Build Accountability and Micromanage Less with Checklists!
Early on in my journey as an office manager I tried to control every detail of everything and everyone. This led to massive burnout and me starting to work endless hours trying to check everything. A few years ago, I was shown the importance of creating end-of-day checklists, these lists changed my life.
End-of-day checklists are given to each team member, and they include all their duties that must be completed daily, weekly, and monthly. We have laminated these checklists and rolled them out to the team. Each night, they fill them out and upload them to Slack. As a manager, my job is to go back in every day, check these lists, and ensure my team has completed their tasks for the day. This helped to create accountability as my team knew I would be spot-checking them daily to make sure tasks were completed.
If a task was not completed, a quick conversation with the team member proved beneficial. The conversations went something like this:
“Hey Susan, I noticed on your checklist that the operatories have not been stocked in a couple of days. This is a vital part of our back-office duties, so we ensure we have the supplies we need for each patient. Is there something going on that is causing us not to get this done daily?”
Sometimes the reply was something as simple as, “I just got busy,” “we were out of supplies,” or “I just did not do it.” These checklists allow me to not micromanage especially when onboarding team members. When we onboard team members, they know the job duties they are assigned, and I use these checklists to verify they are being completed.
We have made these checklists for every department, myself included so I can be accountable to the team and the Doctor. I love that we load them into Slack daily so it adds extra accountability to the rest of the team, and it gives us a terrific opportunity to celebrate when we see members of our team winning and going above and beyond.
At the top of all our checklists, we ask how our team has lived out the practice’s core values or if they have a “win of the day.” This has started so many wonderful conversations with our team. Our team started to enjoy accountability so much that they helped us to create open, closing, maintenance, and just about any other checklist for accountability you can imagine. The team has also started to take ownership of the checklists and they update them constantly to add in things they want to remember to do. I would say on average we switch up our checklists every quarter to make sure they are relevant.
I love the freedom this has given me as a busy manager, now that I am not having to micromanage, I have the time to really focus on building the office, serving our patients, and having fun with the team.
About the Author
Sarah Hayward, MAADOM
Sarah Hayward has been in the dental field for over 20 years spending, 18 of those years in dental office management. Sarah has been a member of AADOM since 2020 and received her Fellowship in 2022. She is enrolled to receive her AADOM Mastership in 2024. Sarah lives in Colorado and when she is not at the office, she spends her time with her amazing husband and son.
