There’s no question about it. Every new dental staff hire you make is critical to the success of your practice. When new hires are a bad fit or your employees are unfulfilled, the impact on your business is all-encompassing.
Finding and keeping good employees is critical to your ability to compete successfully in the new healthcare economy
On average, U.S. corporations lose half of their employees in four years.* Almost 33% of baby boomers surveyed say a lack of trust in leadership is a top turnover trigger; only 28% of generation X employees expect to stay with their current employers; Millennials need employers with a strong commitment to corporate responsibility, volunteerism, and making work “fun.”**
One out of every two workers (50%) report that they are dissatisfied with or indifferent toward their current job.*** In a 2013 study by CareerBuilder, 27 percent of U.S. employers surveyed reported that a bad hire cost their company more than $50,000.
How can you – a dentist or dental practice manager – expect to grow a profitable business with the threat of employee turnover this high?
Too many dental practices don’t have or are careless about their talent acquisition process. When dental practices fail to implement a thoughtful hiring process, they can make costly mistakes. Dental staffing professionals can help you find dentists, hygienists, and office staff while streamlining the process and getting better results.
Below are 5 benefits are why you should be working with a dental staffing firm like Strategic Practice Solutions.
1) Receive Guidance and Advice Through-out the Process
You need more than just someone to handle the paperwork. Dental staffing firms know your industry specifically, and offer case-by-case guidance for every hire.
Whether you need a part-time receptionist or a new dentist on the staff, recruiters look at every staffing need as a matter of human resources and financial decision-making. When you need to hire someone, why not get valuable business advice that can lead to better staffing and better use of resources?
2) Find True Best Fits for Your Dental Practice
Your dental practice depends on the quality of patient care delivered—and the ability of your staff to communicate and work together effectively. Dental recruiters have inside knowledge of what it’s like to work in a dental office, and we work with you to understand your practice’s particular team culture and needs.
Dental recruiters utilize tools such as the DiSC team culture assessment to read between the lines to find the best culture fits for your practice among candidates with the highest qualifications. Better matches leads to improved patient care and less turnover so the right people will be with you for the long haul enhancing overall patient experience.
Recruiters also have established working relationships with many local dental practices and are able to find out more confidential information when calling to perform reference. They can identify if a candidate is telling the truth or hiding something.
3) Gain Access to Desirable Passive Candidates
Many of the best dental professionals are already employed and succeeding at their jobs, of course. You want their talent, and your practice may actually be a better fit for them. We identify these matches, open up communication, and convince talented passive candidates why they should join your practice.
Dental practice staffing services have proactive methods to not only identify these talented, passive candidates—we also know how to predict which ones are good fits for your practice’s culture and who are most likely to become interested in joining your team.
Ultimately, your practice benefits from the expanded and improved talent pool made possible by partnering with a recruiting firm.
4) Enjoy a Better Chance of Offers Being Accepted
Dental practice recruiting makes people more likely to accept your job offer. The recruiting firm offers objective reasons why your practice is a good fit for them, and makes sure that you provide a compelling and competitive offer.
Valuable dental professionals can choose to work in virtually any geographic location and at a number of practices. We make sure that offers are extended to excellent choices and that your prospective new colleagues see the benefits of joining you. Recruiters can even overcome tempting counteroffers from other employers.
5) Fill Your Positions Faster
Recruiters expedite the entire process so your practice can move forward with the right people in place. While you continue running your practice, we reduce the time spent waiting for new employees.
Without professional dental practice recruiting, you risk experiencing a slow hiring process that damages your business. Great candidates can disappear, and your daily operations will suffer while you search for good applicants.
Dental Practice Staffing Success Story
There was a dental office that was growing and recently expanded their practice. They needed to replace one of their main dental receptionists who presented most of the treatments to patients. They finally hired someone that seemed to be a good fit. She came from a busy practice, presented treatment to patients, and she was with that practice for over 10 years. So far so good…right?
After the first month of being hired, the practice started to show a $10,000 drop in gross production. After the Second month, there was another $15,000 drop in production and a lot of “open time” in the schedule.
Strategic Practice Solutions was brought in to analyze the situation. We found that the newly hired dental receptionist was a nice person and very professional, but allowed the patient to decide when and if they were moving forward with treatment.
We also found she was not making calls out to unscheduled treatment to fill the schedule for it was uncomfortable to her. As we assessed her skills, we learned she struggled with closing on treatment. At her other practice of over 10 years, the patients were clinically closed so all she had to do was to present a treatment plan and schedule the patient.
She never learned how to deal with “stalls” or “objections” which impacted her performance at her current place of employment. Through training and coaching, we were able to improve those skills. The bigger issue is the fact that those deficiencies were not identified during the selection, interview and reference checking portion of their search. If they would have hired SPS to handle this hiring decision, we would have made sure that skills better matched what was required of the position.
What Does SPS Do That Other Dental Practice Recruiters Don’t?
Coaching/Advocate:
- Coach to find out what are the competencies and skills required for the open position
- Customize a skills test or questionnaire to be able to identify the competencies/skills
- Assist in constructing interview questions that are pertinent
- Provide coaching on the negotiation process
- Act as a sounding board for clients
Ability to Attract Passive Prospects
- Social media exposure for your job posting
- Networking
- Participate in local seminars & dental events to reach out to dental professionals
- Visit colleges to reach out to Dentists, Dental Hygienists and Registered Dental Assistants
- Incentivize Referral of talent
- Active involvement in the dental community to foster relationships with dental professionals
Vigorous Interviewing Process
- Existing relationships with dental practices that make our reference checking process more effective
- Ensure candidates hit our strict benchmarks on the following processes before they can qualify for an open position and presented to a client:
a. Pre-screening
b. checking on references
c. Skills test,
d. Performance Based interview questions.
Implementation of Human Resource Strategies and Technology
- Utilization of DiSC to point out strengths and challenges in relationship to their job description and team culture
- Utilize Performance Interview questioning process to help identify qualified candidates
- Skills testing
* The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value by Frederick F. Reichheld and Thomas Teal
** Monster Worldwide Survey
*** Deloitte Consulting, “Talent Edge 2020: building the Recovery Together-What Talent Expects and How Leaders Are Responding.”
Strategic Practice Solutions, LLC