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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Almost all posts here that involve a statement about wages claim they are paid above market. It’s amazing!
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 never believe any small business owner paying well because it’s nearly impossible to pay well unless you’ve struck gold somehow.
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.