Hiring, Training and Paying for “Simply the Best”
Amy Morgan, CEO
W hat scares a new dentist more than delivering dentistry on your first, real paying patient? From the frantic phone calls we receive daily - it’s hiring, training and supporting your first real employees. Let’s face it - dental school just doesn’t give you an opportunity to practice the skills necessary to find the right team members, let alone train and compensate them for ideal performance. The truth is, it’s not merely the quality of your dentistry that will make you a successful professional; it’s your highly-motivated, skilled dental team that delivers the care and service that will bring patients to your door! So how do you go about putting together a team that exceeds expectations?
Hiring
Don’t be tentative and just trust your intuition when hiring “Simply the Best.” The first thing to recognize is that your new dental practice is very much like your very own private party. This means that you get to decide the guest list (patients and team) - and you don’t have to invite just everyone. I only work with people I like, respect and who can deliver excellence. Why settle for anything less? In fact, hiring always reminds me of the old Star Kist commercial in which Charlie the Tuna is perennially sent away with the exclamation, “Sorry, Charlie, only good-tasting tuna get to be Star Kist!” The same thing applies to your hiring: Only the best-tasting tuna should get to join your team. So here is some bait to lure them to your net.
Your Want Ad
Contrary to popular text messaging lingo, using abbreviations in your job ad only makes perspective applicants think you’re cheap, since you don’t spend enough time or money to even spell out the words! To show you expect to invest in your team, spell out everything you want to say, including the job title; a brief summary of the skills, abilities and attitudes required for the position; and a little something about the vision, values and culture of your practice (AKA “your party”):
“If you want to love coming to work, then join our team of dedicated professionals. We seek a self-directed appointment coordinator who will appreciate our high-quality, patient-centered dental practice. Prefer 1-3 years of customer service experience with excellent verbal skills as well as organization and computer skills.” Some dental/ medical experience is a plus.
Notice the ad is focused more on the softer skills than clinical, technical skills. I always say hire for attitude and train for competence. An effective ad written with the soft stuff will result in your phone ringing with excellent prospects wanting to swim into your fishing net! Place your ad not only on the Internet (e.g., Craig’s List) but give the local community newspaper, dental society newsletters and dental association bulletin boards a try. We also recommend asking your patients, colleagues and friends for referrals. Eagles always refer eagles.
Interviewing
Because advertising on the Internet brings so many broadcast replies, it’s important to use telephone screening to pre-qualify applicants prior to meeting them. Ask a few questions to observe the applicant’s communication skills and to give you an indication of basic skills, talents and abilities to perform the key tasks of the position. For example, “What made you respond to our ad?” “What prior experiences match the outcomes and results of this position?” Or, “What are the most important things you’re looking for in your next position?” Do not make the mistake of zeroing in on strictly technical questions - learn about the person first! Also, never discuss the specifics of salary over the phone, but do confirm the dollar range you intend to offer and the working hours. If the candidate is only interested in money – than you may not be looking at the right tuna.
After you have a group of screened candidates, it’s time to meet each one for face-to-face interviews. Here’s where you get to learn about their skills and experience in depth. The key to obtaining this information is asking open-ended questions that inspire the candidate to do most of the talking. If you hear yourself doing most of the talking, you’re not finding out enough about the candidate! Some suggested questions to help you probe deeper:
Question 1: What excites you most about the prospect of working in our dental practice?
Question 2: What key skills do you already have that could apply to this position?
Question 3: What challenges have you had in your past positions that you would like to have help with?
Question 4: What skills and traits are you most proud of?
Question 5: How would past co-workers describe you?
Remember that attitude and personality traits always trump perfect dental experience. A candidate unwilling to be vulnerable and talk about their strengths and challenges, is someone who may not be willing to grow and change with your practice.
Once you have team members on board, we recommend that they too are involved in the hiring process of other employees. This invests the entire staff in your new hire’s success and creates a synergistic work force.
When you have a final candidate, be sure to conduct a reference check before you hire them. Don’t be tempted to skip this step just because you’re sure this person is “the one.” Too many dentists fail to check references only to get rude awakenings about their perfect person after they’ve been hired. Avoid problems by calling not just the names that the prospect gives but also their former employers. If you encounter former employers who are tight-lipped, their silence in response to your questions can be telling.
Training for the Best
The problem with hiring quality team members is that once they come on board, they expect a well put together job description and a training plan to coach them to be the best. Just like a fresh tuna needs a great recipe to taste delicious, a team member requires a training recipe to be excellent. So, once a new team member is on board the next priority is to TRAIN! A well crafted training plan clarifies job responsibilities and expectations, prioritizes tasks, offers resources (team members and materials for the trainee to consult as needed), as well as identifies the outcomes that the new team member will be accountable for, so it’s easy to benchmark success.
Of everything just listed, the key step is to set very specific priorities. For example, the job description for a dental assistant might list 65 tasks, but you’ll want to make clear that greeting patients as soon as they enter the operatory is a higher priority and supports the practices vision and goals more than making coffee. Without your setting the priorities, staff members will set their own, generally selecting those tasks they feel most comfortable doing for the top spot. This can result in difficulties, such as in the case of a patient sitting in the reception area for 40 minutes without being acknowledged while the new staff member filed insurance documents (a true story).
After you identify the priorities, diagnose the training needs by examining the knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes that the new team member already possesses versus what is lacking and needs to be learned. This will be the baseline for the individual’s training plan.
The last step of the training plan is to create benchmarks by which the new team member can demonstrate increasing mastery of tasks and skills, with you and your designated team trainers giving feedback to measure the person’s progress. For example, if you are training a new assistant to take X-rays, the training plan would include having the trainee: 1) observe you or your designated team trainer performing the task, then 2) take X-rays with supervision and feedback, and finally, 3) master the art of taking X-rays without supervision.
Pay With Pride
The final step to keeping your tuna nourished and fresh is to create an environment that acknowledges success and rewards results. The leader’s job is to provide continuous feedback to the team and to create a dynamic compensation model that is tied to the practice’s financial health and acknowledges each individual’s contribution to the growth of the practice. Too often the only significant feedback a team member gets is on what is wrong and needs correction. It is vital for employees to know what they are doing right and why it is of value to the practice and how they will be rewarded as a result. The dangling carrot philosophy of providing a generic, ”one-size-fits-all” reward system never works long term and can create a lot of stress for both the team and the doctor. Instead, merit-based compensation allows each individual to know what is needed by their leader in any given year and be valued for exceeding expectations.
Your compensation models need to be based on three irrefutable stone tablet laws:
Compensation must be competitive with the market place. That means that you pay a hygienist like a hygienist - not an astro-physicist. It is vital to stay with in the bandwidth of wages and benefits that your colleagues are paying. The higher the wage the higher the level of excellence to be expected from the team member. That said, there is no one way to discover if your wages are competitive but some methods include researching the Internet; asking colleagues; talking to your team; and investigating other want ads.
Compensation must be affordable. This is essential, because if the practice isn’t growing then the team cannot grow. If increases in wages don’t come from profit than the only other place is the dentist’s pocket. (And that’s not fair, nor viable.) Your team needs to know what the benchmarks are for profitability – production, collections, and expense norms. They then need to understand how wage increases come about as an outcome of practice growth.
Compensation must be based on DEMONSTRATED skills and abilities. Just like the line, “Show me the money!” from the movie Jerry McGuire, your line is, “Show me the skill, and I’ll show you the money.” The only recognized salary increase is one of merit. If a team member wants to make more they need to excel.
Following these procedures for hiring, training and compensating for the best will result in a team that feels competent, valued, and motivated to strive to do more. Leadership is the essential element to prosper in any and all times. As Walt Disney said, “You can dream, create and design the most wonderful place in the world but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” You desire success. To achieve that, look no further than your deserving tuna. ■
Amy Morgan is CEO of Pride Institute, the practice management firm helping dentists master the business side of their practices. She teaches Pride’s renowned management curriculum at five of the nation’s leading dental schools. For information on Amy’s lively seminars on management, leadership, and her newest program on the new patient experience with co-instructor Dr. Gary DeWood, clinical director of Pankey Institute, call (800) 925-2600 or visit www.prideinstitute.com. Be sure to ask for Pride’s 50-percent discount on seminar tuition, available to dental students. Also, order Pride’s popular training video and workbook, “How to Hire Quality Employees,” which contains all the information you need to guide you through this important process.
