What’s one thing that can send once happy patients running to the hills? Staff turnover.
Perhaps your patients adored your hygienist, Lucy. She was kind, supportive, and caring. But she was also fed up.
Fed up with feeling underappreciated. With office gossip. With picking up the slack of a team member who got away with goofing off.
And so she left. And then, needing someone to fill the sizeable hole Lucy left in your team, you hired Steven. And patients aren’t happy.
Steven, while technically a great hygienist, doesn’t have the same people skills. He doesn’t make your patients feel welcome but instead has them looking elsewhere for dental services. NOT GOOD.
And while not all instances of staff turnover play out in such a dramatic fashion, avoiding frequent turnover will lead to more satisfied patients and a happier staff.
So here’s what to do to keep your team happy to work for you.
- Show appreciation often and sincerely — professionals who feel like their work is noticed and appreciated work harder and feel more fulfilled.
- Take the time to get to know each other — you spend a lot of time together so learning about their spouses, children, hobbies, etc. shows you care about team members as more than someone simply there to get a job done.
- Speak to office members about any issues (performance, patient relationships, etc.) in private — never offer negative feedback in front of other staff or patients.
- Remember everyone on the team is human — allow for days when everyone’s not working 100% because that means on days when you need 110% effort you’re much more likely to get it.
- Treat everyone fairly — make sure that there is no favoritism and that everyone feels like an equal member of the team so no hard feelings or resentment spring up.
- Trust each other — as a leader in the office you can delegate tasks to other team members, which shows you trust them and makes their jobs more interesting (and less likely to cause them to move on).
Source:
http://www.jodena.com/avoiding-the-stress-of-staff-turnover.html
