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Six Steps to Motivating Your Dental Office Staff
Are bad attitudes, lack of commitment and low morale cutting into your bottom line? Frustrated with hiring star employees with an “attitude” and poor performance?
Recent studies have suggested that 70 percent of employees today are less motivated than they used to be, 80 percent could perform better if they wanted to, and 50 percent put forth only enough effort each day to keep their jobs.
Despite the scarcity of highly skilled workers, businesses today are on the verge of an extraordinary opportunity -- a chance to realize the enormous unmet potential within current and prospective employees. But practices will not achieve exceptional success by running their businesses in the normal way.
What is the normal way you ask? As marketplace pressures put the squeeze on profits and the cost of running a business increases, businesses often respond by freezing wages or giving minimal increases at best, cutting or eliminating training time and benefits, and hiring temporary or part-time employees. The consequent employee response is loss of motivation, lower job satisfaction, wavering loyalty and a loss of focus.
The normal business result is:
- A lower quality of customer service
- Increased turnover
- Increased absenteeism and tardiness
- Increased theft
- Lower productivity
- More accidents or incidents
- Lower profits
A less obvious but even more significant threat to performance and profitability is the unmotivated employee’s inability or unwillingness to share, learn and cooperate with other team members.
De-Motivation and Profits
This high cost of de-motivation, a much bigger threat than managed care or reduced fee dentistry, can be devastating. This loss of motivation comes at a time as Jeffrey Pfeffer, in The Human Equation, states, “the number one source of unique capabilities is a company’s people … (they) cannot be copied as easily as a company’s strategy or technology.”
Practices that thrive and enjoy economic success will be the ones doing great work for their patients, encouraging employees to contribute and recognizing them for their support, and taking an interest in the community. When a practice chooses to differentiate itself by value, not price, delivering customer service beyond patient expectations must be delivered on a regular and consistent basis. Exceptional service breeds loyalty. Loyalty develops long term relationships. Relationships are founded on competence and commitment, but competence and commitment do not come from unmotivated doctors and employees.
One of the most significant threats to profitability and exceptional customer service is turnover. Hiring, training and making an hourly wage worker productive costs a minimum of 300 to 700 times their hourly wage. For example, an employee hired at $8.00 per hour for a 32 hour per week position costs between $2000 and $5500 to get him or her up and running. Advertising costs for job candidates, time spent reviewing job applications, interviewing potential employees, and checking references, training new employees, a drop in productivity when the current employee leaves, or less productive new employees are just a few of the direct costs of turnover. Additional costs may include drug testing, physical exams, health care insurance, workman’s compensation and unemployment compensation.
According to Dr. Ray Miller, author of Built to Last, “With special exceptions, research indicates the return on investment (ROI) of human performance training is as much as 10 times greater than the ROI on capital asset equipment or technology.”
People employed in your practice bring their own unique motivational sources to the workplace. Does this mean the onus of motivation falls alone on the employee? The Quality of Motivation Theory says no. If the employee feels the demands of the job are greater than the available individual or practice resources, the individual and the practice will demonstrate a lack of commitment and loss of energy.
The QM theory provides an empirical answer to the nagging question: How do I motivate my employees? The answer lies in your practice values, policies, direction, actions and strategies.
It is therefore crucial for practices positioning themselves as full fee practices to select and develop employees who will become profitable, motivated and highly skilled at providing value-added services. The practice must engage the emotional energy and attention of the employees and provide the resources to help them cope with the emotional, intellectual and physical demands of the job.
How do you develop a practice culture that is attracts and retains highly motivated employees?
1. Offer employment security. The vast majority of society today longs for security and stability. Time and time again, job stability ranks far higher than pay on job satisfaction scales. People naturally resist change because it is simply too difficult or disruptive. Employment security, based on successful job performance, is a key factor in a successful dental practice.
2. Hire selectively. Surround yourself with people who share your fundamental values for a quality of life. Doctors and managers can no longer hire by guessing, hoping, relying on gut reaction or believing a resume. The costs are too high and the results too threatening for the long term success and profitability of a practice. Doctors must hire and train with a special emphasis on top-notch verbal and listening skills, interpersonal effectiveness, willingness to cooperate, individual initiative, and willingness to contribute. High performance employees will display good initiative, judgment, adaptability and ability to learn as well as a willingness to share what they know for the benefit of the patient.
3. Rethink your compensation structure. Practices must begin to offer compensation based on organizational performance as well as individual performance. This requires measurement. To know if the practice and individuals within it have improved, employees must have a reference point, clear expectations, be given feedback and direction, and receive training and support to meet practice goals and satisfy personal needs.
4. Provide training beyond clinical skills. A recent Stanford University study showed that 88 percent of successful performance is a direct result of attitude and an individual’s motivation. Only 12 percent of successful performance could be credited to skills or technical knowledge. Developing employee’s “soft skills” has a far greater likelihood of success and a higher return on investment. As an added bonus, a motivated person is more likely to take the initiative to learn and acquire new technical skills needed to grow and advance.
5. Learn to use the ideas, skills and efforts of all people. An environment that encourages the sharing of information and flexibility will find new ways to solve problems more quickly and effectively than the practice down the street.
6. Promote your employees as your competitive edge. Douglas Ivester, CEO of The Coca Cola Company, one of the most successful companies in the world, believes, “People are your most defining asset.”
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