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.
i have to either get my office manager that i hired to align with me or it’s not working out. I’m not the best at hiring
Biggest challenge for us were inherited staff, we tried go work with them, increase pay, catered to them. In the end they still talk shit about it. They lasted 4 months, best thing that happened to us. We now have a whole new staff, that is on our team.
You did the right thing. You will find your team once all the old are gone
I have been reading the 21 laws of leadership by John C. Maxwell. One of the laws that pops out at me is the law of addition. Leaders should serve others and make a positive impact. Did you understand their needs and desires? You need to in order to add value in a positive and meaningful way. This goes beyond a fair wage and hours. Often times when a team fails, businesses fire the managers. However, Maxwell believes in rehabilitation. I haven’t read the whole book yet but in my opinion if the team isn’t following the leader it is likely an issue with leadership. This is your failure and you can’t blame anyone else. You need to be accountable or you’ll violate another rule: the law of navigation which involves reflect on past experience to over come current challenges and predict conflict.
I think you should read self help books. There’s so many good ones. It’s changed the way I thought and it can help you too.
You’re checking all the right boxes. It’s just a matter of hiring people who see and appreciate that. A majority will not.
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.
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.
We have our problems like any small business, but overall our team has a very strong work ethic and I feel represents the company positively. Here’s my best advice:
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Cut out anyone who isn’t a team player. New employees will follow the example of the established work culture. Bad apples create bad apples. Don’t try to change behavior of bad employees, that has never worked in my experience, just get rid of them and try to mold the work culture you want, regardless of how small the team had to be, you can add from there.
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Give regular, transparent numbers on how the profit of the business benefits them. Our team is on a split hourly/commission pay and every single week I give them a print out of every job they do and how much commission they make from each job. They take a lot of pride in their work as a result. You say bonuses are tied to revenue, which is probably a good thing, but they should see that. Don’t show them revenue necessarily, but show them something where they can directly see the rewards of their efforts.
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Have regular meetings to cover policies and build a team mentality.
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OP you sound like a shitty boss. I would’ve quit, no need to fire me 🤣
Even the best people are less than stellar sometimes or in some situations. The best people I’ve hired over the years are great 85% of the time. There’s always little things with everyone.
That said, being a good manager is paying promptly and fully #1. It sounds like you accomplish this. They don’t need to be your buddies but you should try to be personable and not “all business”. Ask about whatever they share with you, if their mom is sick, ask how she’s doing. Having a connection, no matter how small, is very important. Have fun once in a while. Get a box of bagels/donuts/fruit whatever and encourage people to help themselves.