Retain Your Employees: 10 Steps to Dental Practice Success
“Doctor, I need to talk with you briefly.” Your stomach drops to your feet. Great, just great. She’s quitting, you think, and that is exactly what she does. She says it is for money, but you know there is more to it. Your brain races.
Should you offer her more to encourage her to stay? If so, that won’t be fair to your other employees. (Don’t think they won’t find out!) Who will “quit” next to finagle a raise?
How long can you keep increasing your staff’s salaries?
What does it take to keep your employees from being lured away by more money or benefits?
According to Harvard Business Review research, many employees stay in a position despite opportunities for more pay and benefits. They’ve said the “meaning” of their workplace environment is more important to them than a raise or better benefits in an unknown workplace. When asked to describe what they meant by a meaningful workplace, the participants provided examples of “social support” they perceived in their work lives.
The Meaning of Social Support
Essentially, a strong social support system means that your employees perceive that their leaders highly value the well-being of both their patients and employees. This is the golden rule of a successful service industry business such as dentistry.
A service business’s focus must be on the customers and the employees because your product is the service you and your employees provide. If employees feel undervalued, unhappy, or underappreciated, their customer service (your product) will be, at best, mediocre. Your business will fail to thrive, and employees and patients will inevitably leave.
These results align with the responses I have heard from hundreds of employees over the decades of working with dental teams. When asked why they left or are leaving a practice, the employees’ most frequent responses were:
The environment/team was negative
They didn’t feel appreciated; and
It was all about the money and not the good of the patients.
When asked to describe a work environment in which they would thrive and stay, their responses were usually:
A friendly team that supports and helps each other
A positive environment; and
Feeling valued and respected.
10 Steps to Create a Meaningful Work Environment
Before you implement the steps to create a meaningful work environment, there are three considerations to keep in mind:
First - and this is essential - whatever you do, it must involve the entire team of full-time and part-time staff and all the dentists in the practice.
Second, there are constructive and deconstructive ways to implement cultural change, so understanding the nuances of human resources best practices is a prerequisite.
Third, there is no silver bullet. Creating a meaningful workplace takes a network of practices and systems.
Here are the top ten ways to create a meaningful workplace:
Establish Annual Team Retreats focused on employee feedback and input.
Organize effective, agenda-oriented Daily Huddles and Team Meetings centered around employee participation.
Conduct Team Development coaching and training days.
Assure your Employee Performance Review System is transparent, job description connected, a two-way conversation, and conducted no less than once a year.
Organize holiday celebrations, group lunches, and birthday celebrations, and encourage employees to attend industry seminars and conferences.
Provide the tools and supplies necessary for each employee to perform productively and provide excellent customer service.
Establish effective Scheduling Systems for employees to achieve their goals, run on time, have a lunch break, go home on time, and achieve their bonus. Respect their time!
Give frequent expressions of appreciation and care, and show interest in your employees’ well-being.
Assure your Hiring System includes team interviews and feedback before the final hire.
In your Bonus System, always reward team performance and not individual performance.
Today, the cost of employee turnover is the highest in dental practice history - and it doesn’t include the mental stress created in the process. In this tight labor market, your Operating Systems and Work Culture must demonstrate value for your employees and patients.
If they don’t, you will, no doubt, continue to hear, “Doctor, can I talk with you for a few minutes?”
Achieve Sustainable Systematization in Your Practice Today
Less stress and greater rewards. Baird Concepts develops an action plan to systemize the processes causing chaos in the office. A system is never late for work, quits, or demands a paycheck. Design and implement systems to manage your practice, so you can focus on dentistry.
Contact me today to learn how to make this happen in your practice.
