3 Work Culture Improvement Tips To Explore

Many practices struggle with a variety of problems, including high staff turnover – an indicator of unsatisfactory or negative work culture. As a result, the practice may experience lower revenue and patient satisfaction. Both which can negatively impact its bottom line.

The success of your dental practice is not something you can leave to chance – especially when there are a lot of factors to consider.

As a new or seasoned dentist, these 3 tips can help you improve productivity and work culture.

1) Build a Relationship with Your Staff  

People are at the heart of an organization and contribute enormously to its success or failure. As a practice manager, you play a vital role in establishing relationships with your employees. Therefore, approach employees carefully as this can positively or negatively impact your business.

What’s more, here are other ways you can build positive relationships with your team:

Clear Communication

Clear communication is key if you want to ensure your dental practice runs smoothly and efficiently, especially during busy days/hours. Define the goals and expectations of the practice and each team member. Put in place a management team that will deliver your message clearly and delegate tasks accordingly.

Additionally, be sure to keep the lines of communication open with formal and informal meetings. One way of making sure everyone is in the loop is to have a briefing every morning before patients arrive. This creates an environment of collaboration plus it allows everyone to collectively discuss unusual or difficult situations that may arise. Lastly, it gives everyone a chance to contribute and reinforces teamwork.

Give Your Team A Voice

Create an environment where your staff know their opinion matters.

Conducting a job satisfaction survey once a year is not going to cut it. Make active listening a priority. Provide a platform where your workforce can give feedback or voice their problems at any time. This is a great addition to an open door policy. Why? Because now employees who don’t feel comfortable giving feedback or complaints face-to-face have a way to do this.

Other mechanisms, such as employee feedback surveys or chatbots are other options for employees who wish to remain anonymous.

Make Them Feel Appreciated

There is no better feeling than knowing you have done a great job at work and are being recognized for it. Make sure to show appreciation to your team. You can do this formally or informally with a bonus, pay raise, social media recognition, extra time off etc.

One of the greatest ways of making your team feel appreciated is by trusting them with greater responsibility. For example, with effective healthcare scheduling software, you can provide your staff with the means to check workloads, swap shifts, and control their own work schedules more. Empowering your team not only yields productivity, but it gives employees more autonomy in the workplace. As a leader, you can now shift your focus to other projects.

2) Create a Positive Work Environment

Studies show that happy employees work harder and are more productive. But how do you go about creating a positive work culture and environment that will contribute to your staff’s happiness and satisfaction?

Prioritize Onboarding

If you want to cultivate teamwork and high performance, assimilate your new employees into your positive workplace culture. For instance, schedule time for them to shadow co-workers or sit in on meetings.

Facilitate Learning Opportunities

Encourage professional development.

As a practice, being able to provide training programs show employees that you care about their progression. Furthermore, it shows that you want them to improve their skills so that they can perform better and in the future take on positions with greater responsibility.

Overall, professional development benefits both employees and employers.

In the long-run, it helps employers attract top candidates, retain your best employees and identify future leaders.

Happy Patients = Happy Staff

A comfortable and harmonious work environment for your patients is essential and can make or break a dental office.

If patients aren’t happy, they’re less likely to continue with their dental treatment, costing you thousands of dollars a year if they leave. In fact, if a dental practice has a bad workplace culture, it can even cause patients to avoid going to the dentist altogether or, worse yet, move to another one.

There’s a reason why certain dental offices consistently rank at the top in patient satisfaction. Dental practices that provide a comfortable and harmonious work environment have a strong sense of purpose, and are motivated to achieve their goals. If patient satisfaction is your ultimate goal, ensuring your staff is happy is an essential part of achieving it.

Lead by Example

Being a good manager comes down to being a good leader and being an inspiration to your staff. It is your responsibility to be a good role model as a boss. By demonstrating courtesy, patience, and professionalism you are establishing a positive workplace culture that sets the tone and a positive example for others to follow.

3) Don’t Forget the Fun

By contributing to your team’s happiness, you are reaping benefits that go far beyond happiness.

You’ll be surprised at how little things can contribute to making the workplace environment more fun. Some fun ideas include:

• Allowing music to be played.
• Celebrating birthdays or work anniversaries—even if it’s just bringing in cakes.
• Incentivizing your team with rewards, which can be regular bonuses for, say, reaching goals, or they can be spontaneous for when a member of your team has gone beyond the call of duty.
• Organizing team-building outings—it can be to a comedy club, karaoke, a meal, go-karting, or anything that gets you all out together.

Conclusion

These proactive tips can help you develop an effective and positive work culture that you and your employees can enjoy. By actively developing a happy workplace culture for everyone, you can truly foster an environment that is positive, friendly, and most importantly, productive.

Besides, all of these are important elements to consider when growing your practice.

Derek spearheads key initiatives at Deputy, a global workforce management platform for employee scheduling, timesheets, and communication. With a focus on healthcare, Derek helps business owners and workforce leaders simplify employment law compliance, keep labor costs in line and build award-winning workplaces. Derek has over 16 years’ experience in delivering data-driven sales and marketing strategies to SaaS companies like MarketSource and Griswold Home Care.