One of the most credible ways to attract and maintain loyal dental patients is to hire the best dental staff. Using the right systems and tools can make hiring the best dental team so much easier. In order for your dental practice to run with minimal guidance, you must find and retain the right people for each position in your office. It is well worth your while to consider a candidates’ passion, confidence, and experience.
When hiring a new team member, inquire as to your team’s thoughts and input before offering the job to a specific candidate. Your team may notice things about the prospective new hire that is not compatible with the work environment in your particular dental practice. In the end, it is the dentist’s job to be upfront and clear when it comes to setting out the employee’s responsibilities and tasks for the job listed.
To Hire the Best Dental Staff Create a Great Job Description
The best way to prevent future conflicts with new team members is to write out a clear and consistent job description for each position in your dental practice. These descriptions can be utilized in the future to help settle conflicts within the practice between team members.
Your job ad needs to be written well so that it speaks volumes about what your dental practice is like. This will prevent hiring the wrong person. In order to write a clear and concise job description of the position you need to fill, you must know what you need and want. Are you looking for a dental lab technician, dental assistant, dental team coordinator, or associate dentist?
You must be very specific about the day-to-day responsibilities of the position, based on the procedures performed in your dental practice each day. Include the qualifications necessary for dentistry in your state and practice. This is your dental practice, so be sure to ask for exactly the performance expected to hold the position.
Recently, trends have turned toward using culture-based recruiting. Simply put, this means hiring team members that are good for the organization and not just for the job. This allows the candidates to know if they will be a good fit for your dental practice. The culture of the dental office begins with the dentist and is based upon the values of the dentist, the style of dentistry practiced, and much more. It is very important to effectively communicate your office culture in order to hire employees that fit into your unique team.
Don’t Get In a Hurry
To hire the best dental staff you must resist hiring the first person to apply for the position. Your whole dental team has to work with this new team member, and more importantly, they will be working with your patients. Don’t make the mistake of hiring too quickly and end up having to start all over because the candidate you chose did not work out. This can be a very costly error. Most dental practices require a working interview. It is a good practice to require a 90-day probation period as well. Make sure you are aware of the laws in your state relative to working interviews.
Consider having your entire dental team be involved in the hiring process. They may see issues you don’t recognize. Make sure the candidate you hire is right for you and right for your already great team members. Preparing an onboarding checklist covering all the necessary steps to prepare for the new team member will help to set the tone of the new hire’s time with your practice, and also confirm if your investment in them will pay off.
Be Willing to Train
Being willing to spend the time to train a new hire can make all the difference in maintaining a strong team. If you know someone’s values align with your practice, they can be properly trained to perform the duties required to be a successful and productive member of the team. It is worth devoting the time required in training to avoid having to spend the time again to re-hire. Retention is the goal, and it can often be achieved by training a new hire “your way” to match closely to how things are handled in your dental practice.
Get Professional Help
There are many dental practitioners these days competing for patients in the same general area. The way to set your dental office apart and far from the rest is the experience patients receive when they visit your practice for service. Your team is the most important asset to your practice. To identify and locate the top talent in your practice area, Strategic Practice Solutions Talent Acquisition offers a variety of staffing solutions. Hiring the right new team member will increase production as well as the bottom line. To contact them now to begin your staffing partnership, call 888-421-1808 or visit them online.
