CATEGORY AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST 103 Negar Riazati COLUMNISTS Hiring for your dental practice By Negar Riazati, CEO Performia Australia problems that makes it unsafe for the team, and are fun to work with. Here is one very valuable tip and step to complete to start improving the hiring process. Starting with defining the “product” will create clarity for the candidate and the Manager. The product is the ‘final result’, the most valuable thing that should be produced from that particular position. It is not a list of what to do. Imagine that you are hiring a dental assistant. They do a lot to support the dentist, before the appointment, during and after. When they handle all of their responsibilities successfully, it results in a very valuable outcome and this is the area to get defined clearly. Dr Darshan, principal dentist and owner of Endeavour Smiles Group was experiencing hit and miss when hiring and found himself to be working much harder and longer because of the stress caused by hiring from desperation. After implementing the performance hiring strategies he learnt from Performia, Dr Darshan no longer had trouble finding the right candidates. His business grew further and he increased his team and business productivity because he was able to hire productive team members who fit his practice’s purpose and values. “I no longer feel trapped or pressured to hire the typical candidates that everyone else is competing for. I no longer face staff shortages. My team are all top performers who take initiative and make my practice fun, friendly and focused. You may think there is a shortage of good candidates. The reality is, there are many talented high performers out there. As a Business Owner, you need to learn how to attract, train and manage them to achieve your business goals.” Having a team that is productive, fun and easy to work with takes hard work and commitment to build and is the most important ingredient for long-term successful and expanding practices. u Contact Negar at: negar@performia.com.au www.performia.com.au Teamwork is an essential part of running a successful practice which makes it crucial to make sure you are hiring the right people and then structuring their role correctly so that each person is adding value to the forward progress of the practice. Many dental practices are struggling to find the right people which results in more work for the owners, dentists and wider team not feeling supported or doing less productive work because they are underresourced. A common problem is that most practice owners are utilising the same recruitment strategies to hire staff. An ad is placed on a job board, candidates are next screened according to their experience, and then usually at this point they are called for an interview, and hired if they seem to fit culturally. Reference checks are done sometimes, but not all the time. Unfortunately even when they are done, they are not thorough enough or not asking the right questions which can break the last line of defence; which is reference checks. The problem with hiring this way, being the “usual” way is that every practice is doing it the same way. This results in arriving at the same candidates which limits who can do the role and thus creates the problem of ‘candidate scarcity’. This is the biggest factor behind roles not being filled even for roles that are not highly specialised or require significant qualifications. The challenge of hiring this way is that only candidates who are the “obvious choice” are identified; those who look great on paper. If the practice is also lucky, they also perform well. However, without a proper way to assess the potential performance of candidates before they are hired, it is quite risky and there is also a high chance that the practice will hire someone who presents great on application, interviews very well, but does not equate to actual high performance on the job. Some of the best candidates you will ever hire and should aim to identify are the “not so obvious” ones. These are candidates who are actually top performers; they are capable of achieving great results but may not impress you on resume or at interview because they are not actively trying to promote themselves. Unfortunately hiring the usual way will cause you to miss out on these people. To tackle the problem of “candidate scarcity”, firstly the recommendation is to not accept this as fact as it causes the hiring manager/practice owner to start the hiring on a defeat which results in less quality solutions to the problem. It is important to look at how you can broaden your pool of potential candidates and defining who can perform the role, and how you will go about attracting them. This forms your hiring strategy which is crucial to get working. Once you start attracting candidates, the next important step is your screening strategy; that being how you select people from the applicants to make sure you are only bringing in people who have a track record of adding value (are productive), like to help others, don’t cause
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