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Building and Retaining a Great Dental Team
It's almost 5 p.m. Your day -- and week -- are almost complete. Just one more hygiene check and you are out-of-here for three days (barring any emergencies, of course). The weather forecast is perfect. You have planned a round of golf, a day trip with the family, dinner and theater with your friends and a few hours to relax.
But one of the worst days any dentist faces is when an employee walks into his or her office and says, "Doctor, I'm really sorry to do this but I have accepted another job. The other doctor wants me to start right away but I told him I had to give you two weeks notice. I really like the people here but the other doctor is willing to pay me a dollar more and he stops seeing patients an hour earlier. That will really help me out because now I won't need a baby sitter after school. I hope you won't be angry with me."
So much for a relaxing weekend.
As much as you try, it's hard not to have some hard feelings. You finally felt like your employees melded into a team. You just returned from a three-day cosmetic dentistry extravaganza. You took your entire staff and covered their tuition, travel and meals. It was worth about every penny, you thought -- until now. Everyone was so enthusiastic about the new attitude in the practice that you signed up for the week-long program.
It took a long time and a lot of money to get this team to gel. Several years ago, after paying nit-picking assistants and prima donna hygienists, you were considering selling your practice and leaving dentistry.
But something happened about four years ago. Both your longest-term employee and your hygienist quit within weeks of one another. It was not an easy time, but truth be known, you were relieved when they resigned. Both of them were beginning to wear on your nerves to the point of driving you right out of dentistry.
The events that followed, however, turned into the proverbial silver lining in the black cloud. The rest of your team seemed energized by their departure and they picked up their pace and intensity. They acted like a weight was lifted off their shoulders. It seemed that the assistant and hygienist preferred to dwell on the downside and weaknesses of any idea, and felt compelled to point out the flaws in every person they met.
This departure is different though. This resignation hits hard. You really liked this assistant. She always had a smile, a great work ethic and knew what instrument you needed before you ever needed to ask. How will you ever find a replacement like her?
Dentists are not alone in the search for new employees. They are also not alone in feeling the crunch of the worst labor shortage in over 30 years. The forecast for any relief is bleak at best.
But all is not lost. Dental practices are still among the most desirable health care environments in which to work -- but only for the right person. So how can you avoid the run-and-shoot method of hiring and selecting a new employee who fits your team and generates new enthusiasm and momentum for the practice?
I have worked with many professional practices, including my own, as well as salespeople and managers from billion-dollar companies. Selecting and retaining the right employee is never easy, but the following strategies and techniques are guaranteed to reduce hiring mistakes and minimize your chances of replacing an all-around performer with a prima donna or a wannabe. Of course, the same strategy works when you already made the hiring mistake and want to "create a team that clicks, not cliques.”
1. It is not easy to assemble a team of talented, motivated people. If you have a good team in place and you want to know what is making this team "click," now is the time to have your entire staff participate in a team assessment. When you have a good team of people, don't just cross your fingers and believe for one moment that no employee will ever leave again. When you have the right people and things are working, first and foremost do whatever you can to keep them together but for goodness sake, learn from this success. The best way to select people who will thrive in your practice is to identify the personal characteristics of people who are already thriving and hire more people just like them. Teamwork is not easy to replicate. Be proactive. Measure it. Benchmark it.
2. One of the very best practices "best-place-to-work" employers do is identify the behaviors, attitudes and motivations required to do each job and what "personality" it takes to fit with the rest of team. Identifying individual styles using behavioral assessments like DISC is one thing and already used by many practices. But building a team model is even more crucial.
- Why do the people on this team work so well together?
- What is different with these employees than the other ones in the past?
- What behavioral styles should you be looking for when interviewing future employees that complement and support the remaining members of the team and your patients?
- What employee styles and attitudes will be sure to cause conflicts and stress that you would be wise to avoid?
By following these practices proven to work by the leading employers in the world, you will limit the financial, costly and stress-inducing hiring mistakes most employers make, and turn employee departures from disastrous disruptions into successful transitions.
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