Motivate Your Employees
One of the biggest motivators that is commonly overlooked in the workplace is why they are there. Unite your workforce behind a common goal—whether that is providing the best service possible to your dental patients or cultivating a sense of family and inclusion in the workplace. A shared purpose will increase employee engagement and improve employee retention.
Recruit People Who Are Qualified for Their Job
Additionally, make sure you are recruiting people who are qualified for the job. When hiring, you may be tempted to give the position to a family friend or someone you know. However, this can be detrimental to your dental practice. Taking the time to go through a recruiter or hiring service to find the right candidate can pay off in spades down the road.
Listen to Employees’ Ideas and Take Their Feedback Seriously
A key characteristic of any good boss is that they listen to their employees and take feedback seriously. When an employee shares an idea about how the practice is run or how things can be improved, be willing to listen to that idea and give it reasonable consideration. This is imperative for boosting employee morale, making employees feel valued and included and improving your practice.
Having this feeling of openness and inclusion will encourage employees to work harder for your business because they will have their ideas and input invested in the company, as well. If you want to learn more about this methodology, we recommend checking out the book, “Start with Why.”
One of the most famous quotes about this comes from Sir Richard Branson:
“If you look after your staff they will look after your customers. It’s that simple.”
This quote rings true. If you make sure your staff is happy and working in a safe, enjoyable workplace, then that energy will be passed along to your patients as they enter your practice. To emphasize the extreme impact that not listening to your employees can have on your practice, take the following example into consideration:
A new patient comes into your office and is greeted begrudgingly by your dental admin. They sign in and sit down to wait to be called back. As they wait, they notice the dental assistant looking at the clock and sighing every five minutes. Clearly, they do not enjoy working here.
The patient starts to feel uneasy. They get called back for their appointment, get their teeth cleaned, visit with you—all the while, they’re wondering how you must treat your employees for them to be so miserable here.
They leave the office after their appointment and vow never to return to that uneasy experience again. And if they had a horrible first interaction with your dental admin, they may even decide to go online and leave a negative review for all to see.
This sounds bad, but did you know this is a common occurrence in the medical field? Whether this happens at a dental practice, doctor’s office or optometrist’s office, these experiences can leave a bad taste in people’s mouths and encourage them to seek treatment elsewhere. And while this may be a result of just a bad fit for your practice, it can sometimes be caused by poor employee morale at your office.
Contract Out When Necessary
Finally, don’t be afraid to hire a contractor! If you aren’t sure how to do something or don’t have the skills on your team to do it, then outsource the project. You can prevent burnout of great employees by letting them focus on what they were specifically hired to do.
There are a couple of important tasks dentists should consider outsourcing if they don’t have the time to commit to them:
1. Dental Marketing
As we’ve learned over the years in this industry, many dental offices don’t have a lot of time to market and advertise their businesses. Most dental offices are too busy taking care of their patients to constantly monitor social media accounts or figure out ways to rank higher in search engines, even though these activities are vital to their success.
Don’t be afraid to outsource this work. There are a lot of qualified, affordable marketing companies that can help you manage this work so your employees can focus their time and energy on treating and serving your patients.
2. In-House Dental Plan Management
Another daunting task many dental practice employees are tasked with is setting up an in-house dental plan to help serve patients who need financial help affording their dental treatment.
This is a good thing to offer as a dental practice, and we’re all for it! Creating and managing these plans can be more work than the dentist and their assistants may have time to do, though. Here at Launch Loyalty, we have all of that covered:
- We help dental practices set up an in-house plan that is catered to their practice.
- We check the plans for compliance issues and make sure it is compliant with state laws.
- We manage member accounts and payment plans through our secure software.
We want to make it as easy as possible for you to sign up, build and launch your plan straight away. If you want to learn more about Launch Loyalty, or build your own plan today, visit our website.
Have more questions about how to retain employees for your dental practice? Leave your questions in the comment section below!
