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 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
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.
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.