I am a dentist. I felt strongly that half my staff was against me (4 of 7 employees). So I fired them. I inherited them when I bought my business a few years ago. I am very ethical but I do care about gross revenue (as any owner should). They never fully embraced caring about revenue production or understanding that bonus pay is tied to profitability. Nonetheless, I feel it is a failing on my part as a leader that they as a group were not on my team. What can I do as a small business owner to display better leadership and engender better office morale. I should mention that I pay above market wages, have better benefits than market competitors, work with my employees to satisfy the number of hours they need and I run a schedule that is very predictable 8-5 with a lunch and we do not deviate. Further, we take great care of our patients and the staff never has to worry about patient satisfaction or quality of care. Thank you for your input.
Unfortunately, this had to happen. You can’t let the negative vibes in the office continue like that. The fact they would ignore your requests to handle tasks is a problem.
The longer a bad hire stays on the more damage they can cause. I know you inherited them from the previous owner, but, they were still bad hires.
Another issue at play is the patients. They should always be top concern in any practice.
As long as you have a good manager and good processes you can rebuild your staff. I’d look at your office processes, and definitely build a good strong application, interview hiring and training process. Hire slow…fire fast.
Don’t skip steps in hiring out of need for staff…it will cause problems later.
Make sure your manager is involved in the hiring as well.