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797: Struggling With Finding Team Members? Discover the Long-Term Solution Dentists Can't Afford to Ignore – Alan Twigg

You tell future patients why they should choose your practice. But how about future team members? Do you offer more than benefits and a paycheck? If not, don't miss this episode! Kirk Behrendt brings in Alan Twigg, co-owner of Bent Ericksen & Associates, to help you develop your unique employment proposition so you can keep your greatest team members. Put a stop to preventable turnover! To learn the long-term solution for employee retention, listen to Episode 797 of The Best Practices Show!

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Episode Resources:

Main Takeaways:

  • Put in effort from the very beginning.
  • Know your unique employment propositions.
  • Invest heavily in onboarding. It is critical for retention.
  • Turnover is preventable. Offer more than wages and benefits.
  • Always stay up to date with the changing state and federal rules.
  • Document everything. Your problems will be $200 instead of $50,000.
  • Practice empathy and emotional intelligence. No employee just “gets it”.

Quotes:

“The term I use is preventable turnover. There's a lot of turnover that's outside our control. Somebody is retiring. Their spouse is getting a job somewhere else. Maybe they have a medical condition. But there's a whole bunch of turnover that is within our control. What we really saw with the pandemic was — my favorite term was the Great Rethink, as opposed to the Great Resignation, because it gave all these people a lot of time to sit down during the lockdowns and think about what was important to them. I think the conclusion for a lot of folks was they said, ‘I want meaning. I want purpose. I don't want to work for a dentist who is a jerk. I want to be treated fairly and shown appreciation.’ I think all of that is great. There may be some offices out there where they were able to get by and just, ‘Yeah, if I pay you an hourly wage, then that's good enough.’ I think those days are over.” (5:33—6:28) -Alan

“What we've talked about a lot is that UEP, the unique employment proposition. Everyone is familiar with the unique selling proposition, why should a patient choose your practice versus the one down the street. Every dentist can articulate that with, ‘Well, it's our technology, our team, our website, our marketing,’ and all these things. The unique employment proposition is that same idea for an employee. Specifically, I want people to think about a really good employee. I mean, if you've got a toxic employee in your practice, someone that sucks the energy out of the room, that's a different story. We certainly don't want that person to work for us. We don't want that person to stick around. If you do have someone like that on your team, definitely reach out to us. We can talk about a transition there. But let's imagine that you're sitting down in an interview with someone who's got really great experience, really good work ethic, and a really great attitude. Why should that person choose to work for your practice versus the one down the street? There's so much more to it than just the wage and the benefits.” (6:30—7:32) -Alan

“Gallup does surveys all the time about why people choose a job, why they stay in a job. And, yeah, salary and benefits are on the list. But they're not at the top of the list. It's things like culture, workplace environment, growth opportunities, the way the rest of the team interacts, the overall feel of the place, what it's like to be an employee in this business. That's what really counts for a lot.” (7:32—8:01) -Alan

“It's so important that you're clearly communicating your expectations so that everybody is on the same page. The way that you can do that easily is with your policy manual or your employee handbook, and also with your job descriptions. I think, a lot of times, job descriptions get cast aside as just this boring HR thing. But they are incredibly helpful. They're the unsung hero in HR documentation. I know there are people out there right now going, ‘Compared to lasers and all the cutting-edge dental technology, job descriptions do not sound very sexy.’ And I agree with that. But job descriptions are so beneficial in the hiring process and performance reviews. When they're written properly, they have a section on duties, they have a section on attitude requirements, things like the ability to work well with others, the ability to accept constructive feedback. I mean, how often do we have issues with team members that are in that category as opposed to the technical skills of the job? So, there are a lot of these kinds of things that are basic foundational elements that I think go a long way for folks to make everything be crystal clear with their employees and avoid misunderstandings, because misunderstandings are actually one of the leading causes of turnover — and misunderstandings are absolutely preventable. It doesn't take a whole lot of time, and it doesn't take a whole lot of money. You can get all this stuff in place, and then maintaining it is a piece of cake.” (10:03—11:33) -Alan

“If you have your ducks in a row — you have a policy manual, the person signed off on it, you have a job description, the person signed off on it, you have performance reviews, you have documentation of the deficiencies in their performance — what happens is when you do get that scary letter [from a former employee suing you for discriminatory firing], you send all that off to this other attorney, and the other attorney then goes to the former employee and says, ‘Okay, look. We have a choice now. We can choose to fight this, but it's not looking good. I'm not going to work for free and represent you in a case that's not looking good. So, my retainer is $5,000. If you pay that, then we can go ahead and fight this.’ And typically, at that point, the whole thing goes away. So, that's why you have these documentation pieces and other things in place, is that it makes the whole thing a $200 problem instead of a $50,000 problem.” (15:06—15:58) -Alan

“Onboarding is so critical. I hate to use this analogy because employees probably hate this, but it is very much like when you get a puppy. You’ve got to train the puppy early on and you have to invest in them. Now, to be very clear, employees are not puppies. I'm not comparing employees to dogs or anything like that. It is just this idea that you have to put in the effort in the beginning. Yes, it's a sizable amount of time and energy in the beginning, and your temptation, of course, is to show people something once and go, ‘Okay, they got it. I can move on.’ But if you invest in that onboarding, the check-ins, the regular onboarding, really making sure that this person is shown absolutely everything, how you do things and the way that you approach little course corrections — I think the most important thing people have to remember with those little course corrections in the first six or nine months that you have an employee is you've got to approach it from a place of empathy and utilize every ounce of emotional intelligence that you have. You’ve got to recognize that this person doesn't know you. They don't know your team. They don't know your systems. They don't know your patients. Just because they worked in one or more dental practices in the past does not mean that they just automatically get it.” (17:19—18:42) -Alan

“When you start out with a brand-new employee, your bank account is basically zero. You have to build this bank of positivity because it's inevitable that eventually you will run into trouble, or little hurdles, or something that is relatively serious with an employee. Either they're going to get upset or you're going to get upset, and you’ve got to have a good buffer of positive trust, understanding, and mutual respect that's built up. A lot of that comes in from the onboarding process, and it's super critical in those first few months. So, onboarding is super critical. Invest in it, and it'll pay dividends down the road.” (19:27—20:09) -Alan

“There are obviously a ton of definitions of culture. I think all of those definitions have value and provide insights and give you, as a business owner, something to think about. One of the definitions I really like is that culture is basically like a five-star average of every single interaction that every single person has throughout time. So, that's the interactions between the team and the patients, interactions between the management team and the employees, interactions between employees. If you imagine that every single interaction got a one to five rating, and then you average every single one of those interactions over time for years and years and years, that is basically your culture. I like that definition because, like you said, it's not a one and done. It's not something where you put a slogan on the wall, and that's your culture, and you don't ever have to think about it. It is an all day, everyday kind of a thing, and it's ongoing for the rest of your time.” (22:10—23:12) -Alan

“It's really important that you know what your state laws are as well as the federal level, because you actually have to follow both federal and state. That sometimes creates this question, ‘Well, which one do I follow if there's a difference between federal law and state law?’ The answer to that is, generally, you have to follow the one that is the most stringent on you as the employer. The one that is the most stringent is the one that most benefits the employee. A classic, easy example would be, let's say federal minimum wage is lower than state minimum wage. The one that benefits the employee more is the higher state minimum wage. Therefore, that's the one that you would have to follow. So, there's this idea of your number of employees. There's federal and state. Then, like I mentioned earlier, things are always changing. They're always adding new laws, or they're changing existing laws. When that happens, it's a mess. You’ve got to comb through the bill and find the stuff that's relevant for you. You have to draft a policy. It's a lot of work. So, of course, that's why we recommend working with somebody who does that for you, and then you don't have to worry about whether you're doing it right.” (24:48—25:56) -Alan

“It's a matter of committing yourself to taking action in these areas. I also recommend starting small. It's really easy to get fired up and go, ‘All right, I'm going to do everything right now!’ Of course, if you do that, you'll go big and then you'll get distracted, or it's going to be too much. So, start small. If you don't have a policy manual or an employee handbook, get one. If you haven't updated yours in a million years, find someone who can update it for you. Get job descriptions. Get documentation. Find a way to stay up to date over time.” (26:28—27:04) -Alan

“We were at an event earlier this year at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. There was a guy there who was a dentist. He had his team, and one of the things he did for them was he bought everyone Starbucks every single workday. He had calculated that over the course of a year, that cost him about $5,000 per year just in coffee. Now, some people might hear that and go, ‘Oh my gosh! That's outrageous. Why would you spend $5,000? That's crazy.’ Well, we asked him, ‘Do you feel like you're getting an ROI on this?’ And he said, ‘Unequivocally, yes. I am getting better employees, productivity, better production, and happier patients. I have high employee retention.’ So, you add all of that up, and he's basically getting millions of dollars in ROI on his $5,000 coffee thing. So, it's a matter of investing in these things that make you a unique and different and awesome place to work so that when you're sitting down with that ideal candidate in an interview, you can say, ‘You should work here, and here's why.’” (27:46—28:51) -Alan

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:21 About Bent Ericksen and Alan’s background.

3:33 Why this is an important topic.

8:16 Stay up to date with state and federal rules.

12:03 Why it’s critical to document everything.

16:08 Over 50% of the onboarding process determines retention.

21:46 Culture, defined.

23:47 HR compliance, explained.

26:03 Final thoughts.

28:53 More about Bent Ericksen.

Alan Twigg Bio:

Alan Twigg is the co-owner of Bent Ericksen & Associates. For over 10 years, he has guided thousands of clients and consultants through the ever-changing world of HR and employment compliance. He is a speaker, consultant, and author who is passionate about bringing education and peace-of-mind to such a confusing topic.

As a strong proponent of symbiotic employer-employee relations, Alan is passionate about teamwork and positive work cultures, with an emphasis on long-term personnel retention and employment compliance, where his solutions-oriented outlook excels.
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