AADOM LIVEcast: Identifying & Managing Staff Frustrations

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Video Description:

Frustration among team members is a leading cause of turnover and inefficiency. The Office Manager has a critical role in managing the team and minimizing (or eliminating) the causes of frustration among team members.

In this 1-hour webinar containing the most current and updated information, Dr. Roger Levin will identify the steps that can be taken to improve team dynamics and increase team longevity. Dentistry is currently facing a staffing crisis making the Office Manager’s job more challenging and complex. Emerging from the pandemic, dentistry experienced a significant staffing shortage with fewer trained and experienced staff members available to hire. The time and effort required by the more difficult hiring process distracts Office Managers from other essential practice performance activities.

The best strategy to compensate for the new realities of building and maintaining an outstanding team is to increase staff longevity. In this webinar, office managers will learn the skills necessary to increase staff longevity by identifying and examining the common frustrations experienced by the dental team both individually and as a group. We will also explore three of the “hidden” reasons for staff frustration with specific solutions recommended to combat all of them.

Office Managers who are committed to improvement and ready to move their practice to its highest potential can master these strategies and techniques.

Course Learning Objectives:

• Understand the most common frustrations of dental team members and how to resolve them
• Identify the three “hidden” frustrations of staff members and learn specific practical solutions to resolve them
• Learn the technique for evaluating each team member using a simple ranking system to determine their performance level

Managing Team Frustrations

Dentistry is currently experiencing a staffing crisis. We have lost a considerable number of dental hygienists, dental assistants and front desk staff.

Although there has been a great deal of focus on how to recruit, interview, hire and train new staff, the single best strategy for maintaining a strong team is to retain the team members that you have. Your current team is often experienced, highly dedicated, hard-working and enthusiastic about their jobs. Losing these people due to unnecessary frustrations they experience in the practice should always be avoided.

Understanding the frustrations

Frustrations are not necessarily bad. At least that is if you can identify them. By identifying frustrations, you have the unique opportunity to address or eliminate them. Frustration identification is an excellent way for dental office managers to know what they need to work on. It is not always easy to do this.

The biggest challenge to identifying frustrations is that we tend to ignore them when they surface. We do that because it requires effort to identify the source of frustration and address them. All too often an office manager knows that something is not quite right but does not know what it is. It is important to pay attention to that “spidey sense” and not simply push things under the rug when team members are exhibiting signs of frustration, or outright expressing them.

Solving frustrations

Identifying any frustrations that exist in your practice is critical. In order to do so have conversations with each team member individually and together with the whole group at monthly staff meetings.

Creating an atmosphere of transparency and open communication is essential. When you meet individually with team members (and they trust you) they will begin to share frustrations with their manager.

Compensation is frequently at the heart of team frustration. Team members today can find out exactly what anybody is being paid, and some state laws are beginning to require salaries to be posted with job postings and advertisements. Everyone knows in today’s Internet-connected world what they could be making in another job, and what is being offered elsewhere. Take a look at your team as if they were new hires and bring them up to a pay level where they want to remain with the practice.

Other frustrations can, and will cause team members to leave, but if a practice does not get compensation right there is a good chance that it will have a higher turnover rate than offices that properly address compensation.

The good news

Team frustrations are a challenge for office managers. The good news is that you can easily turn these around simply by starting a conversation and asking questions. First of all, team members will immediately appreciate that you have interest in knowing what is frustrating them. Many successful practices have a “frustration list” that is developed in monthly staff meetings and reviewed month-to-month until the frustrations are solved. This way the team knows that these frustrations are going to be addressed and that an attempt at solutions will take place. This is a powerful first step.

Learn about the presenter:

Dr. Roger P. Levin is the CEO of Levin Group, a leading dental management consulting firm. Founded in 1985, Levin Group has worked with over 30,000 clients. Dr. Levin is one of the most sought-after educators in dentistry and is a leading authority on dental practice success and sustainable growth.

Through extensive research and cutting-edge innovation, Dr. Levin is a recognized expert on propelling practices into the top 10%. He has authored over 65 books and over 4,000 articles on dental practice management and marketing. Dr. Levin has served on the editorial board of prominent dental publications and has been named one of the “Leaders in Dentistry” by Dentistry Today magazine for the last 16 years. He was recently named one of the “32 Most Influential People in Dentistry” by Incisal Edge magazine and voted Best Dental Consultant by the readers of Drbicuspid.com. He has been interviewed for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Time magazine and is the creator of the Levin Group Tip of the Day which reaches over 30,000 dental professionals.