Ensuring you make great hires begins with a clear picture of what you need in an employee, both now and in the future. This clarity helps you evaluate each candidate against an ideal standard based on your practice's makeup and values rather than just settling for the least bad option.
Seize the opportunity when an employee departs to reflect on their job performance. This moment can serve as a catalyst for reevaluating the role and identifying a candidate who better aligns with the practice's needs. The exit interview with the departing employee can be a rich source of information to help you understand what you are looking for in the new hire.
Take the time to find out:
While you may need to take some of the employee's feedback with a grain of salt (I always put more stock into high performers' answers), it serves as a valuable starting point for considering the key attributes you desire in a new hire. Furthermore, it presents an opportunity to reevaluate your processes and explore ways to streamline or enhance them. When you ask these questions, be sure to follow up with prompts like "Tell me more," "Can you elaborate further?" This encourages deeper insights and helps you gather more comprehensive information.
Whenever someone departs, it's important to evaluate the practice not just from where it is today but where it can be in the future. Oftentimes, we have incrementally grown, and when someone key to the practice departs, it gives you the opportunity to envision an ideal future. If you could wave a magic wand, what would the practice look like, and what would the team that supports it look like? Determine if the role you're hiring for can be adapted into your future plans and whether you should accelerate your future plans by using this opportunity to hire key people.
Since you are already thinking about the roles in your practice, this is an opportunity to look at your practice and envision its future. The needs of a four-operatory, one-doctor office differ significantly from a ten-operatory practice with two associates and plans for expansion. As your practice grows, you might have to consider new roles, such as a lead assistant, to help manage your growing headcount. You may also realize the need to invest in extra people ahead of
Armed with one eye on the future and one anchored in the past, it is time to define the job requirements clearly. For instance, if you're hiring a dental assistant, start by outlining the fundamental tasks they’ll need to perform regularly. In a smaller practice, they are more likely to be a jack of all trades; this could range from making temporaries to ordering materials. In a larger practice, they might specialize in a key area (on top of their chairside responsibilities), such as having one person responsible for doing all the ordering. What they do can affect your hiring plan, as you may need to prioritize certain traits or experiences over others during the interviewing process.
The key here is to list all the fundamental tasks the person would do and then think about how crucial each fundamental task is to keep the practice running. This will help you to weigh certain experiences over others in the hiring process.
Once you have the job requirements, consider the competencies needed for success in your practice. This is the human factor we talk about. These are the skills and abilities that make an ideal employee, generally the personal attributes or soft skills you need the person to possess. It's essential to beef up this section to emphasize its importance.
For example:
These competencies are particularly important because they are some of the hardest things to teach. For example, teaching someone how to set up a room for a crown prep is easier than teaching emotional intelligence to handle patient escalations. It can be easy to have this list get out of control as the ideal employee would have many wonderful attributes, but you need to get the list down to the top four or five as it is impossible to interview for a laundry list of traits.
Finally, list any special requirements important to your practice. For example, a practitioner I know only hires team members who live within 30 minutes of the practice. His experience has shown that while people might initially be willing to drive an hour, they often leave for closer jobs after a few months. Additionally, this practitioner incentivizes employees to ensure that they drive referrals, making sure they feel a sense of ownership and responsibility for the practice. Finding team members who live nearby naturally brought in additional patients, as their social groups were generally within a reasonable distance of the practice. They are rewarded for being ambassadors in the community, bringing in new patients and ensuring they are welcomed warmly. Finding team members close to the practice who can contribute to this dynamic is crucial.
The key to all of this is to understand there are trade-offs. The more requirements you put in place, the harder it will be to find a perfect candidate who will meet all the criteria. However, if you can identify the key attributes, you can find someone who meets all your non-negotiables. Then it will be up to you to train the skills they don’t have.
Turnover is inevitable in any dental practice, but it can be viewed as an opportunity for growth and improvement rather than just a challenge. This article guides you through a framework to make the most of turnover moments by reflecting on job performance, assessing current and future practice needs, and defining clear job requirements and key competencies.
Key points covered include:
By taking these steps, you can ensure that your hiring process aligns with your practice's goals and values, ultimately building a capable, cohesive team that provides exceptional patient care.
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