According to a recent Gallup Workplace survey, 51% of US employees are actively seeking a new job. This statistic is especially worrisome in the dental industry due to an existing shortage of dental personnel. Learn the primary reasons dental employees depart and ways you can prevent it from happening. 

As with the human body, monitoring and benchmarking your dental practice's vital signs can alert you to weakened operating systems, work culture dysfunctions, threatening trends, and money leaks. 

Thanks to your practice’s commitment to consistently utilizing Patient-Oriented, Best Practice Operating Systems, your team made it safely to first base. Then, after installing regular team meetings, report-driven Morning Huddles, and a powerful Annual Retreat - and improving communication throughout - you made a solid base hit to second. What leadership tools need to be used now in order to reach third base and, ultimately, home?

This month, we’re playing baseball, specifically, leadership baseball. You, the dentist, are the owner of this team, which we will call, “Team D” (for dental). You purchased Team D with a boat-load of money, time, and sweat by graduating dental school and purchasing or buying into a dental practice. Those decisions are what launched you into this game of leadership baseball.

The most effective team structure for a dental practice is a self-managed team structure. Why? In dentistry, the dentist-leader is the business's primary income producer. If the dentist-leader is not doing dentistry, the business is losing money. Over time, the stress of dealing with a dysfunctional team structure and being the number one producer will result in professional burn-out.

We started the year with a blog about the infamous “bad apple” employee; next we tackled how to avoid hiring a “bad apple” employee; and now, after following our effective Concepts Hiring System, we have a new employee, who is excited, energetic, a little nervous, and eager to learn. This is the point, right after hiring a new employee, when so many leaders (and not just in dentistry!) make two key mistakes.

You can spot disengaged dental employees a mile away. Research giant Gallup has found that globally, 85% of employees are disengaged in the workplace, and they under perform as a result. The dental industry is not immune! Your practice is not immune!

Scheduling is one of the most important elements of your practice. It is intimately tied to your profits, stress level, and patient satisfaction, yet I see practice after practice allowing their schedule to reduce their income, create work chaos, and drive patients away.

First coined by the philosopher Aristotle, the phrase “a whole is greater than a sum of its parts” still has a lot of relevance in this day in age. This is the basis behind the idea of teamwork. If the full dental team isn’t working in synergy your practice isn’t going to be as effective, efficient or run as smoothly as it could, or should, be.

In business school, the mantra they pounded into my head was, “exceed your customers’ (patients’) expectations every single time.” It seems obvious and a no-brainer, but it is much easier said than done. Why? Today’s dental patients are very different from patients even five or ten years ago. There are three core trends that are changing expectations of the dental patient.

Most dental practices know it is critical to have HIPAA dental team training meetings on a yearly basis. Although, many practices don’t talk about it much beyond that. Ongoing reminders throughout the year at team meetings can help keep HIPAA regulations on top of mind for everyone, which can help prevent compliance situations.

Many small business owners, including dentists, make business decisions on instinct. They have so much on their plate they don’t always slow down to document their decisions and processes. This appears to work on a day-by-day basis, but long-term it can cause a multitude of problems. Systemization can release you from management responsibilities and allow you to focus on your patients.