I am a dentist. I felt strongly that half my staff was against me (4 of 7 employees). So I fired them. I inherited them when I bought my business a few years ago. I am very ethical but I do care about gross revenue (as any owner should). They never fully embraced caring about revenue production or understanding that bonus pay is tied to profitability. Nonetheless, I feel it is a failing on my part as a leader that they as a group were not on my team. What can I do as a small business owner to display better leadership and engender better office morale. I should mention that I pay above market wages, have better benefits than market competitors, work with my employees to satisfy the number of hours they need and I run a schedule that is very predictable 8-5 with a lunch and we do not deviate. Further, we take great care of our patients and the staff never has to worry about patient satisfaction or quality of care. Thank you for your input.
I never want to think about my dentist. At all.
I want a nice calm, happy, cheerful office to visit every 6 months. I like to see people there who generally don’t want things to change. Don’t rock the boat.
Staff that doesn’t care about your business is normal. You have the 20% that do and the 80% that see it as a paycheck even if it causes the business to go under.
The key is making sure the 20% stay and keep cycling through the 80% until you find staff that semi-care.
I can tell you benefits, pay, etc mean very little in the grand scheme of employee apathy.
Sad but true.
I’m assuming this is a troll post because of the strange tone, but in the unlikely event that’s it’s not, firing half the staff at once is indicative of a complete failure of leadership.
Biggest challenge for us were inherited staff, we tried go work with them, increase pay, catered to them. In the end they still talk shit about it. They lasted 4 months, best thing that happened to us. We now have a whole new staff, that is on our team.
You did the right thing. You will find your team once all the old are gone
First - your assertion that you pay above market and are better than everyone else in your market is a massive red flag. What evidence supports this? Second - your misunderstanding of small office politics is showing. Small practice is its own special beast and bitchiness, sparring, drama etc are exceptionally difficult to keep under control. You have to hire for team fit FIRST, fit with you is second. Third- what are these great revenue generating methods these terrible employees refused to do? If they’re out of the Knox or against norms you need to make believers of the staff before simply demanding they follow your orders. Setting a course and demanding fellowship is an absolutely certain way to ruin. You have to inspire and get buy-in, and that means accepting feedback and adjusting on the fly.
Honestly - it seems like you believe yourself more clever than your peers and firing half your staff will on breed fear and loathing from those who remain.
I have been reading the 21 laws of leadership by John C. Maxwell. One of the laws that pops out at me is the law of addition. Leaders should serve others and make a positive impact. Did you understand their needs and desires? You need to in order to add value in a positive and meaningful way. This goes beyond a fair wage and hours. Often times when a team fails, businesses fire the managers. However, Maxwell believes in rehabilitation. I haven’t read the whole book yet but in my opinion if the team isn’t following the leader it is likely an issue with leadership. This is your failure and you can’t blame anyone else. You need to be accountable or you’ll violate another rule: the law of navigation which involves reflect on past experience to over come current challenges and predict conflict.
I think you should read self help books. There’s so many good ones. It’s changed the way I thought and it can help you too.
Book smart only goes so far. You just gave generic self-help fluff here.
Goes way farther than not-smart…
It’s so funny how the owners that come here with staff who hate them all claim to be paying top of the market with amazing benefits and they’re a really great place to work. Real epidemic of amazing jobs with wonderful bosses (according to the boss of course) filled with disconsolate malcontents.
Funny. Job I applied to wanted to bring me in as a director. Best pay in the industry. Best benefits, etc. The owners take it in big time. I was offered a lousy 50k.
I inherited two employees years ago. As it turned out, one had just hung on because she burned up her coworker every 5 years. I gave the problem employee the option of quitting on her own terms, or being fired. She quit in a huff and she hasn’t been able to find an office than can put up with her since. She tried bad mouthing the company to everyone and sunder but, really, she had made so many people in the very small industry where my company sits hate her that her words didn’t held water.
Almost all posts here that involve a statement about wages claim they are paid above market. It’s amazing!
I never believe any small business owner paying well because it’s nearly impossible to pay well unless you’ve struck gold somehow.
And as if that’s the be-all and end-all that should make employees 100% onboard with spending their time doing things for the business which are not in their contracts and not things that employees do.
I take it that you’re not an employer.
I am and OP is wrong. This whole thing reeks of “you should be happy I’m your employer” attitude rather than trying to meet the expectations and needs of your staff. Sure sometimes that’s not possible but he’s done little to explain why his business is good to work for and more complaining about how ungrateful his employees were.
Terrible leadership, and inability to listen about his faults.
I take it you are an employer that will soon be out of business.
OP inherited a practice a couple years ago and hasn’t noticed that everything has gone up. Those fired employees are going to be in their same jobs at different practices making current pay very soon.
I didn’t inherit the business. I bought it for more than a million dollars 4 years ago. And all of the employees have gotten raises in the neighborhood of 60% as a percent of the wages when I purchased the business in 2019.
So, poor assumptions on your part
Read your own post. You actually used the word inherited to describe the people that were already there when you bought the place.
I wasn’t attacking you for a perceived degree of privilege, but for your lack of engagement and, as you correctly saw it, leadership.
The day you bought the practice, they became your people. If four years later you feel they’re against you, that’s on you.
And you did them a favor by cutting them loose.
Another correlation is that those owners claim to be taking responsibility and want advice, but any advice that implies they might be doing anything wrong is immediately shot down defensively. And they also always refuse to actually post any hard numbers.
Stop saying above average and actually put down real numbers if the average market is under $20/hr and you only pay $20 that really isn’t great pay
I second this. Where are you geographically, what’s cost of living, what are you paying in dollars, do you do bonuses tied to profit, what’s your time off paid policy, 401k/403b matching, short and long term disability, what are your health benefits? The idea of “we’re market competitive or above average” doesn’t matter if everyone pays crap wages. Even huge raises don’t matter if the pay was far below what it should have been for the past decade.
Also ask yourself if there’s some policy you’ve got that’s particularly harmful or obnoxious to staff. There are non compensation related policies I’ve dealt with at work that are unsafe, harm my home life, or are significantly stress inducing daily. Things like mandatory overtime, making it impossible to take vacation, holding me hours over my end of shift for dumb stuff.
As a worker I find it hard to believe any workplace with truly excellent compensation packages, good work environment and good flexible time off can’t retain staff.
You aren’t coming off as someone who I would want to be my dentist, no offense.
They never fully embraced caring about revenue production.
I know you are trying your hardest to make this sound not scummy, but it sounds scummy.
The moment you detract from 100% patient care and need and start focusing on revenue production you are just another scum bag medical office like all the rest offering “suggestions” that you present as medical necessities.
Have you tried treating your employees like people? Maybe try some transparency. Let them know how much is being made and how it directly ties into your bonus structure. Tell them the truth about how everything works
I didn’t have time to read everything so if this was mentioned I apologize, but if you let half your staff go then the ones you kept are now nervously checking their exit opportunities
Hire someone as an office manager, set expectations for what you want, and let them hire the team. Set goals and attainable objectives for the office manager. Then let them do their job. You’re likely pretty methodical and disciplined. Good for a doctor - BAD for managing people and business performance. I’m not kidding. Delineate roles and responsibilities if you want to be successful.
I’ve worked in dentistry for 13 years. I started as a dental receptionist and after going back to school I am now one of the dental hygienists.
After reading some of your comments, it seems like your office goals and expectations are not clear for staff. Who are the staff you fired? Dental front office? Dental assistants? How are they against you?
You have to set clear expectations for each staff members, from front office to back office, so that they all know what are the tasks they are to complete as part of their job description, that way you can use that information to assess their performance during employee reviews.
I would love to talk to you in greater detail to share what has worked and hasn’t worked in offices over the time I’ve worked in dentistry. Both from an administrative and clinical perspective. Send me a message if you wish.
I’ve had two dentists that seemed focus on production, rather than patients (or patience). They are strong Type A workaholics with demanding/exacting standards. They seem nice, but can get critical of their staff even in front of the patient. And I’m kind of person who notices when someone is rude to waiters and servers at restaurants.
One of them had a lot of that because he was a young dentist who bought a practice (comes with a lot of debt, and had a spendy wife and acrimonious relationship). He couldn’t keep an office manager, or hygienist, or dental tech/assistant for long.
The other was older, and his wife’s kindness and politeness helped reduce his attitude and made for workers who tended to stay long term. He had two office managers and his wife also worked as one, so their load was easier. They were strictly 8AM to 5PM, with an hour for lunch and not open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He was more established and likely had paid off all debt long ago.
I don’t know you, but I’m hoping you’re not the first.
Set each individual aside and have a personal 1 on 1 meeting with them with doors closed. Ask them a few questions about their personal lives, what they would love to do on the weekends or if they have travel plans, worried about family, etc. Make it your goal to try and help them in any way you can. Maybe they simply want some time off or more hours, more pay, etc.
Put a box in the office, make it 100% anonymous, ask them personally what can be improved or what they would love to see. Maybe its a bad coworker, maybe its how you speak to them (you need to follow before you lead), maybe its the parking, pay scale, maybe its you driving a Mercedes when thry can barely scratch food on the table, etc. Having a pizza party will not raise morale, benefits or change will.
Do take this seriously.