Figure 1: Communicating with patients is a key part of the job
I am an optical assistant (OA) so why do I need to know about my employer’s or company values, beliefs and purpose? OAs, as a rule, in an average practice will have more contact with more customers than any other practice-based colleagues.
Think about it, not every patient will be having an eye examination, contact lens opticians will only see those booked in for a contact lens fit or check-up, and dispensing opticians may be dispensing children or problem-solving.
What are employer or company values?
This is how your practice wishes to be seen by all visitors to the practice. They can be described as a set of guiding principles and fundamental beliefs that help a group of people function together as a team and work towards a common business goal. This can help shape your practices operating procedures, ie how and why you do things a certain way.
You will often find these values stated on the practice website or any adverts. Most of these values will be based around being professional, friendly and caring. Sometimes they are referred to as core values, professional, friendly, caring covers a wide scope of behaviours. To break this down further we may also include integrity, honesty and trust – these could be described as having good morals.
For example, if some cash is found on the floor in the practice, someone with good morals would take every action to find the owner of the money. We are automatically expected to have good morals when working in an optical practice. In fact, if an optical practice gained a reputation for not having high morals, I would suggest that would most likely lead to the closure of the business.
Candour and accountability are vital – put your hand up and apologise if you made an error. It can be tempting in optics to tell a ‘little white lie’, for example, a patient is collecting their new spectacles, and they complain that their distance vision is not clear. While using the focimeter to check the spectacles you discover the lenses have been glazed the wrong way around, right prescription in the left and vice versa, what is going through your head?
You do not want to make your practice look incompetent but you also do not want to lie. My advice is to come clean, apologise for the error and then make sure you take ownership of getting the correct lenses supplied and arrange that you carry out the collection. If you had told a lie and got found out, the situation would be a lot worse.
Respect, for me, is key to building rapport with our patients. It can mean recognising a person’s worth, this can often mean in a multicultural society, accepting someone for who they are, even when they are different from you or hold different views.
We learn about company values and our behaviours on the Optical Assistant Apprenticeship course. Below are examples of what my students have learned from attending lessons and self-research.
‘I believe that treating people with dignity and respect is important within the workplace and includes treating everyone fairly and equally, but also making sure care is person-centred as every individual has their own individual needs.
‘We learned on our OA apprenticeship course that this is important and can be shown by ensuring I listen to patients and give them my full attention, for example, I would exhibit this behaviour when pre-testing a patient or helping them choose new frames.
‘I now understand the importance of treating people with dignity and respect within practice during every communication I have with patients, as well as colleagues. Taking this onboard has helped me do my job because I find that I do not get into as many confrontational situations.’
Show discretion and empathy for those you work with
‘I learned during the L3 course that discretion and empathy are important at work as it is important that I put myself in the shoes of other people (patients and colleagues) and show empathy during practice, as well as obtaining consent.
For example, when adjusting spectacles on a patient I will always ensure I ask for permission before physically touching the patient and will come from a place of empathy to ensure that I recognised the patients’ feelings by listening and considering the patients’ perspective.
I will also ensure I adapt my communication style depending on the situation – eg a patient may have received bad news regarding the health of their vision/eyes, therefore I would approach them with empathy and compassion.’
Be adaptable, reliable and committed
‘I learned that within the workplace being adaptable, reliable and committed includes being a team player and adapting to change, eg facing new challenges at work rather than avoiding them, as well as being resilient and pushing through difficult times, and/or challenges, in order to progress and learn.
This would be put into practice by not shying away from new stages of my job description, eg dispensing or frame styling, and facing these new challenges head on and with confidence. It is important that I am adaptable and committed at work as this will build my confidence and will improve my job satisfaction.’
Be caring and compassionate
‘I feel as though this core behaviour ties in with treating people with respect and showing empathy as well as being caring and compassionate towards those you work with includes person-cantered care, treating people with dignity and respect.
I ensure to treat people with care and compassion at work practicing good manners, as well as considering the experience from the patients’/colleague’s point of view. I will also ensure to be aware of the needs of others, practice tolerance, as well as practice being non-judgmental.’
Show resilience and self-awareness
‘I have learned that being resilient first relies on the ability to be self-aware, noticing any areas that require improvement or confidence, noticing areas at work which I may shy away from or lack an understanding of. This in turn will enable myself to become more resilient at work if I am able to recognise my areas of improvement, as well as strengths.
I will put this into practice by developing positive habits and attitudes at work, being easy on myself when I make mistakes or errors and seeing it as an opportunity to learn and improve, thus hopefully enabling me to build my resilience and confidence.’
Show openness and integrity at all times
‘Showing openness and integrity at work is important as communicating openly and honestly ensures trust among patients and colleagues, as well as showing myself to be a trustworthy individual, which also will include taking responsibility for my actions. Integrity is also important as respecting the privacy of individuals is not only a matter of respect but also the law.
‘I will ensure I abide by GDPR regulations by keeping patient records confidential and will handle any sensitive information appropriately, eg ensuring no one can see patient records on my computer screen, and not talking about private work matters to people outside of work.’
Conclusion
We have got to remind ourselves how lucky we are to be doing our jobs, we are paid for talking to people. We are in a warm and dry environment; we can have the occasional hot drink. We can be nosy and ask people about themselves, what their hobbies or job entails, and we are paid for doing so (See Figure 1, top).
You will discover that dispensing gets more and more enjoyable the more your knowledge grows and using that knowledge to make sure all patients leave the practice with the best optical appliances that will address all their personal needs. The satisfaction from that alone, if done well, is immense.
I feel using comments from my student OAs work really brings this article to life. I hope in doing so, it encourages all OAs out there to consider putting effort into learning more or keeping up to date with soft skills, you will have more confidence, enjoy your job more and this will lead to a happy practice environment and customers that will want to return.
- Tony Douglass has designed, developed, and managed the level 3 Optical Assistant Apprenticeship course at Training 2000, he was also involved in the development and delivery of the bench-mark Btec level 4 certificate in optical dispensing, which started hundreds of students’ careers in optics with around 70% of students going onto further study as a dispensing optician. Douglass is also an experienced author and presenter of CPD lectures and discussion workshops with audiences of up to 500. He also previously worked as a part-time lecturer in ophthalmic dispensing at Anglia Ruskin University.