Team Building – Patient Focus

4 Highly Effective Ways to Motivate Employees in the Dental Office

“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” – Simon Sinek

Nothing kills productivity or negatively affects your bottom line like an unmotivated dental team. For patients to love your brand, you need employees to do the same. Keeping employees motivated is extremely important to the success of your dental practice and plays an important role in them enjoying their job.

Without motivation, your patients will be affected. It shows lack of caring by your team which could negatively impact the amount of dental patients you see, or even keep them from coming back altogether.

Keep in mind that motivation can be quite contagious and majority of the time comes from the leader. A good leader can show their employees how motivated and goal-oriented they are to building a successful dental practice and fulfilling workplace, and more than likely the team will follow suit.

Is your dental team motivated? Rev up your dental office and motivate employees with these 4 tips!

Talk about your goals.

Talk about your vision for your dental practice and what makes you passionate about achieving your goals. When employees understand what motivates you to succeed and feels your passion, it will help them get behind something rather than feeling like a robot coming in each day to punch the clock and go through the motions. The success of any business, including your dental practice, is built on energy, passion, enthusiasm, willingness to change and evolve, and effective business systems. Take the time to celebrate when goals are met!

If you\’92re ready to realize increased revenues, discover what this Tempe Dental Practice saw from implementing Patient Focus\’92 services in only one short year. These results could be yours!

Don\’92t micromanage.

One common \’93de-motivator\’94 is micromanagement. Instead, help team members grow their leadership skills. There will be mistakes made. Don\’92t smother them and always try to fix everything yourself. Instead, teach them how to clean up their mistakes on their own. You can be a great leader and boss without micromanaging.

Show respect.

Give your employees the respect that they deserve to ensure that the entire dental team is happy and most importantly, motivated in the office. How can you show respect? Acknowledge the good work that they accomplish every day and show them that they are truly appreciated. We all love feeling respected and getting compliments. Listen–genuinely listen–to team members. If an employee feels that their worries are being ignored, they can feel resentful and demotivated. Dismissing concerns or failing to listen at all is a surefire way to drain enthusiasm. Be visible, approachable, respectful and open with information. When you show respect and that you are grateful, employee motivation will soar to great heights!

Success should be shared.

Sharing the success of your dental practice will definitely help to motivate employees. Raises and bonuses could be used as effective motivators, but more often than not, non-monetary rewards, like verbal recognition or public praise can be even more motivating. It\’92s important to understand your team as individuals as motivators vary from person to person. Schedule regular performance reviews and offer incentives for when your practice does well. If your dental team brings in new patients, reward them!

It takes passion and motivation on your own part to motivate employees in your dental office, but it is critical for success\’97the success of your dental practice and also the success of your team members.

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Bringing the Front Office & Back Office Together for a Unified Office

unified-office

If there is turmoil or trouble brewing between the front and the back office you can count on your patients feeling it. Patients can sense any frustration or see it on your face if you\’92re disappointed in one of your team members. A division in the dental office is a recipe for disaster. Is there a great divide between your front and back office? These questions may help you figure that out if you are unsure:

Do your dental team members only perform a specific function within the practice and hardly, if ever, venture past the boundaries detailed in their job descriptions?
Do your front and back offices rarely communicate?

If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, your practice most likely is not a unified office. When each department works independently, it leaves gaps in customer service, efficiency and profitability.

Every single team member\’92s actions will directly affect the patient experience and ultimately can improve office productivity and profitability.

Discover how you can create a powerful dental patient experience in this blog post.

Without a unified office, a dental team will unravel and can miss many potential income opportunities. A team that is unified results in happy patients and a successful dental practice\’97work together to create goals, develop plans and increase communication and make patients happy.

It\’92s time to bridge the gap between the front and back office for a unified office. A unified dental team improves the work flow and information that is vital for both a positive patient experience and your practice\’92s bottom line.

3 Steps to a Unified Office

Make Communication the Cornerstone of Your Practice. Effective communication enables team members to work together while providing optimal care for your patients. Excellent communication will help to build a strong network that is the glue that holds a practice closely together. Utilize technology and face-to-face conversations to improve communication between all team members.

Establish Attainable Goals. Create goals with the team that everyone can work towards together. Goals help to provide a common focal point and focus to bring everyone closer to reaching them. When we hit goals, morale goes up, we celebrate more often, team members are happier and everyone is further inspired to try setting new goals in different areas\’97\’91always improving\’92 becomes the common mindset. Goals should be realistic and well defined.

Hire Passionate People. A unified office means likeminded people who work there. Your dental team should be made up of people who are passionate about providing quality dental care. While skills are very important, you cannot always instill enthusiasm in a team member.

Working as a unified office results in happy patients and a successful dental practice. Set standards in your office so patients are always walking away feeling like your office is a well-oiled machine.

Wondering how to deal with stress at your dental office? What it boils down to is not letting stress take control\’97learn how to control your stress. Here are 3 ways we like to highlight for how to deal with stress at the dental office.

How to Keep Employees Motivated & Energized in Your Dental Office

howtokeepemployeesmotivated There is one thought that sits in the back of every business owner\’92s head: how to keep employees motivated. Employees are the greatest asset of any company, so it\’92s important to keep them motivated so they perform their best at all times. Do you know how to keep employees motivated?

You might be surprised to find out that financial rewards are not the only means of keeping your employees motivated. In fact, job satisfaction typically depends more on the office environment. Does the team work together well? Do the employees feel appreciated for doing a job well done?

Here are 3 tips on how to keep employees motivated in your dental office.

Give Your Employees the Tools They Need to Succeed

Do not assume that all of your employees have exactly what they need to do their jobs well. They could be missing anything from a specific tool, to training, or simply just support from you or the office manager. Check in on your employees and ask them if there is anything you can do to help them complete a task. They\’92ll appreciate you taking an interest in their work and be motivated to do well.

Communicate

Make an effort to be present and develop relationships with your employees. A major factor in why employees have low job satisfaction is because they don\’92t like their boss or manager. But this doesn\’92t have to be the case. Communicate often with your staff, and create a dialogue where your employees feel comfortable coming to you when they need help. Share goals with your employees so you are all working together together to improve your dental office.

Engage Your Employees

Include your employees in big decision making. Ask for their input on something that might affect the whole office, and use their ideas if you can. Showing them that you\’92re taking their thoughts into consideration will demonstrate that you value them and their opinion. This is a great way to empower and motivate employees.

Job satisfaction can go a long way in keeping your employees motivated. Strive to create and encourage a positive work environment in your dental office because it will help to keep your employees motivated.

Now that you know how to improve job satisfaction, it\’92s time to improve patient experience!

How to Deal with Stress When Managing a Dental Office

Dentists and their dental staff are subject to a barrage of stress every single day. How often do you hear one of your team members mention they\’92re stressed? From patient no-shows and maintaining employee satisfaction to keeping the schedule full and supplies stocked, there are an endless number of items to be taken care of on a regular basis.

Stress can wreak havoc on your health causing cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, lower back pain, mental depression, eye strain and ulcers to name only a few. Some common stress influences at the dental office include:

Position
Amount of sleep
Hours worked
Patient demands
Time pressures
Uncooperative patients
High levels of concentration and focus
Team issues
Economic pressure
Lack of exercise

Wondering how to deal with stress at your dental office? What it boils down to is not letting stress take control\’97learn how to control your stress.

Here are 3 ways we like to highlight for how to deal with stress at the dental office.

Tweak Your Time Management

Having effective time management strategies in place will help to lower stress in the dental office. Take the time to learn and master the art of prioritization, delegation, assertiveness and decision making.

Get Some More Shut Eye

If you get at least seven hours of uninterrupted, restful sleep every night it will help to prepare your body and mind to best navigate successfully through any stressors the next day may bring.

Move Around

Exercise helps to lower stress levels significantly. Try to get moving 4-5 times a week to start seeing a decrease in stress levels. Strapped for time? You don\’92t need to hit the gym for hours on end to get positive effects of exercise. Park further away than you normally would in the parking lot at work and at the store, take the dog for a walk or take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Although stress can never be completely eliminated from your dental practice, it must be minimized as much as possible to avoid many stress-related emotional and physical problems that it can cause. Share these tips with your team so and support each other in your efforts to deal with stress

Don\’92t let dental recall add more stress to your plate. Take the stress out of your dental recall and schedule a consultation with Patient Focus. Patient Focus will simplify and streamline your efforts to grow your dental practice in just 3 simple steps!