3 Tips to Cross Training Your Team Members
Dentistry is in a hiring crisis without an end in sight. While firing fast and hiring slow is an ideal mindset, this current setting makes it difficult to implement this approach.
As a seasoned manager of a small dental practice, I understand that one inept employee can negatively affect team culture. Needing to find a way to get the job done with less staff, I chose to better utilize my current team.
This is when cross-trained team members can be a huge and often hidden asset. Utilizing the cross-trained team shifted my hiring focus to selecting the right candidate for culture fit rather than hurrying to get any warm body in the open chair.
It is important to know when a cross-trained team will benefit the office’s operations. Often, the administrative team is unaware of what takes place during procedures, the demand of sterilization processes, and why setup and break down of clinical spaces can be time-consuming.
Alternatively, a dental hygienist may not understand the amount of effort exerted when scheduling, retrieving insurance eligibility, and preparing treatment presentations. When one is able to experience all areas of practice operations, there is more empathy toward fellow team members’ daily task lists.
When to Cross Train
During periods of growth, the increased workload comes without the immediate revenue needed to hire an additional employee, which can be disconcerting. This is an excellent opportunity to improve your team’s skills and utilize their capacities more efficiently. Additionally, maintaining talented staff requires an office to provide competitive benefits.
Cross-training an employee can justify a substantial wage increase. Most importantly, when the entire team supports one another, the office culture thrives, and production increases. This will increase revenue, thus allowing for wage increases.
If a team feels adequately compensated and enjoys the work environment, the likelihood of a key member transitioning to a different office greatly decreases.
There are many scenarios in which having a staff member with responsibilities across the office can benefit the practice’s profitability, patient experience, employee retention, and office culture.
Choosing the Right Fit
Not everyone will thrive in a cross-trained position. Look for the team members who are hungry for more and truly invested in your practice’s success. If they are great at prioritizing tasks and understanding how each role supports the patient’s experience, it’s time to determine if they would be interested in developing both clinical and administrative skills.
Focus on your cross-train candidate’s strength when considering which tasks to assign. If your dental assistant isn’t great with small details but is incredible at interacting with patients, teach her to answer the phone, review treatment plans, and assist with patient check-in rather than working on accounts receivable.
Understanding who will thrive in a cross-trained position is incredibly important when determining your best approach.
Team Buy-In
To successfully implement cross-trained positions in your practice, it is imperative to help the team understand why this will benefit the entire practice. My team appreciated that our office was investing time and energy in educating our current staff. When discussing bringing in a new hire, they were extremely willing to take on more responsibility to guarantee that we could take the time to seek the perfect candidate.
My most efficient team members are often searching for additional tasks and challenges to feel fulfilled. Cross-training offered these individuals the opportunity to thrive while supporting all areas of our practice. This benefits everyone as it alleviates strain in moments of struggle.
Teams will buy into cross-training when they are responsible for its success. Asking the strongest clinical team member to train a front office administrator how to properly turn over an operatory will assure success and prevent you from stepping away from managerial tasks to train.
It will also ensure that the administrator learns the infection control standards and office policies related to sterilization processes and gives the clinician’s self-worth a boost. Before the team is even providing support in their new roles, they are benefiting from the process of learning new skills from one another.
Consider the areas of your practice that need additional support. Is there a motivated staff member in another department who might enjoy the opportunity to expand their abilities?
On the other hand, potentially, there is someone on staff who is challenging the team dynamic, unwilling to meet standards, and negatively impacting overhead. Contemplate if there is a way to replace this baggage with the extraordinary individuals already on the payroll. This may allow improved culture and financial freedom to increase wages for those employees that are most important to maintain.
I have personally seen cross-training improve interpersonal relationships, benefit the practice’s bottom line, alleviate the bottleneck in high-stress situations, and encourage teams to show up as their best selves every day.
About the Author
Elizabeth Capecci, FAADOM
Elizabeth Capecci witnessed the life-changing impact of dental care as an assistant and has been dedicated to the profession ever since. As a voracious learner, she is committed to expanding her skillset to best serve her team. As Director of Member Success at BAM DPLN and owner of Full Scale Dental Solutions, she thrives in leadership.
Outside work, Elizabeth enjoys biking, baking, gardening, and reading with her husband and three kids.
