Veterinary Practice Management Essentials: 8 Human Resources Basics For Every Team

Every successful veterinary clinic runs on people first. Caring for your team—your clinic’s most valuable resource—means understanding and applying a few essential HR basics that help your day flow more smoothly.

In recent years, veterinary practice management and human resources (HR) roles have become more supportive. Giving team members the flexibility and resources they need to stay healthy and happy is key, but there are many other aspects of HR in veterinary medicine to consider.

The Shepherd team understands how busy your days can get with a heavy management workload. Here’s a quick guide to help you cover the HR essentials, so you can focus on supporting your team and caring for your patients.

1. Understand employment laws

Veterinary practices are great places to work, but they are workplaces nonetheless. When employment laws aren’t clearly understood or consistently applied, small HR questions can quickly turn into disruptive issues that pull leaders away from patients, teams, and smooth workflows.

This is where being proactive pays off. A working knowledge of key federal and state employment laws helps prevent avoidable interruptions and uncomfortable conversations that derail clinic operations. At a minimum, practices should be familiar with:

• Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) — Governs minimum wage, overtime, and exempt versus nonexempt employee classification
• Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) — Covers leave policies for eligible employees
• State laws — Often impose requirements that are stricter than federal standards

By understanding these rules upfront—and having systems in place to support compliance—practice owners and managers can spend less time reacting to HR issues and more time keeping the practice running smoothly.

2. Maintain accurate veterinary employee records

Good recordkeeping is another legal protection that’s essential to effective veterinary practice management. Keeping an updated employee file can save you time down the road, so you aren’t left searching for important information. These confidential files should include:

• Offer letters and onboarding forms
• Tax documents
• Emergency contacts
• Performance reviews
• Disciplinary notes

3. Create veterinary job descriptions

Job descriptions set expectations and create accountability, helping new hires and existing employees understand their role in practice success. To encourage team members to work together toward common goals, include an “other duties as needed” clause in the descriptions. Other things to include are: 

• Position title
• Chain of command
• Key duties and responsibilities
• Required qualifications
• Physical or scheduling requirements

4. Standardize your veterinary practice onboarding process

A structured onboarding protocol sets new hires up for success. It ensures that no one’s training falls through the cracks, and you can maintain a high level of client and patient care over time, even as the team changes and grows. Plus, having a pre-set structure keeps training from bogging down the day’s flow.

Include training on:

• Workplace policies and expectations
• Benefits and how to enroll
• Veterinary practice management software
• Daily workflows
• Safety and emergency protocols
• The transition from trainee to independent employee

5. Update your veterinary practice employee handbook 

In a close-knit team, conflict or confusion can arise. When it does, an employee handbook can be a valuable team resource. Reviewing and updating the handbook annually and asking team members to sign a copy provides clarity, allowing your team to move in sync. 

Policies should include, but are not limited to:

• Conduct and dress code
• Social media posts
• Attendance, time off, and holidays
• Harassment and discrimination
• Performance and discipline

6. Prioritize veterinary workplace safety

Keeping everyone safe at work can be stressful, but following OSHA guidelines and training team members can help you lead with calm. Appointing a safety officer to handle OSHA training and reporting is also a great way to delegate HR tasks while empowering employees to create a culture of safety in the clinic.

Workplace safety items on your checklist should include:

• Providing OSHA compliance training
• Maintaining safety data sheets (SDS)
• Documenting injuries and accidents
• Ensuring proper handling of hazardous materials

7. Facilitate communication and conflict resolution

Even the most tight-knit teams face occasional misunderstandings. Handling conflicts is always tough, but it’s also an opportunity to demonstrate fairness and lead by example. Focus on respect and teamwork, and ensure team members feel safe and confident when attempting to resolve a conflict or bring it to your attention. Some ways to do this include:

• Setting up regular check-ins and encouraging honest feedback
• Offering an open-door policy to voice concerns
• Providing team training and setting policies on handling conflict
• Striving to treat all team members with fairness and consistency

8. Support mental and professional health

Veterinary medicine is a rewarding but often demanding field. Understanding the factors that contribute to burnout and addressing them helps you retain employees, and supporting their development ensures your team members enjoy a fulfilling career and better work-life balance. A few practical ways to support your team include:

• Offering flexible scheduling and mental health days
• Providing access to mental health resources through insurance or an employee assistance program (EAP)
• Enforcing break times and encouraging use of vacation time
• Setting and adhering to personal boundaries to lead by example
• Providing ample opportunities for continuing education and career development
• Using software and technology to quietly support team members and smooth out existing workflows

Second-nature HR support

Managing people shouldn’t feel harder than managing patients. Shepherd is built to stay out of the way—organizing and connecting information behind the scenes to supports your HR workflows. It keeps onboarding details, employee records, and payroll integrations aligned so routine HR tasks don’t interrupt appointments, slow decision-making, or pull leaders away from the floor.

Through Shepherd’s integration with iVET360, practices can also access real veterinary HR professionals for support with job descriptions, handbook updates, and compliance questions. The goal isn’t to add more tools or touchpoints—it’s to create a steady, dependable backbone that fits the natural rhythm of your clinic and helps the workday run more smoothly.

Our helpful features and integrations can make HR management in your practice easier across the board. Schedule a personalized demo to see how you and your team can start taking home less stress.