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Are You a Good Boss?
The most important element in building a successful dental practice isn’t your skill as a dentist. It isn’t even your business acumen. The most important element in a successful dental practice is your skill as a boss. Your patients will spend much more time interacting with your staff than they will with you. That’s how it should be. Your time is more valuable to the business than anyone else’s.
But, if you aren’t doing a good job of training your staff, cultivating a positive work culture, and encouraging an atmosphere of innovation, you’re business growth will be limited. Dentists who are poor managers have higher staff turnover rates, lower patient retention rates, and struggle to increase the value of their practice.
How to be a Better Boss
The good news is that you can learn to be a better manager. The first step is recognizing that you are the leader of the business. When it comes to your staff, you need to think less like a dentist and more like a CEO.
The three most important things you can do today to be a more effective leader in your practice are:
1. Improve your hiring practices
2. Invest in the training of your staff
3. Build a positive workplace culture
Hire the Right People
Too many dentists either rush through the hiring process or delegate it to a staff member or staffing agency.
This is your business, and every person you employ is a reflection on you. You cannot afford to hire the wrong people. Every hiring mistake you make increases your costs. You will lose additional time and money when you have to replace an employee. You may even lose patients because of a poor hire. You also risk damaging your reputation in the community, making it harder to hire good people.
When you are hiring for any position on your staff, you need to look for more than just the technical requirements of the job. You want to hire someone who will be a good fit with you and the rest of the staff. OmniStar can help you design a hiring process that improves your chances of attracting top talent that you will be proud to call a team member.
Invest in Your People
When you invest in training your staff, your staff will perform better. This is not only because they will have the skills to succeed, but also because they see that you care enough to invest in them.
You need to invest in the training every new hire and in providing continuing education training for more established employees. Part of the training your employees need is how to train other employees. And don’t forget, every employee must be fully trained on any software your practice uses.
Build a Positive Workplace Culture
You may feel like building a workplace culture is too much work. The truth is you already have a workplace culture. Every business has one. But, if you don’t take steps to make the culture at your practice is a positive one, you may be surprised to discover your employees don’t like coming to work.
If you have hired the right people and are investing in their training, you are already most of the way to having a positive workplace culture.
The other two critical elements are making sure everyone is accountable for their actions, and that your staff can make mistakes.
These two may seem contradictory. But, you actually increase accountability by allowing your people to make mistakes.
Consider which is worse, a staff member making a mistake and keeping it a secret out of fear of being fired, or a staff member acknowledging a mistake and working to correct their mistake, with help if needed.
As you invest more time in becoming a better boss, you will find it is easier to hire and keep the best people. You will also find your patients like you and your practice more.
Being a better boss can create an upward spiral that makes your dental practice more profitable and a more pleasant place to work.
Do you need help with your dental practice management? See how OmniStar Financial can help you better manage the business aspects of your practice so you can focus on your patients and the life you deserve.
