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.
My wife works for a dentist she is the DH. I hear about constant drama from the office and it always seems to stem from leadership. There is no plan everything seemed managed by the moment,as they come up. She had an “office manager” that didn’t seem to be allowed to manage because the Dentist micro manages and changed decisions all the time. There was and is no policy for anything. She previously worked at another office and the dentist let the manager manage. He’d be in the back cleaning hunting rifles or some other random fun thing enjoying time while the staff worked but the staff was happy. Everything was cruise control easy in that office. I strongly recommend reaching out to SBA-SCORE the free classes have helped me with my small business they also have experienced mentors. You know the dentistry but seems like you need help on the business-HR side.