Advertising Part Time Roles Without Alienating Full Time Staff

Julie South [00:00:05]: What if the reason your part time job ads aren't working has nothing to do with the ad itself? What if the problem is that you're trying to recruit part time staff into a clinic where part time is possibly still a dirty word?

Here's the thing: you can't advertise what you don't genuinely support internally. So stay tuned.

Welcome to Veterinary Voices, the podcast that celebrates and showcases employer of choice veterinary clinics. I'm Julie South and this is episode 239. Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetClinicJobs, the job board where direct hiring is reimagined - no recruitment agency involved.

You owe it to your team to be able to make job offers from your job ads. And let's face it, success when it comes to job ads should lead to your new hire starting within a few months. If that's not happening for you right now, then head on over to vetclinicjobs.com because the average there is five weeks from go to whoa.

Julie South [00:01:20]: Today we're talking about advertising part time roles without alienating your full time staff. But first we need to sort out what's happening inside your clinic before you write a single word of that job ad.

Stay tuned because today we'll go through three key strategies. Plus you'll also get an action plan for you to incorporate workplace flexibility into your clinic's culture this coming week.

The situation in vet clinics is both client expectation and animal welfare considerations for clinics to be open 10 to 12 hours a day. Emergency and after hours clinics, it's sometimes 24/7, 365 days a year, definitely requiring night shift staffing, which isn't always easy.

But not everyone wants to work full time, whether that's by choice or by life stage. Some people want career flexibility, others are at different life stages and some simply perform better with different working patterns.

Julie South [00:02:33]: But here's where it starts to get a bit tricky. There's sometimes this underlying resentment that breeds when people think the system is unfair. And that resentment shows up in how you treat part time team members and how you write job ads.

If you're advertising part time roles while your existing team believes that part time workers are somehow less committed or less valuable, you're setting everyone up for failure. Most clinics try to squeeze part time workers into full time shaped boxes.

The clinics want flexibility that part time staff can offer, but they don't want to actually change how they operate. It's like wanting the benefits without doing the work.

I once - this is a few years back now - I once worked with a clinic that wanted to employ a locum permanently.

Julie South [00:03:32]: The locum had been on their team for quite a while, so they knew her. They also knew that she was a locum because it suited her lifestyle. Part time hours meant she could take extended overseas holidays each year when she wanted. And the perfect solution for the clinic for coverage, right?

But even though the clinic knew this locum's working pattern, they still tried to squeeze her into a rigid roster that didn't fit because "it wasn't fair" - and I'm using air quotes - it wasn't fair that she be part time when everyone else wasn't. Their rosters were fixed and apparently couldn't be changed.

The real problem wasn't the locum's availability.

Julie South [00:04:17]: It was the clinic's inflexibility and assumptions about what's fair. They were about to lose someone who could have solved - and who they wanted - who could have solved their staffing challenges because they weren't able to think outside their existing system.

Let's look at three key strategies. The first one is to challenge your assumptions before you advertise. Before you write that part time job ad, get brutally and totally honest about your internal culture.

If you were at the Vet Expo conference in Melbourne this year, you would have heard me talk about employer brand recruitment marketing. And this is the internal honesty that's crucial to authentic and genuine employer branding.

Julie South [00:05:12]: Ask yourself: do you genuinely value different working arrangements or are you just desperate for coverage? If your team rolls their eyes when part time work is mentioned, if there's grumbling about fairness, or if you find yourself making exceptions reluctantly, you're not ready to recruit part time staff successfully.

You need to address these internal attitudes first or your job ad will either attract the wrong people or the right people will sense the dysfunction and look somewhere else.

The second strategy is to get your team involved in the solution. Here's what I suggested to that clinic with the locum situation. I suggested they get a whiteboard and clean it off. Get the team together and find out from everyone what hours they actually wanted to work and what days they preferred.

Don't assume you know what people want or that your current roster is the only way. It turns out that their roster could actually be completely rejigged.

Julie South [00:06:20]: When they asked the team, everyone was happier with the new arrangements. They all shared what they wanted and what would work for them. And the unfairness problem disappeared because everyone's preferences were considered.

They worked together as a team and no one was just accommodated grudgingly. This collaborative approach means that when you do advertise part time roles, your existing team understands how it fits into the bigger picture and they feel like part of the solution, not victims of change.

And then the third strategy is to reframe - I'm using air quotes here - to reframe fairness in your job ads. Fair doesn't mean identical.

Julie South [00:07:11]: It means that everyone's needs have been considered and the clinic's coverage requirements are being met. When you write your part time job ad, you want to present a workplace where different arrangements serve different purposes and everyone is valued.

Instead of apologetically offering part time work like it's a consolation prize, present it as one of several ways talented veterinary professionals can contribute to your clinic. Show that you understand people have different career stages, life circumstances and working preferences and that you've designed your workplace to accommodate that reality.

A bit of a shameless plug here, but VetClinicJobs really shines when it comes to presenting flexible working arrangements authentically and genuinely. They give you the space to tell your real story about how different working patterns contribute to your clinic's success. You can showcase your team culture through team profiles where they can share what it's really like to work at your clinic.

This isn't about justifying part time work, it's about demonstrating that you've thoughtfully designed a workplace that accommodates different working styles and life stages and that all contribute meaningfully to your clinic's success.

Julie South [00:08:48]: The VetClinicJobs platform also lets you use those quality of life filters to attract job seekers who are specifically looking for part time roles. Rather than trying to convince full time job seekers to consider fewer hours, make sure you're taking advantage of all the quality of life filters available to you.

Because part time job seekers often prioritise work-life integration over maximum income, let me quickly recap those three strategies. First, challenge your internal assumptions about part time work before you advertise externally. Second, get your team involved in designing roster solutions that work for everyone. And third, reframe fairness in your job ads to show that different arrangements serve different purposes and everyone is valued.

Remember, you can't recruit successfully for working arrangements you don't genuinely support internally. If part time work is still a dirty word in your clinic, fix that before you write the job ad.

Julie South [00:10:11]: Here's what I'd like you to do this week. This is your takeaway action plan. If you're considering advertising part time roles, start with that whiteboard exercise that I talked about. Get your team together and find out what working arrangements would actually make everyone happier and more productive.

If you're feeling stuck with creating a thriving clinic that operates smoothly with part time staff, then I highly recommend that you check out Dr. Jocelyn Birch Baker at smoothoperatingvets.com. I'll put links in the show notes. Dr. Jocelyn specialises in helping veterinary clinics create smooth operating systems that work brilliantly with part time teams.

For insights into what the data is showing in relation to veterinary job advertisements in Australia and New Zealand, then email tania@vetclinicjobs.com for your copy of our monthly Veterinary Employment Job Advertisement Market Intelligence Report and mention to her that you heard it here first.

Julie South [00:11:16]: Next week in episode 240 we're talking about how to make weekend and after hours work sound appealing because let's face it, someone has to cover those shifts and it might as well be someone who's genuinely suited to them.

Big thanks to VetClinicJobs for making this episode possible. Until next time, this is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self by recognising that fairness isn't about everyone being treated identically, it's about everyone being valued for what they bring. Because you work with a team that lifts you up every single day.

Referenced URLs:

• https://vetclinicjobs.com
• https://veterinaryvoices.com
• https://smoothoperatingvets.com
• mailto:tania@vetclinicjobs.com
• mailto:lizzie@vetclinicjobs.com
• mailto:jocelyn@smoothoperatingvets.com