Belonging Beats Burnout

Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
you have got to do everything that you can to keep your good employees. Dan Clark is famous for saying, if they come for money, they’ll leave for money. And so I don’t think that money is your key differentiator. It’s all these other things. So we’ve used the word retention for a long time. Lately, I’ve been using and enjoying the term belonging because I think belonging is kind of a deeper word with that.

00:28
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management and training.

00:38
Welcome to dental all-stars. I’m Eric Vickery, president of coaching at All-Star Dental Academy. And I’m excited today to interview our guest, Alan Twigg, my friend, Alan Twigg, president of Bent Erickson, an HR company in dentistry, as you probably know. He’s a trusted partner of Bent Erickson, a trusted partner of All-Star Dental Academy, of course. You know, that’s why they’re on here. We’ve already, we already know Bent Erickson knows their stuff when it comes to HR and dentistry. And so today.

01:04
We’re just going to talk about HR in dentistry in today, how, how he sees it. Uh, what, what’s, what’s new, what’s important keeping good team members, the fight for that and all things team. So welcome Alan. Thank you for being here. Yeah. Thank you, Eric. Happy to be here and happy to talk about my favorite topic, which is HR and all things HR, which I know is not everyone else’s most favorite topic, but happy to talk about it because it is important.

01:33
I’m that guy with my friends who are always wondering, what do you do? Does that happen with your friends outside of dentistry? What do you do? Oh yeah. Yeah. I’ve had people, my next door neighbor thought I was a math teacher for a while. And then someone else thought I was a, know, like I was an actual dentist or something because they’d heard that. Yeah. I’m sure you got out a lot too. Yes. Yeah. You know, thinking that I, I, if I am a consultant for dentistry, it’s, it has to do with

02:00
telling dentists how to fix teeth. like, didn’t go to dental school. I can’t tell them anything about that. Right. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, wonderful. So, know, let’s, let’s just start out here. What, what is going on today in dentistry in terms of HR? What’s the big topic? Yeah. So I would say there are two, there are two main context things that I think about with this. So the first context is just that we’re in a very tight labor market and it’s been that way since COVID and

02:30
Though we’re not seeing as much volatility as we were during COVID, where people are constantly changing jobs and leaving for 10 cents more an hour and all that, we are still tight. There’s just not enough qualified people out there for all the different positions, especially hygiene. So we’re in a tight labor market. That’s context number one. Context number two is that every dentist I’ve ever talked to has goals. And those goals might be

02:57
being more successful, however they define that the goals could be a greater production of collections. Maybe it’s fee for service. Maybe it’s just revamping their technology or just maybe it’s just less stress, maybe just a better quality of life. So every dentist has goals and it doesn’t matter what those goals are. You need a really solid team supporting you.

03:24
in order to achieve all of those goals. You cannot do all of that on your own. So you combine a tight labor market with these goals where you need a really good team. And we kind of have a problem, right, because we can’t get the awesome people that we need necessarily. And yet we have all these goals. So what do we do? One of my big takeaways with that is you have got to do everything that you can to keep

03:54
your good employees. Yeah. And we don’t want to keep our bad employees. We’re not interested in retaining everyone. It’s only just our good employees, the people that align with our mission, vision, values, the people that are good cultural fit, the people obviously that have the skill sets and everything. want to keep all of them without a doubt. And some people use the word retention. We’ve used the word retention for a long time. Lately, I’ve been using and enjoying the term belonging.

04:22
Because I think belonging is, is kind of a deeper word with that. We really want people who feel a sense of belonging with our practice. And that sense of belonging is what will keep people around, you know, paying at the top end of the market, paying a little bit more vacation than everyone else does that ultimately is not going to keep people around long-term. Yeah. There’s the golden handcuffs, Yeah.

04:50
All right. Well, I’m typing all sorts of questions right now. First question I have for you on the labor shortage. Is it going to turn around at some point? Can you see the future? You let me know. What does your crystal ball say? my crystal ball is not my crystal ball. My crystal ball comes from the ADA and then the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. And ADA has been putting out these numbers for a couple of years, and it’s basically looking at the next 10 years and what the projected need is.

05:16
for the number of dental assistants, hygienists, and so on that we’ll need in dentistry each year. And then they also looked at how many graduates are coming out of accredited programs. And of course, there’s this whole thing about state rules and accredited versus what you need, licensing and all that. But the bottom line is that there is a massive, massive gap in those numbers. There’s also expected to be a huge number of dental assistants retiring.

05:45
in the next five years. And same thing with hygienists. And of course, we saw a lot of retirement during COVID. And that is expected to continue. And so I don’t see the problem getting better anytime soon. There, even if we had some big downturn and a recession, and all these people are laid off and looking for work and all that, we still need to get qualified candidates. Their school and so on. Those are their school requirements and so on.

06:13
was at an event last year, and there was, it was at the University of Washington Dental School. And there were some folks there from some hygiene schools. And of course, everyone has been chastising them of why aren’t you graduating more hygienists? And they said, our limiting factor is faculty. So they can’t get enough faculty to teach them. They said that we have plenty of applicants. We just don’t know the faculty. So there’s just all these little points where

06:41
where there’s pinches in this. so yeah, crystal ball. don’t see it getting better, uh, anytime soon, unfortunately. So because of that, I think what we hear, and this was another thing I typed out while you were talking about this is I’ve got this bad apple and I’d rather keep the bad apple than have nobody. I hear this from my, clients. How long do I put up with this person who

07:06
You know, they, they’re good at their job from a technical perspective, but their attitude is causing me to lose other people or people don’t want to come to work and it’s shifting the culture, all of those things that you and I talk about. So. I mean, how would you address that? How would you approach that? Say, I think your team would be happier without that person, even if it meant more workload or you risk it and go for it. Do you try to hire first and let them go? What’s your, what’s your thoughts on that?

07:36
It’s a really tough one. There’s no doubt about it. That’s a really tough one. so here’s a bunch of random thoughts or random ideas with that. one is, think about whether the attitude or cultural issues can be fixed. And maybe that fix is maybe you’ve got someone working at the front desk who’s just not a people person. And maybe they would be really happy in a cave in the back somewhere, just doing billing and collections.

08:05
and they never have to interact with the general public. And maybe that is feasible for your office, you know, and moving them back there makes them happy, it makes the rest of your team happy, the patients are happier. So there, there can be opportunities like that. There, you can maybe dabble in a little thing of going down a path of, why exactly is this person so unhappy and so disgruntled? That one’s a little bit of a, you know,

08:33
fears off into maybe there’s mental health, maybe there’s other things that, know, you don’t really want to quite go there. Um, let’s see, you mentioned this idea of, go ahead. I love that question. What you’re just bringing it up. What’s it going to take for you to be happy working here? I’m not saying to say it that way, but that’s the process of, Hey, you’re one-on-one conversations with them sitting down once a month. And our friend, Robin Reese, of course, talk calls them to stay interviews.

09:01
But there is a point where you’ve done all the things we’ve coached the client to do and the person just, I don’t know, for lack of a, they’re an E or they just don’t want to change. They’re just grumpy. They’re Debbie downer grumpy gusts that comes in at some point you’re, you’re, I guess you’re ejecting, you’re pulling the cord and you’re letting them go. And then wondering how long is it going to take for me to find someone? I think that’s really dependent upon the area you live in, course, but would you, would you say.

09:27
you give it everything you can’t throw everything you can’t then to try to shift them and and then let them go and then hire is that is that pretty normal? Yeah, you know, there’s certainly there’s certainly doing everything you can if they end up being like you said in Eeyore or as a mandagora would say an energy vampire that just sucks the life out of everyone around them. Yeah, that’s that’s probably something that you’re never going to be able to change. And so then

09:57
Certainly with terminations, you know, you always want to make sure you’ve got good documentation, solid, you know, systems, records, etc. If you can get statements from other employees about working with this person, etc. that helps. One perspective to keep in mind on the workload is that, you know, if you’re unhappy with this person, chances are the rest of the team is really unhappy with this person. Yeah. And so this idea of

10:25
letting the person go and then having this period of time where you’re without, it may not actually be as bad as you think it is. You know, we’ve had clients where they’ve let someone go thinking, oh my gosh, now everyone’s going to be stressed out. Everyone’s going to hate me and all that. And the rest of the team kind of goes, oh my gosh, thank you so much. We now have this giant weight lifted off of us. And now all of a sudden we can work. We’re happier.

10:53
And yeah, we recognize that there’s going to be a few weeks, you know, before we get a new person in there who’s trained, blah, blah. But it’s worth it to us as the team to step up and work a little harder. Yeah. We definitely received traction for two. Yeah. Okay. And the other group too, there’s, you know, there was a study a while back that was looking at the effects of what happens when a really good employee quits versus what happens when a really bad employee quits. And what they found is that when a

11:21
bad employee quits, the workplace doesn’t really change or it actually gets better. When a good employee quits, it has a very noticeable negative effect. almost like causes more turnover and more people to leave. And so I think that’s a really important thing to keep in mind is that with those bad employees, what’s the message in the net effect that we’re having on our good employees? Yeah.

11:48
I think the sure way of losing good employees is to keep that negative attitude around just because they’re really good at their skill and they keep causing other good people to leave, but you’re afraid to pull the trigger on this person. there actually is this intimidation factor some employees have on their owners, their dentists, their leaders, and they’re afraid to let them go.

12:11
And you’re talking about documentation and nobody should be surprised to be fired, but they’re even afraid to have corrective conversations with them because they’re running the show. had a, um, office manager and her husband who was an assistant had to be let go, uh, in the practice and the team was clapping as they were yelling at the rest of the team while they were being let go together. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was just.

12:38
Talk about everyone being happy at their, well, they didn’t clap until they walked out the door, I should say, at the team meeting, but they were, you see people’s true colors when they’re let go. And that’s the moment that I think people are afraid of in terminating someone, that intimidation factor. And yet it’s a moment of pain for a continuation of time of relief and positive direction. Yeah. Big time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And in some ways, you know, when

13:05
We see this often where those problems have been kind of simmering and going on under the surface for a long time. And essentially what it is is an unspoken agreement. The unspoken agreement is that this employee gets to do whatever they want and walk all over everyone. And the doctor doesn’t do anything about it. That’s it’s an unspoken agreement. And so, yeah, when, when someone finally says, all right, I’ve changed my mind in a sense of this is now a problem and I’m going to let you go. It’s kind of understandable that.

13:35
you know, if you look at it from the employee’s perspective, it’s kind of understandable that they’d be upset because you’re basically violating this unspoken agreement. And there is some language that can be done around that around, you know, making it clear, like, okay, the past is the past. This is now where we’re at. And starting at this point, moving forward, this is what we are now going to do. I recognize that I have allowed this in the past. I recognize that this is now a change.

14:03
And ultimately it’s my practice. It’s my name on the wall and this is the new direction that we’re going. Uh, and if people want to be, you know, on board with that new direction, great. Happy to have you come with me, but this is where we’re going. Could, could that be a group announcement or is it always one-on-one with that? You know, T-Rex, think it depends on,

14:29
what’s going on and how pervasive it is. If it’s just one person, maybe one-on-one is more appropriate. If it’s multiple people or if it’s a big thing, sometimes when someone is implementing a new policy manual or revamping majorly their old one, and sometimes in that they want to do a little bit of a refresh or a reset of expectations, and that can be a time that you do that.

14:56
where you just say, all right, you know, look guys, this is kind of the new direction. And, and it’s usually kind of nice if you’re doing that in conjunction with some other changes, we’re updating our technology or we’re revamping. It’s all kind of done as sort of, Hey, here’s sort of a big new refresh. you will. Yeah. I love that. I love when we do culture commandments, core values, vision, mission, all those things. It’s a great place to start doing that. And I don’t like the term policing it, but

15:24
basically what you’re saying is here’s what we’re standing for, is what not standing for. You do that as a group setting. And then in your one-on-ones, you can start saying, Hey, this is, you know, checks and balance time. This is our core value. This is where you are. Why is there a gap there? What can we do on a one-on-one basis to get it to work, get it to work, have the meeting, have the meeting, get to work one-on-one. And then it’s let them go. I have question for you though. I’m a, this is what I was typing out. I’m a team member. I’m listening to this. I’m listening to you talk about letting other team members go. And I’m listening to your podcast about that, but.

15:54
I, I’m a team member and I don’t believe in gossip. know our core value, our culture commandment is no, no gossip. And yet I’m living with this person of rage and I don’t want to go to the doctor and tell on this person, but the doctor, she has no idea this is even going on. So how do I, how do I deal with that? Cause I’m going to, I’m either going to leave or this person needs to leave. And what would you say to that team member listening to this right now? Yeah. So I would say.

16:24
And this is something we, we challenge people on all the time is let’s get really clear about what we mean by gossip because gossiping about a patient’s personal life or, know, even another employee’s personal life. That’s, that’s generally just not okay in any sort of context. Um, but in this case, this is about the workplace. This is about workplace conditions. This is about.

16:53
how you can be the most effective at your job. sort of, you know, just in the same way that if you’ve got a really uncomfortable chair that hurts your back and it hurts your ability to be productive during the day, another employee is like that uncomfortable chair that is limiting your ability to do your job and be effective. So in that realm, it’s

17:16
it’s kind of about putting it in the context of these overall goals. It’s like, we want to have a practice that’s successful. We want to have a practice where everyone is doing their best work, where we all feel safe, you know, all of those kinds of things. And it’s kind of tying it into that. And, and I think there’s also a little bit to it that says, you know, look, I’ve, I’ve tried, you know, the, as the employee talking to the doctor, you can say, look,

17:43
I mean, I’ve, consider myself to be pretty flexible. feel like I can get along with most anyone, even people, maybe I don’t always agree with, you know, I’ve, feel like I’ve really made the effort here to do everything I can to make this work. And I’m out of ideas or I’ve, I’ve run out of energy to try to make this work, you know, or, in a sense, you know, every relationship is kind of give and take. And it’s like,

18:10
I’ve done everything I can. I need the other person to move. So those are all different things. But really, I think it’s just, it all comes down to the overall context that we want to have a successful practice that all of us enjoy and is profitable and the patients get taken care of at a high level and all of that. And this is something that is hindering me in that. And having that one-on-one with a doctor with that conversation you’re saying in that approach.

18:37
Yeah. And also having it just approaching it as this is a, this is a wee problem. This is not a me problem. This is not me. You know, I don’t like the way that person looks kind of a thing. This is like, this is impacting all of us because it’s impacting my work. It’s impacting the patients. It’s impacting the practice. You know, this is, this is a bigger issue than just, you know, a little annoyance with something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Challenge. I think sometimes that team members afraid of.

19:09
I don’t know the right word is retaliation. That’s it. I don’t want to go to you, the doctor, we talked to you about Alex. Cause I know you’re going to go talk to Alex and the only person that would know the things I know is me. And now Alex is going to have a hard time with me. And so I’m afraid. So I’d rather live in this, this place of, you know, Unhealth is unhealthy place versus dealing, dealing with it. Right. Yeah.

19:35
That’s yeah. And it is tricky because it does kind of depend on the context. It depends on what’s happened thus far. You know, has the employee talked to the other employee and said, Hey, you know, this is how I would like to be treated or da da da. Um, and it does kind of come into play sometimes when someone does confront the other person, you know, how do they respond? Are they a victim and they’re always blaming other people for everything and they never take responsibility.

20:03
Maybe they do take responsibility, but they don’t change. so even though they say, I’m sorry, they keep doing it over and over again. Um, and so it’s, it’s just a matter of kind of sifting through that as best you can, but it’s, I mean, in some ways it just circles all the way back around to hiring and onboarding and making sure that in the hiring process, we are hiring for cultural fit and we’re doing all of our due diligence and we’re doing.

20:32
you know, assessments like the Drake or disc we’re doing. Um, was just checking Drake. I was just typing Drake and I was going to throw you a curve ball. think w let me ask you this. Would the team taking the Drake, which we’ll talk about in a second, would that give the leadership insight into problems that are happening there that they could maybe bring up themselves instead of having a team member bring it to them? Possibly.

20:57
Yeah, it definitely can. Yeah. And you see that really extreme if let’s say it’s the example of two front desk employees, one of whom is very urgent, you know, very much like I want to get everything done right now. Super quick, go, go, go. And maybe they’re paired with someone who is extremely detail oriented, extremely methodical, never wants to make a mistake. Everything has to be in the right, you know, box all the time. Uh, those two people will have.

21:25
inherently a little bit of a clash. And so you can sometimes see that in the Drake and you can predict that. But sometimes some of these things, you know, like, does someone have a victim mentality? Does someone blame other people all the time? Do they have a scarcity mindset? The Drake, I don’t know of any assessment that can, you know, pinpoint that. That’s experiential. Yeah, but it’s, it’s, it’s something that you can, you can kind of get

21:52
a sense of as you dig into behavioral based questions. So as you dig into questions around why someone left a previous job, maybe calling references, maybe doing some behavioral questions around, know, tell me about a time that you were not getting along with a coworker and what did you do and what was the outcome? And if you find that you kind of start to see a pattern there where every answer is

22:20
Oh, well, yeah. You know, I had a conflict and it was because they were a jerk and all. Yeah. I didn’t get along with that manager because they were a jerk and all. didn’t, I left that job because the doctor was a jerk. It’s like, okay, I’m seeing a theme here. Yeah. So just cause we’re people probably now thinking, what are you talking about, Drake? What does that mean? talk about Ben Erickson, all star coaches, what, what we do there, maybe just a little flavor. We could come back and maybe expand upon that another podcast, but

22:46
Just give those that are wondering now, what is that Drake P3 thing that you just mentioned? Yeah, sure. So the Drake, it’s called the Drake P3 assessment. And the Drake is, it’s a, lack of a better term, it’s a personality assessment, but it’s really much more than that. It’s a, it’s a deep communication and emotional intelligence assessment. It looks at base personality. also looks at how someone is flexing in their current role. So how they’re trying to adapt.

23:14
to the role and adjust their personality to the role. It looks at people’s primary motivators and demotivators in the workplace in terms of what sort of environments and workplace situations give them motivation or detract from that. It looks at leadership style. And a really big part of it is emotional intelligence. And it measures emotional intelligence both in terms of

23:42
how aware someone is of their own emotions and also then how aware and in tune they are with the emotions and the, and the communication with other people. it’s, it’s way cool. It’s an assessment that, that we highly recommend for all of our clients. It’s something that we try to recommend for anyone. It can be used both in the hiring process as well as done as a team building thing. And the team building side can be about

24:10
Communication it can be about the emotional intelligence piece It’s it’s really just about everyone kind of learning more about themselves And then it’s got some really neat tools that can be done around how you relate to other people and and how they relate to you and Communicating with each person on the team and there’s some really stuff where you’re they’ll get a breakdown of hey every single team member

24:38
This is how you communicate with that person. And then it flips every team member is how do I communicate with every single team member and leadership and how to approach them. It’s a great tool to have. And so if they’re listening to this, they want to do that. What’s, what’s the steps to, to do it? I know we’re doing that at our May event. So people who are enrolled in our May event will get that. You’re, you’re, that’s part of their, their tuition. But if they wanted to do this, say in coaching with All-Star or whatever, what’s the process like? Is it simple?

25:06
Yeah, super easy. So folks can really, it’s about where you want to start. And there are a number of different ways to get involved. If you want to just dip your toe in it, then maybe the doctor manager, leader, spouse, you know, maybe you start there. Maybe it’s just the doctor, maybe it’s just the leadership team. You can kind of dabble with that. There’s information on our website at benerickson.com about it. The next step might be incorporating it into the hiring process. If you’re

25:35
planning on doing hiring in the near future. There’s a whole bunch of really amazing tools with job matching and other things that can be done in the hiring process. If you’re not planning on hiring anytime soon, you can consider doing some team building stuff with it. And that would be where everyone on the team does the Drake. And then it’s these different communication tools and various things. And there’s a whole bunch of different things you can do with it. There’s just some…

26:00
basic stuff that you can cover. There’s doing a whole workshop. You can do one hour, two hour, four hour. You can do an all day workshop. mean, there’s a lot of possibilities with it. Yeah. It’s so in depth. Yeah. And some offices like just kind of cover like a couple things at once, you know, maybe do, we’ll talk about personality. We’ll talk about motivators and demotivators and then that’s it. And then maybe a month later we come back to it. Now we cover some of the other layers. it’s, it’s really a choose your own adventure kind of thing. Okay.

26:30
Wonderful. And we’re, we’re a full support of it. We, know, we, we use disc, we use strengths, we use EQ, and this is putting it all in one spot. So it’s, it’s wonderful to see that we have a tool like this and access to it. Okay. So let’s, pull back into belonging. love that word. Keeping good team members. How belonging I talked about, and you talked about the golden handcuffs don’t work because they can, there’s always gonna be someone who’s going to pay more. how do we keep good team members?

26:59
and then that term belonging, how do we do that? Yeah, so a few random strategies there. one is investing a little bit in what we would call your people leadership. And there’s different types of leadership. And in this case, the people leadership is all about prioritizing retention, belonging, and appreciation among your employees and really truly supporting them.

27:25
I always use the analogy, I it’s like working out. You’re not going to do one big project around culture or leadership or belonging or retention and do that one big project and then you’re done for it. No, it’s just gonna be a steady thing and this is kind of a all day, every day, a little bit kind of a thing. So there are some basic things though that you can put in place that do make a difference. So.

27:52
Believe it or not, one of the common reasons for turnover is misunderstandings. Misunderstandings about pay, benefits, timing, when someone is supposed to be eligible for PTO or in-house dental benefits. And that’s where something like a really good, solid, up-to-date policy manual or employee handbook is really beneficial. And I know right off the bat that no dentist thinks that policy manuals are exciting or sexy or any of that. Totally get that.

28:22
You know, and it’s, kind of like, you know, I just mentioned, you know, Blackberries or fax machines or something is kind of what it feels like. um, there’s something that Gallup does called the Q12 and it’s 12 elements that are highly correlated with people having a sense of belonging and retention. The very first item on the Q12 is I know what’s expected of me at work. And that is one of the, that is one of the most, uh,

28:51
basic things you could possibly do is clearly communicate to your employees what your expectations are. Policy manual is a big part of that. So is job descriptions. And a big part of this is about fairness as well. It’s all about creating an environment where as the leader, we are fair and consistent over time in the same sort of situation. So it doesn’t matter if we’re having a good day or a bad day. It doesn’t matter if the production is high or the production is low.

29:20
We follow whatever we have as our established policy, our established protocol. And that creates fairness. creates consistency. Because that fairness piece will kill morale. And it will absolutely detract from the performance of your good employees. That’s a big one. And another piece with this is compliance. Because a lot of HR compliance

29:45
Here’s why HR compliance is different from OSHA compliance, HIPAA compliance, charting, record keeping. The reason that HR compliance is so different and impactful is because HR compliance directly impacts your employees. If there’s some little thing that you’re doing with infection control that maybe isn’t quite totally, you know, it doesn’t directly impact your employees as much.

30:11
But if you are in a state that has mandatory sick leave, if you have to do paid family leave, if there is overtime that’s not being paid properly, those are the kinds of things that directly impact your employees. If someone is pregnant and they really do deserve a certain amount of time off because of a disability or a bed rest condition by the treating physician, and if you’re not even aware of that, those are the kinds of things that

30:39
have an immediate effect on your employees. And just for a little bit of numbers about the whole compliance thing, this is something that has changed dramatically in the last five years. So in the period from 2015 through the end of 2019, we sent out 87 policy updates nationwide. So this was 87 new rules or changes to existing rules, and that was nationwide. During the period from 2020 through 2024,

31:08
It was 259. almost a fourfold increase. times the number of increased new rules to follow. And these are not just, you know, boring, you know, things that’s like, I mean, these are things like paid sick leave, paid family leave, family and medical leave protections, pregnancy, disability accommodations. I mean, these are things that do directly impact your employees on a fairly regular basis. So

31:37
Good things to be aware of and really important. So all of that factors into it. One other thing too, that I’ll just mention real quick is appreciation in the workplace. If folks aren’t familiar with the book, the five languages of appreciation, get it super simple, short, easy to read book. If you’re familiar with the five love languages, it’s that concept applied to the workplace. It works really well for a dental office because there’s just, you you’re strapped for time. don’t have

32:05
You know, you don’t have a dedicated person who’s spending 40 hours a week just doing HR and just doing appreci- you know, this is, it’s designed for folks that have other things going on in their world. Really impactful though. Yeah. If they’re an all-star client, coaching client, they’ve been that for, you know, at least six months. They know what this is as a doctor, a leader, as a team, what all five of those appreciation languages are, and hopefully they are implementing them consistently. So let’s go back to top here.

32:35
how to keep good team members. You said investing in your people leadership. I wrote, them space for growth. And so really it’s about in that one-on-one conversation, understanding, know, Alan is my team member. What’s Alan’s life vision? Do I really know what you’re trying to accomplish in your life? Am I really connected with you on that? And do I see how my place of employment for you is helping you get closer to your vision?

33:02
And also if you’re like, Hey, this is where I want to be. And I said, okay, that’s a version of Alan that’s different than this version of Alan. What’s that gap that’s going to need for you to change, improve, grow, to become that person. And maybe when you become that person, you’re not even working for me anymore. But I know that if I support you in that growth pattern, my business benefits as you improve the average Gallup says with the average American workers at their job, 4.4 years and the average dental worker, am I have this right? 2.4 years. Does that sound right to you?

33:32
That sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the last statistic I’ve seen. So we’re not even as good as the average in America from employment standpoint. So stop worrying about helping people get better and better and better to eventually not be in your workplace anymore. They’re already not going to be in your workplace anymore after about two or three years. So just pour into them, give them growth. I love that you said that. You talked about avoiding misunderstandings, have an employee handbook. I wrote down effective communication.

34:02
That’s a phrase I use a lot, know, having effective communication, again, one-on-one team meetings, get time away from the dentistry so as you can do these important things. I love that. And then you really sent me down a rabbit hole on the Q-12 by Gallup, the 12 questions by Gallup on what is expected me at work. One of the biggest things Gallup is talking about is the lack of engagement in the U S workforce. And so the statistic is

34:29
This is end of 2024, 31 % of employees are, are engaged in their work. That’s it. Yeah. 31 % are engaged and 17 % are actively disengaged. They’re like on purpose, trying not to do too much work. It’s a J O B. Yeah. So what, what is, so this mirrors your three things, what we talk about. So lack of clarity and expectations. We talk about clarity of expectation creates excellent execution that requires effective communication.

34:59
So only 46 % of employees strongly agree that they know what is expected of them at work. Less than half. That’s important for us to know. Perceived lack of care. 39 % feel someone at work cares about them. So you’re talking about appreciation languages. Only 39 % feel like someone cares about them, which is down from 47 % in 2020. And then insufficient development opportunities. We talked about room for growth, creating growth.

35:27
Only 30 % strongly agree that someone at work encourages their development. Meaning my dentist isn’t looking for ways for me to grow or pour into me. And right. And I got to say in defense of the dentist, sometimes it’s the opposite. They’re trying to provide training. They’re trying to provide ways for them to grow. And they’re in opposition of that. Do you have anything that you say to team members when it comes to, yeah, I really don’t want to do CE. I don’t want to do coaching. I don’t want to do training. I don’t want to do development.

35:56
Is there a way to reach them on that? Is that just the wrong fit for the practice? Do you have anything that you try to get their attention with on that? Or is that just, Hey, we, we, we agree to disagree on that. again, I would come back to a little bit of digging deeper into why, you know, sometimes it’s that the office is not paying for the CE. That’s right. Sometimes it’s that the office is closing the practice for a day or two that week. And so.

36:26
the employees are actually losing wages on that basis. This is huge. We could totally get into a whole conversation though about the federal CE rules because there’s a whole bunch of stuff that people are not aware of that you actually do have to pay for. But yeah, so I know the podcast. Right. Yeah. That’s all. So you know, it’s about why, you know, is it also about why? Because maybe the class that the

36:55
doctor wants them to go to is not something the employee is actually interested in and also why is that? Okay. And then, you know, there is certainly an element where there are people out there who just kind of want to coast and it’s like they’re doing what they’re doing. They’re fine with what they’re doing. They don’t need to learn anything about new technology or new techniques or whatever. They just like, I got this all figured out, you know? Yeah. And I think all of us,

37:23
All of us are in a mode like that at various times in various parts of our lives with different things. You know, if someone came to me right now and said, Hey, you really need a new TV. I’d be like, I don’t need a new TV. My tea is fine. um, yeah. And I think it’s also, it circles all the way back around to hiring and fit. And it’s like, when we hire a new person in our job posting, are we making it very clear in the job posting and the interview process and everything?

37:53
that we are the type of office that does a lot of CE. We are always going, always changing, always improving. You put that out there on the front end, then hopefully in theory, you’re not going to even hire someone who wants to just coast and not do anything. Or go back to your culture commandments on your core values on this and look at the wall and say, look, this is what we agreed to. We’re in constant growth. We’re either growing or declining. So we’re in a constant growth pattern. And that’s this is going to require to be employed here.

38:21
Along with, we’re going to make sure you’re being compensated fairly and legally on everything that’s supposed to happen. right. Sure. So we’ve got, we’ve got two minutes. We could probably spend two hours talking about the other things we want to talk about. know. And so hopefully this was really valuable, but if you had to do a nice summary here of where you think this leads to for people on retaining, belonging, retaining really good employees for their practice.

38:49
Anything you want to add to this to maybe until next time, we can walk away with something to grab here. Yeah. I think just keep in mind the context of the tight labor market and where things are at and all your goals. need people to achieve that. Be grateful for your awesome employees that are there. Show your appreciation to them. Uh, don’t take anyone by all means, don’t take anyone for granted right now because a good solid

39:17
dental assistant, hygienist, team member, they could work anywhere. The fact that they’re choosing to work for you is a massive gift for you. So, yeah, it’s just about, and again, I’ll just circle back to the whole exercise analogy. Just think of this as some little things that you’re going to do here and there, not big giant things. This doesn’t take hours and hours and hours of time. This is just little things that you’re going to start incorporating and building those habits as a leader.

39:47
So that that just becomes part of your everyday regular old thing along with everything else. that over time will absolutely move the needle because most practices just aren’t doing this kind of stuff. They’re just kind of skating by doing the bare minimum. And so those little things will absolutely set you apart. That’s right. That’s right. And remember, remember all the cliches and things that we say, they do matter, you know,

40:17
making sure your employees feel great. That’s not all on you, but you play a significant role in that. And I’m not just speaking the doctor of leadership here, I’m talking to all team members. We play a role in this. So like your sign in the back, have a great day. That’s right. Caution, good vibes. So be a goldfish. These are all great things to bring. Work on your core values, work on what you guys stand for, and that way it polices itself for lack of a better term.

40:45
Listen, there’s a reason why Ben Erickson is a trusted all-star partner. You guys are the best. You really know how to support dentistry in the HR world so well. We call on you a lot and we really appreciate you and thank you for being on the podcast today, I really appreciate it. Yeah. If you bet. someone would help, to be here. Thank you. If someone wants to reach out to you and get a hold of you, what’s the email address? Yeah. My email is Alan, A-L-A-N at

41:11
benterrickson.com folks can reach out that way. We’ve got our 800 number on our website as well. So yeah, happy to help. So feel free to reach out. Well, thank you again for joining us. And for those that have listened for this entire 40 minute podcast, I really appreciate you. You are growing. And so thank you for being here and pouring into yourself. And thank you for sharing this and putting this out there. If you know someone needs to listen to this, go ahead and share it with them and remember to subscribe. And until next time.

41:39
Go out there and be an All-Star.

41:44
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at AllStarDentalAcademy.com.