Program

7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. - Registration and Breakfast

8:00 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.:

Welcome Energizer

Recession Proof Your Practice
Speaker: Terry O'Neil, CPA, CVA
Effective veterinary practice management during recessionary periods is critical. How you determine staffing levels, set prices, and manage financial expenditures likely were key components to how your hospital weathered the last recession. But what are the lessons we learned from the last recession, and how can we apply that knowledge to prepare for a future one? In this workshop, Terry O’Neil will share his insight on how to effectively manage labor, determine price elasticity, improve efficiencies, and calculate a break-even analysis. And he’ll explain how to apply these management skills to effectively manage the veterinary hospital of the future. 

Networking Break

Pardon the Interruption - Quick Employment Law Updates
Speaker: Steven Pockrass
This quick 15-minute session will touch on key updates in employment law. Topics include: wage and hour updates, independent contractor classification, etc.

It is More Than "I Just Don't Like You" and When to Investigate Employee Concerns
Speakers: Kate Trinke and Theresa Parish
This session is split into two parts, a learning session and a practical session, with a short break in between.

Part One - Learning Session
Conflict in the workplace is inevitable. But, is it co-workers who simply don’t get along or is it something more? When employees report conflict, it can be difficult for employers to know whether the behavior complained of is a petty workplace spat or something more - harassment, bullying, a hostile work environment, or discrimination. This part of the session will provide an overview of when behavior tips the scale from employees who just don’t get along to conduct that requires an investigation, a call to outside counsel, or something more than a quick conversation. This part of the session will also provide a high-level overview on how to conduct investigations, including practical tips, and other key tools to maintain a respectful workplace.

Part Two - Practical Session
It’s helpful to hear how to handle coworker disputes on paper but putting those skills in practice is key. In the second part of this session, attendees will work together through various scenarios to put the guidance learned in the first half of the session into practice.

Sponsored Lunch Program

Application Station 
Let’s do this! Resilience in yourself and your team application stations will give attendees the opportunity to create tool kits they can take back to their practice and immediately implement.

Networking Break

Triumphs and Blunders 
The good, the bad and the ugly disrupter “mini case studies” will be shared in this no holds barred session. Predetermined presenters will share the entire story – from the reasons why they decided to make a change to the final outcome (whether good or bad). Audience discussion and dialogue will add another meaningful dimension to this program.

5:15 p.m. - Pacer's Basketball Game (optional ticketed events)

7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. - Registration and Breakfast

8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.:

Welcome Energizer

Using the Experiential Learning Cycle to Fit Your Team’s Needs
Speaker: Julie Nash, CVPM, PHR, SHRM-CP
This session is for you if you have ever wondered why team members aren’t adapting and learning and how to drive those processes better. The Experiential Learning Cycle can transform your team by changing mindsets and discovering new ways of learning. In this session, we will examine research-based insights into the learning process and identify your preferred learning style using an experiential learning model. Next, we will use practical techniques to develop the power of turning experience into applied knowledge. Finally, learn how to creatively match your approach with your daily situations as a manager.

Participants Will Learn How To:
• Examine the experiential learning cycle and identify learning preferences within the model
• Design activities and materials to draw on each stage of the experiential learning cycle
• Develop learning flexibility and improve outcomes by using hands-on learning exercises and descriptive examples to overcome limits
• Develop a team that has a mindset for lifelong learning

Networking Break

Coaching for Professional Development
Speaker: Clare Morrison, MPH, PCC
Coaching is about establishing a rapport, increasing awareness and most of all, being curious. Everyone has goals they want to reach, challenges they are striving to overcome, ideas that need a road map and times when they feel stuck. Properly applied, internal coaching for this type of professional development can be a potent way to create culture and promote retention. Your practice is made up of individuals – their thriving is essential to the health of the organization.

This program will help managers:

• Distinguish coaching from other personal and organizational support professions (therapy, consulting, mentoring, training, athletic development) and considerations for when to use each.
• Distinguish between internal and external coaching and best practices for internal coaching.
• Assess where the practice is with regard to coaching and professional development: are we ready for this or do we need to lay some groundwork? What might that look like?
• Consider own professional development through a coaching lens.
• Discuss and role play some of the questions/topics that would help a manager act as a coach.

Sponsored Lunch Program

Application Stations 
Application stations give attendees the opportunity to create tool kits they can take back to their practice and immediately implement.

Networking Break

Roundtable Discussions
Roundtable Discussions are among the most flexible and informal educational formats offered at VHMA education events. Roundtable Discussions allow for extended discussion among a small cohort of professional colleagues. Roundtable Discussions are excellent venues for giving and receiving targeted feedback and engaging in-depth discussions. Attendees are broken up into groups of 6-10 individuals and are presented with predetermined topics for time-limited discussions.

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. - Sponsored Reception

7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. - Registration and Breakfast

8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.:

Being the Spark – Moving from the Reactive to the Proactive
Speaker: Christine Merle DVM, MBA, CVPM and Clare Morrison, MPH, PCC
At some point, your veterinary practice got busy and that hasn’t stopped –being stressed and worn out makes it impossible to be innovative, have fun or truthfully some days do anything. Jump off the hamster-wheel of putting out fires to learn skills and tools to increase personal and practice effectiveness/efficiency. Presented by recovering perfectionists that are enjoying the rollercoaster of life again, this session will provide attendees the re-ignition of energy that is needed to “spark” themselves and their practices to be proactive once again.