen by nearly 50% over the past ten years. Both clients and staff feel the weight of these changes.
- Declining trust in employers. Work is no longer seen as a guaranteed pathway to wealth or well-being. Loyalty has weakened on both sides of the employment relationship.
- Cultural influence of social media. Fear of missing out, along with online comparisons, erodes satisfaction with traditional employment.
- Expanding career opportunities. Talented employees—especially highly skilled female technicians—see entrepreneurial or alternative career paths as increasingly viable.
- Demand for competence. Workers expect supervisors to demonstrate technical fluency and the ability to thrive in a technology-dense workplace.
- A “feelings-forward” culture. While greater sensitivity to emotions has benefits, excessive emphasis can obscure the central purpose of veterinary work: patient care and client service.
What Employees Value Most
With so many factors shaping employees’ outlook and performance, it’s important to drill down to aspects of work we know to be foundational to employee happiness and success.
These aspects have been revealed to me through a game I play with staff called A Great Day at Work. For four years, I have been asking veterinary professionals to recall the last time they had an enjoyable day on the job. Routinely, the answers fall along four themes that help me understand what is most important to the people we employee
- I got the job done: Seems like a low bar to be sure, but studies show that it’s psychologically important for workers to be given doable assignments that they have a reasonable chance of finishing with success.
- We had a blast working together: By far, the most cited ‘great day’ is the one that is described as ‘busy as all heck’, but one where staff members rallied together, persevered, and despite the workload, ‘laughed and had a great time getting through the day’. It’s worth noting that it’s the crisis that forms the basis for this great day. No one has ever said that they had a great day because it was dead and there was nothing to do.
- Acknowledgement: Invariably someone remembers the day that a client sincerely thanked them for their efforts or an employer singled them out as great.
- Growth: The right people for this profession are ones that are innately excited about growing their animal handling and medical skills. As one worker shouted out during a game of Great Day that we were playing in Arizona, “Yesterday I learned how to restrain a calf!” For those people that are engaged by veterinary work, personal growth in medicine, management and client service is a source of pride.
Responsibilities of Employers
To foster such an environment, both employers and employees have immutable responsibilities. We’ll start first with employers.
- Scaffold success. Employers must ensure that employees understand the purpose of the business (the mission) and their specific jobs in it. They must provide the employees the training, tools, and feedback they need to complete their work safely and successfully.
- Be a steward of culture. The employer must cultivate civility, fairness, and mutual support throughout the team.
- Nurture growth. Leaders must signal that employee growth matters by paying attention to employees’ daily efforts to work well.
- Catalyze necessary discussions. Despite open door policies and attempts to foster autonomous problem solving, employees are afraid to address intra office work issues for fear of making things worse. Employers must be on the lookout for smoldering office issues and invite productive dialogue.
- Ensure fair, timely compensation. Sometimes the details of doctor pro-sal compensation rules blindside associates, in which case, tempers can flare fast and hot. The same is true for overtime concerns and all other pay related issues that threaten to reduce or delay an employee’s pay. It’s very important that compensation issues are handled above-board, timely, and transparently.
Responsibilities of Employees
Employees, in turn, share responsibility for creating a successful workplace. Key obligations include:
- Prioritize care and service: Employees should understand that service and care are a priority at the hospital. Both should be prioritized to the best of the employee’s ability.
- Pursue growth proactively: Employees must actively participate in their professional growth and proactively seek out the information and training they need should the hospital’s efforts to provide either somehow falter.
- Be positive. Employees must contribute positively to the work environment by behaving in a Clive fashion, treating coworkers with courtesy and not allowing interpersonal issues to go unaddressed.
- Honor commitments. Show up prepared, follow through on what you say you will do and communicate early if you need help.
Preparing for Difficult Conversations
Now that we are clear on where we are going and the direct responsibilities of both parties, we can engage in more successful conversations with staff members. First, prepare:
- Identify your feelings. Employer/employee conversations risk overheating. Before you go into a meeting, assess how you are feeling about it. Guilty? Betrayed? Exasperated? While all of these feelings are valid, they’re not necessarily going to speed things along to resolution. Identifying what you are feeling before you go into the room helps you pull the real issue into sharper focus and consequently aid your chances of negotiating a workable solution.
- Think about the meeting location and body language: Where you have this meeting, office, board room, bench outside, can send various messages about the gravity of the matter, your concern for the employee, and so forth. Similarly, how you posture during the conversation also matters. Sitting next to someone on a bench feels very different than standing over them while they remain seated or placing them on the other side of your leadership desk.
Conducting the Conversation
Once the meeting begins, effective de-escalation rests on a few important practices:
- Listen with empathy. Nod, take notes, and make appropriate audible noises signaling that you are listening and that you care. Don’t interrupt. Often times, talking to a sympathetic person by itself is enough to ameliorate matters.
- Express understanding. Repeating parts of the conversation back or sharing a story of how a similar issue made you feel signals comprehension and meaningfulness.
- Offer solutions and set clear expectations. Performance goals must be explicit. Employees should be asked whether they feel capable of meeting them or require support.
- Acknowledge growth. Difficult conversations are part of the evolution of every trusting, lasting relationship. Acknowledge that. Thank the employee for any emotional mature behavior they exhibited and for meeting you halfway in resolving the matter. Remember employee behavior is often very hard to change, but by verbally reassuring the employee that you want the relationship to work, you foster trust, and hopefully encourage the employee to muster the inner strength they need to evolve as a worker and as a person.
- Document the meeting. Written notes safeguard both parties should the issue resurface.
The Role of AI and Remote Work
AI and remote workers are becoming an increasing presence in our work world. They are already affecting our employees’ workload and our options for hiring so are worth a brief mention in this discussion about deescalation
.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI transcription, administrative automation, and data analysis can reduce employee workload, lowering stress and freeing time for clinical care. Adoption of such tools may also reduce hiring demands, particularly for administrative roles. If employees’ abilities to get the job done in a timely manner is a recurring theme in your discussions with employees, then explore options.
- Remote workers. Global labor markets provide access to skilled, English-proficient workers who can support hospitals at competitive rates, no liability, no payroll tax, and minimal overhead. For certain roles, remote employees offer a practical solution to staffing shortages and rising labor costs. They serve as insurance that should conversations with employees lead to termination or job forfeiture, the employer has a greater number of options to fill the open position.
Conclusion
Veterinary employers and employees share responsibility for maintaining a workplace where service, care, and cooperation thrive. For employers, this means scaffolding success, nurturing growth, and maintaining a fair, civil culture. For employees, it means prioritizing patients, pursuing learning, honoring commitments, and contributing positively to the team.
When conflict arises, preparation, empathy, and clarity are the cornerstones of effective de-escalation. Remembering the timeless human needs of employees: the desire to succeed, to grow, to be recognized, and to work alongside trusted colleagues, as well as the immutable responsibilities of employers and employees, will help to keep conversations inside a productive context.