By Debra Engelhardt-Nash
Charlotte, NC

When hiring new employees most dental professionals think their work is done. They might have a training protocol for new hires but if you’re really focused on creating a team of Ideal Employees you want to retain them long-term and see them as integral parts of the success of your practice.

Feedback

A study at Harvard University found that the best-motivated people like to have clear-cut objectives before them. This study also determined that people will stay constantly motivated with “accomplishment feedback” – a continuous sense of satisfaction in their ability to meet short-term goals. It is important to design a training protocol that provides a progression of objectives so that employees can feel the feedback of success. Without it, you may have hired a strong employee who is weakened by lack of intention or direction.

Schedule a 15-minute feedback session for the new team member at the end of each day for the first week of their employment. Ask them “How did it go?” “What went well today?” “Where can we help?” Ask these same questions at the end of the second, third and fourth week.

After thirty, sixty and ninety days, schedule longer feedback sessions and document your comments. Pay attention to these criteria:

• Willingness to Learn – Attitude
• Getting along with co-workers
• Punctuality
• Initiative
• Ability to Adapt
• Professionalism
• Demonstrates interest in practice success.

Retaining Good Employees

According to the book Managing Up, Managing Down by Mary Ann Allison and Eric Allison, there are six keys to retaining good employees:

1. Hire the Best
2. Pay them fairly.
3. Communicate frequently.
4. Provide challenges and rewards.
5. Believe in them.
6. Get out of their way.1

Each of us likes to belong to some group of tightly knit people where we are known and accepted, where we are committed to each other, and where we know that the other members of the group will be loyal to us if we are in trouble. It is the old tribal instinct. If such loyalty develops in a group of employees it has an adhesive effect. People will stay on your team even when they could earn more working for another practice for an important psychological need is being met by their employer – the need to belong.

Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz states: “If people relate to the company that they work for, they will form an emotional tie to it, and buy into its dreams; they will pour their hearts into making it better”.

Your business culture should be a partnership where everyone understands how the business makes a profit. Educate the team about the business and show them how their actions affect productivity. You can do this as you:

     Assign a high value to communication. More often than not, when a group is fractured and people begin to bicker, it is because of misunderstandings and small acts of inconsideration which have escalated into major grievances. One way to head it off is to make sure there are regular opportunities for talk among team. We may not like staff meetings, but as much as we dislike them and as little as they sometimes seem to accomplish, it is very important to give people an opportunity to talk about their activities, ask questions, and test future plans on each other. There is nothing that makes us feel shut out of a group faster than to discover that other members have been informed about a topic when we have been left in the dark. Organizations fracture when information is dispensed primarily by the grapevine.

    Pay attention to what a team member is experiencing in their world. That requires attention, appreciation and affirmation. Employees need to talk and be heard to feel understood. Good morale is never getting lost in the group. We will work more effectively as a team when we are assured that the leader values our individuality.

    Have fun together. Thomas Edison once wrote to a stockholder of his company: “Good business is never done except in a reasonably good humored frame of mind and on a human basis.”2 Plan occasions when you can be away together. A curious thing happens when you take a group of people away from their ordinary surroundings. They become more creative, more open to new ideas, ad they form strong bonds with each other rather quickly. So good leaders often take a day or two with their group at some location where they can cement their relationships, undistracted by regular routines.

    Celebrate Enthusiasm. Effective motivators are enthusiastic – you can’t get a group of people fired up unless you are enthusiastic yourself. Have powerful commitment to your goals and your group. Give them something to believe in.

To retain your employees, be consistent and fair in your management principles. Provide a pleasant work environment and the facility and tools to do the job. Create a team of compatible co-workers and provide opportunities to grow. Recognize performance and offer fair compensation and benefits.

In our age of high- tech advancement it is easy to forget that our failure or success will be determined largely by our ability to work with and assist other people in functioning at their best. There is simply no substitute for the rewards of helping other people grow, teaching other people to succeed and the excitement of organizing a group of colleagues who spark one another’s enthusiasm.

It is not always easy for the doctor to lead a team.. They are, like us, a mixture of bad and the good. If we can reach in a draw out the best from them they will try harder for us than for anyone in the world, and they will accomplish some surprising things.

1 Allison, Mary Ann, Allison, Eric, Managing Up, Managing Down, Simon and Shuster 1986
2 McGinnis, Alan Loy, Bringing Out the Best In People, 1985 Augsburg Publishing

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By Debra Engelhardt-Nash
Charlotte, NC

In dentistry we speak a lot about targeting and attracting our “Ideal Patient”. What about attracting and hiring our “Ideal Employees”? In our previous post in this series, “Hiring and Retaining Ideal Employees”, we talked about “Attracting Your Ideal Employees”. Once you have reached out and attracted and screened potential ideal employees the next step is to meet and interview them in order to make a “you’re hired” decision.

Meeting the Candidate

After the telephone screening, invite the viable candidates to the office to pick up an application. In the meantime, encourage them to look up your practice website to learn more about you, or send them a new patient packet to help them discover who you are. Do not schedule an interview until you have met the applicant. This will help you eliminate unnecessary time allotted to an applicant who does not present professionally, or who doesn’t show up at all.

A prepared resumé does not replace completing your job application. Professional resumé resources may be utilized to present a formal and seemingly thorough job history. Completing your office application allows you to review their attention to detail, their neatness, and provides a comparison of information.

Prior to sitting down for the interview, review the application for accuracy, and job relevancy. Make a note of areas you need to discuss.

Do More Listening and Less Talking

Remember, the applicant is selling you on the idea of hiring them. You are not selling the applicant on the position. The objective of the interview is to learn as much as you can about the candidate. Ask open-ended questions that require thoughtful responses: A few examples are:

• What do you think are the three most important things you do / you did in your current / previous position?
• What did you like most about your previous position?
• How would you handle an irate patient on the telephone?
• What would you say to a patient who complained that our fees are too high?

Do Your Homework

Make notes about your initial reaction. Pay attention to your internal reactions. (How do your gut instincts feel?) Review the application again and check references.

With permission obtained from the applicant, call the previous employer to learn more about the candidate. Be certain to speak to someone with the authority to discuss previous employers. Ask questions that relate only to employment. The most important question is, “Is this person eligible for rehire?”

Invite the final candidates (and there should only be one or two) to visit with the office before officially hiring them. Observe their punctuality, their initiative, and their interaction with the Team. Most importantly, ask yourself, “How did it feel to have them around?”

You’re Hired!

Once you have found your new team member and offered them a position, it’s time to do the paperwork. Review the job description, complete an employment agreement letter and create a personnel file. Compile all legal documents, copies of licenses and emergency contact information. Confirm the new member has read and understands the Office Protocol Manual.

Schedule a time for orientation. There is no such thing as a turnkey employee. Even those with experience need to learn your office standards and regimen. Engage the Team in the new employee’s success by assigning training responsibilities to existing team members.

Reward cooperation. If team players are rewarded, your organization will produce lots of collaboration. Assign responsibility for group morale to the group. Peer pressure is always more successful so impress on the people that part of their job is creating the right mood. That way everyone is accountable for the level of morale in the office.

They’re On the Payroll, Now What?

With thoughtful attraction, interviewing, hiring practices you have a team member who is ready and anxious to get to work and contribute. How do you make sure you effecting train and retain your ideal employees now that they’re on the team? In our next article I’ll share some key tips for retaining your ideal employees, allowing your practice to grow by encouraging personal growth. Click here to read Part 3 of Hiring and Retaining Ideal Employees, “Retaining Your Ideal Employees“.

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By Debra Engelhardt-Nash
Charlotte, NC

One of the most important assets in your company is having the right people on your team. The moment the patient comes in contact with your practice they come in contact with the auxiliaries who work with you – the person answering the telephone, greeting them at the desk, and helping you treat them chairside and in hygiene. At each encounter, your patients are forming opinions about the practice, the dentistry, and the doctor. It is important to hire right and keep thriving employees who help the practice grow and succeed.

What does it take to hire right? And once you have the key employees, what does it take to build and sustain enthusiasm and keep an exceptional team vibrant and effective?

Business Principles and Office Protocols

The best run companies establish high standards of excellence and enforce certain beliefs. Establishing business principles with a devotion to superior performance provides the team much needed direction. In their best selling book In Search of Excellence, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman Jr. write, “the excellent companies are marked by very strong cultures, so strong that you either buy into their norms or get out.” Your standards should never be lowered to merely fill a position. Be certain your practice vision and philosophies are in place. Providing clear standards will determine office protocols. Having clearly defined expectations outlined for team members will facilitate their success in accomplishing office goals.

Having in place business principles and office protocols with well defined training protocols and a system for feedback will insure the right employee will flourish in your practice.

Attracting Ideal Prospects

Using a job description, determine what you are looking for. Will you accept a person with no experience for the position? Be clear about your hiring objectives. List what experience and characteristics you are looking for as you compose your placement ad.

The placement ad should be written to attract top candidates. Avoid abbreviations or ambiguity in the copy. Be specific about number of working days per week you require. List the critical job responsibilities. State what previous experience you are looking for. Post what benefits and compensations you are offering. This will initially screen candidates and entice those who are looking for an exceptional opportunity. Remember that your ad placement is a reflection of your practice and your attitudes toward this position.

Screening Candidates

With the benefits of the internet, many applicants are now applying online. As you review electronic resumés, respond immediately. For those candidates without the proper experience or education, an immediate “No Thank You” saves you time. If you receive an electronic application from a highly potential candidate, an immediate response expedites contacting them for further review.

When you speak with the candidate, pay attention to their telephone “personality.” Make notes about their voice, their phone etiquette, and professionalism. Ask questions such as, “What attracted you to this position?” “What type of office are you looking for?” “Tell me about your previous responsibilities.” “What are your salary requirements?”

If the respondent does not meet your initial criteria, then simply thank them for their call and say “Your qualifications do not match the job requirements” and move on. Save time in asking for all resumés to be submitted and all call-in candidates to come in for an application or interview.

Pay attention to the questions asked by the telephone applicant. If the first question is about payday, be cautious. You are looking for someone who will share your vision.

Once you have attracted potential ideal employees, screened them, and visited with them on the phone you will have narrowed your prospect list down to ”serious contenders” for your practice. Your next step is to meet them in person and make a “you’re hired” decision. Continue this discussion by clicking here to read Part 2 of Hiring and Retaining Ideal Employees, “Meeting, Interviewing, and Hiring your Ideal Employee.”

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Terminating an employee is not a favorite task of most doctors. Some doctors would rather keep a less than desirable employee than face the dread of letting them go. So, the doctor hangs on to an employee he would rather not keep. When this happens, the effectiveness of the team is at risk and the practice suffers.

There are times when a worker is no longer a viable team member – no longer performing to the standards dictated by the practice or abiding by office protocol. There are times when an employee has stopped growing or becomes unresponsive to change or is simply insubordinate. When an employee’s performance or behavior is hindering practice success or undermining team objectives, it is time to dismiss them from employment.

When it’s time to let someone go, following these steps will ease the discomfort for all involved parties, provide opportunity to rekindle practice growth and rebuild team morale.

The employee’s last paycheck should be prepared. If the doctor is going to provide additional compensation (not severance pay), an additional check should be prepared. If COBRA regulations are in effect, a letter explaining continuation of coverage protocol needs to be composed. A letter verifying employment should also be completed. A list of practice property that needs to be returned is prepared for the employee’s review and compliance.

With the exception of the person responsible for personnel administration and payroll, the employee being terminated should be the first one to know. This means not confiding in co-workers or placing a classified advertisement and secretly hiring a replacement prior to the employee’s termination. This has the potential to raise questions by the rest of the team and trust issues may affect team morale.

The termination should be conducted the first thing in the morning. The doctor calls the employee into his private office. The conversation is very brief.

“Susan, I am letting you go. I don’t want to talk about this right now. In this envelope, is your final paycheck. In this envelope I have enclosed another check for the next two weeks, so you can look for other employment on my time. If you would like to discuss this give me a call in the next few weeks, and I would be glad to talk with you then.”

Then, you offer the employee this: “If you would like to tell the staff yourself that would be fine. If you would like me to tell them for you, I would be happy to do so. I am going to ask (the Office Manager or Personnel Coordinator) to help you gather your things and return the office property you have with you.”

The newly terminated employee should not be permitted to walk through the office unescorted. Having an escort assist the employee return the listed items alleviates potential retaliation behavior by the former employee and insures the proper items are returned.

Why not spend time telling the terminated employee what went wrong? If you are not trying to rehabilitate this employee to get back on track and stay employed, their cause for termination is of no consequence. Besides, at this point, the employee is either shocked or hurt, and any advice or criticism will probably not be well received.

By waiting a few weeks to discuss the cause for termination an emotional response by the employee is less likely and the chances of hard feelings lessened.

Another question may be posed, “If I let this person go before I hire her replacement, what do I do about patient treatment, or how will those tasks she was responsible for be handled?”

Consider what you would do if an employee had an emergency or illness that prevented them from working. The office would have to cover that position with little or no notice. The team would pull together to create a solution that would be best for the practice. Retaining a temporary until a permanent replacement is hired may be the best solution, or altering the schedule to make it manageable by the existing team might be the resolution.
Whatever the answer, ask the team to work together to get through the temporary challenge of being short handed. A stronger, more cohesive team may result.

The intention of this article is to offer a non confrontational employee separation. It is not intended to cover legal issues of employee hiring and termination. The value of a strong, responsive dental team is great. Learning how to keep exceptional team members and how to terminate less desirable employees will insure even greater practice success.

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Debra Engelhardt-Nash – Making Meetings Work
We have all attended meetings that were boring, mindless and profoundly ineffective. But meetings don’t have to be a waste of time. Rather, they can be productive if the leader practices these five strategies and gets down to running the meeting instead of being run by it.

1. Introduction
Provide a quick progress update to allow everyone air time in the beginning of the meeting. This helps everyone settle in. What has happened since the last meeting?

2. Ground rules.
Have participants agree on ground rules, or expectations for this particular meeting. These simple rules of the road, not only set the standards, but also are gentle reminders to those who are taking a different road or direction. Some examples are: “One conversation at a time,” or “We will come to consensus on these particular issues,” or “What is said in this room, stays in this room.”

3. Pending agenda.
When a non-agenda issue threatens to take over the discussion, stop the meeting and write, with permission from the group, this new issue on a wall chart called unfinished business. By doing this you acknowledge the item but don’t address it immediately. Pending agenda issues are discussed at the end of the meeting or at a later date.

4. Questions.
To structure an orderly discussion of each agenda item, ask questions that address these facets of an issue: What are the facts? What are the pros and the cons? What other options are there? Where should the decision be made…at the management level or by the entire group? What might be the next steps?

5. Breaks.
People work better for longer periods of time when they are able to take short breaks, no longer than 5 or 10 minutes. Breaks are a good time to get feedback on the progress of the meeting or talk with people who have been antagonistic, disruptive, or unusually silent. It’s better to take a break, take the pulse, and regroup then to doggedly push on despite a sense that the meeting is getting out of hand.

THE PAY-OFF

Having a good meeting that accomplishes progress is critical in keeping the team focused and enthusiastic. It gives the team a sense of community and allows for better work flow.

The meeting needs to include the answer to the questions “What’s in it for them?” and “What is the purpose of this change or this plan?” The doctor is responsible for creating the reason why the team “buys in” to the goals, and the reasons for change. The process of gaining acceptance is as important as the plan itself. Otherwise, the team will see change as extra effort with no incentive. If you want the involvement and support of the team, they need to be connected to the plan and their personal reward.

This does not necessarily mean more money. There could be other incentives that are more important to the group. It may be better teamwork, or a planned retreat as a group. It could be creating a less stressful day. The more benefits for change that are outlined during the meeting, the more energized the team will be.

Your investment in planning a good meeting following the “Do’s and Don’ts” outlined here will generate a positive impact on your team. Your team meetings will be anticipated with excitement instead of dread. You will create action rather than anxiety. Your meetings will be pertinent, to the point and purposeful. Everyone will feel the difference. Doctor, Team and Patient.

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Okay, so this isn’t a clinical article. It isn’t even about treatment presentation skills or chairside efficiency. But the information will have an impact on the daily activities in your office and your practice productivity.

My years in-office consulting has given me the privilege to observe many offices. I have the honor of working with outstanding clinicians and talented team members. In my experience, the most successful
practices combine exceptional leadership and dedicated auxiliaries. By providing opportunities for growth with ongoing training and ever-improving systems, these practices seem to soar effortlessly. But, this all doesn’t happen by chance or luck. It requires vision and dedication, strategic planning and communication. There must be time away from the chair to accomplish these.

“Away from the chair” is not the favorite place in the office for most dentists. Business planning, facilitating team meetings, or working through personnel issues places many dentists in a zone of discomfort. Sometimes, in addition to giving advice about how to run things well, it can be useful to add a hit list to help you identify when things are less than productive. Meetings can be hugely productive, especially if you avoid these Ten meeting busters:-

1. No Agenda

When there is no agenda, there is no opportunity to prepare, no framework for the meeting and no purpose. When this happens a lot, there is a tendency for falling into number 5 below.

2. Wrong people there

Ever been to a meeting where there was no logical purpose for you to be there? Meeting time is valuable so it is important for efficiency and effectiveness that as few people attend as purposeful. People should appreciate that non-attendance at a particular meeting is OK and get used to it. There are times in the practice for all team meetings and times to break the team into smaller focus groups to create a faster and more effective change in certain areas of the practice.

3. Overrun

Those times when you sit in a meeting and watch your life slip away, are those that happened with poor meeting management. Nothing is accomplished. The same items continue to be hashed out with no resolution. There is nothing worse than lack of follow through and no accountability.

4. No discipline

Some meeting participants do not know how to behave. These are things about them and their ego, lack of self-confidence and poor behavior (outside the meeting too) that is destructive to meeting progress. Lack of courtesy, understanding and space for others to say their piece is inexcusable and not constructive for any outcomes.

5. The Leader Leads

Here the meeting is at the beck and call of the leader or chair who really is holding court for themselves. This sort of meeting is supposed to appear that there is a democracy present, but there is nothing of the sort. This is a rubber-stamping meeting and is of little or no value. This is when a decision has been reached and the team needs to be informed. The same information can be provided in a memo or brief announcement.

6. The Leader Doesn’t Lead

Here there is free-for-all, with no leadership from the chair. Poor behaviors, timekeeping and no outcomes riddle this sort of meeting, with no measurable results and frayed-tempered, frustrated people. The team wonders why they showed up. The doctor wonders why he or she didn’t prep some teeth in the same time allotted.

7. Environment

Too hot, too cold, no water, no breaks, too big, too small. Have you ever been in one of those meetings? And aren’t they awful, so awful in fact that you can’t do your best. This is a meeting where the organizers do not respect the participants.

8. Nothing Happens

A lovely chat, a few disagreements and ‘see you next month’. This is the nice-to-have meeting which does nothing and goes nowhere.

9. Side-tracked/New Stuff

With an agenda, people know what the meeting will be about – or will they? Even with the best agenda, weak processes tend to leave room to new issues, side-tracking and wasted time. This is solvable with effort from the facilitator.

10. No Review and Growth

Meetings come and go and can be awful. They are unproductive, boring, overrun and people are there who shouldn’t be. If there is no review of just how good or bad the meeting has been, there will be no improvement. The leader/facilitator can add in meeting feedback as the first agenda item and stick to it – tough at first but gets easier.

Step by step, you can work, with a facilitator or not, to unravel just what needs to change. You will make a big difference, not only to meetings and how productive they are, but also to your capacity to build great relationships with the people who show up.

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