A middle path on retention: stretch staff without burning them out
Bottom line
A Pet Age editorial by Glenn Polyn argues that veterinary leaders are often offering teams a false choice: grind harder or settle into comfort. Polyn proposes a “third option,” which he calls supported stretch, giving employees challenges that are meaningful but calibrated to their current skills, confidence, and growth stage. The idea lands at a time when veterinary workforce research continues to point to leadership, team culture, career development, and achievable expectations as major drivers of retention, not just pay or staffing levels. AAHA’s retention work has found that leadership quality, wellbeing support, and advancement opportunities are among the factors most tied to whether people stay in practice, while Merck Animal Health and AVMA research has linked positive clinic culture and work-life balance with lower burnout. (aaha.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the editorial reframes a familiar workforce problem. High performers don’t always leave loudly; some disengage when they’re either overloaded or underchallenged. That matters in a profession where AAHA has reported that roughly 30% or more of practice team members may be considering leaving their current clinical practice at any given time, and where retention research shows misalignment between leaders and staff can accelerate burnout and turnover. The practical takeaway is that development has to be intentional: clear expectations, coaching, role fit, and growth pathways may be just as important as relief from workload. (aaha.org)
What to watch: Expect more workforce conversations to focus less on resilience training alone and more on manager capability, team utilization, and structured career development as retention strategies. (aaha.org)
A new Pet Age editorial is making a simple argument with broad implications for veterinary workplaces: the real leadership challenge isn’t choosing between hustle culture and comfort, but creating a middle path where employees are stretched without being depleted. In “The Third Option: Why Your Best Employees are Quietly Losing Their Edge,” Glenn Polyn argues that strong managers should know their people well enough to match them with problems that are large enough to promote growth, but not so large that they trigger shutdown or disengagement.
That message arrives as veterinary employers are still wrestling with retention, burnout, and uneven engagement across teams. Industry research from AAHA has pushed back on the idea that the profession’s staffing strain is only a pipeline problem, framing it instead as a retention and workplace experience issue. In AAHA’s “Stay, Please” research, leadership, team function, achievable expectations, wellbeing support, and career development all emerged as meaningful factors in whether people remain in clinical practice. AAHA’s Phase II findings also highlighted a recurring problem: leaders and staff don’t always agree on what matters most, or on whether practices are delivering it. (aaha.org)
That broader context helps explain why Polyn’s “supported stretch” framing may resonate. In practice, the concept points away from one-size-fits-all management and toward more precise development: assigning responsibilities that fit an employee’s current capability, while still building mastery and confidence. It also suggests that disengagement among top employees may not always look like open dissatisfaction. Sometimes it shows up as flattening performance, reduced initiative, or a quiet loss of energy when work becomes either chronically overwhelming or no longer developmental.
The research backdrop supports that interpretation. A 2024 study in JAVMA found that work-life balance, effective coping, and a positive clinic culture were significant predictors of better wellbeing and lower burnout among veterinarians. Separate AAHA reporting on staff retention has emphasized that caring leadership, appreciation, flexibility, and advancement opportunities are among the factors workers say influence whether they stay. And a narrative review on veterinary burnout argued that organizations should focus on fixing workplace conditions and building resilient systems, rather than trying to “fix” individual employees after the fact. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Industry voices have been moving in a similar direction. AAHA’s retention materials explicitly describe the issue as human-centered, not simply a labor shortage, and note that the cost of attrition is both financial and emotional for the remaining team. Merck Animal Health’s 2024 wellbeing study, conducted with AVMA, reported progress in some mental health measures, but the overall picture still points to persistent stress across veterinary teams. Taken together, those findings reinforce the editorial’s core point: if leaders want people to stay sharp and committed, they need to design workplaces where challenge is paired with support, clarity, and trust. (aaha.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is less a philosophical debate than an operational one. Practices depend heavily on experienced technicians, associates, managers, and client-facing staff whose discretionary effort keeps the day moving. If those employees are underdeveloped, underrecognized, or repeatedly pushed beyond sustainable limits, practices risk losing exactly the people they most need to stabilize care delivery, mentor newer staff, and maintain client relationships. The “supported stretch” idea aligns with what retention data already suggests: people are more likely to stay when expectations are realistic, leadership is credible, and growth feels possible. (aaha.org)
For practice leaders, the next step is translating the concept into management habits. That could mean more deliberate delegation, clearer role design, regular development conversations, and better calibration of who is ready for what. It also may mean rethinking promotion and utilization so that advancement does not automatically become overload. With AAHA, AVMA, and industry groups continuing to publish workforce and wellbeing data, expect more scrutiny on whether practices can turn broad retention goals into everyday leadership behaviors that keep good people engaged. (aaha.org)