Australasian Dentist Issue 93

CATEGORY 118 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST D ear Dr Toni, We’ve been shortstaffed for months and can’t find experienced dental assistants. What would you recommend? Dr NN, Qld You’re right; there are DA shortages everywhere! My advice is to stop waiting for an experienced person to apply. Recruit someone who’s got a great attitude, and train them from scratch. I can hear your response: “We don’t have time to train someone from scratch!” However, consider this: if you had hired someone inexperienced two months ago and trained them, they’d already be valuable team members by now! In other words, you’re currently under pressure waiting to find experienced people, at least if you’ve got someone you can train, the pressure period will be over more quickly. This only works if you hire someone with a great attitude, so start by making a list of the top 10 characteristics of the ideal DA. For example: quick to learn, great team member, reliable, pleasant, good attention to detail. Make sure that your hiring process picks up whether or not the candidate has these characteristics. Get your current teammembers who’ve ever been trained in dental assisting to think about the most effective things they got shown by their trainer(s). And, from there, how could they give that knowledge to an inexperienced person? This step is designed to do two things: remind the current team that they were newbies once themselves, and to get them thinking practically about how they could contribute to the training. Then, in a staff meeting with everyone contributing, create a training plan following answers to these questions: u For someone who’s never learnt dentistry before, what are the absolute essentials that need to be taught on Day 1? AND: who can do that training for a new DA when you get one? How can it happen even if you’re shortstaffed and under pressure? BEST PRACTICES Q&A BEST PRACTICES Q&A with Dr Toni Surace 4 Dr Toni Surace BDSC (Melb) Managing Director, Momentum Management Mentor, coach and international presenter. It’s always best practice to develop business skills, systems, techniques and industry knowledge that could impact your practice. BEST PRACTICES Q&A is a forum allowing you to ask the tough questions to Australasian Dentist columnist Dr Toni Surace. u What are the essentials in the first week, and, again, who can conduct that training with the new person? And keep asking: how can it happen even if we’re shortstaffed? u Keep adding to the plan until everyone can see that it’s actually achievable. u Ask as well: is there any of this training that’s best outsourced? For example, while we’re training them on the job, does it also make sense for them to do Cert III? Stick to the plan as best you canonce the new recruit starts, while also being aware that things never go exactly according to plan so you all need to be a bit flexible! It’s a good idea to document this training plan and any necessary amendments so you can use it in future. Remember to keep thanking the team for their contributions to the training. The more they see that their input has made a practical difference, the less stressful it will be next time. D ear Dr Toni, I am bad at delegating. I can’t help taking over and doing things myself. Help! Dr AN, Vic Delegation is a whole skill in itself, and it takes time and practice to develop. Lots of practice owners (and practice managers, actually) do exactlywhat you are describing, but the good news is that you can learn to delegate well! The first step in delegating is to plan the delegation. What do you want to delegate, and to whom? Is that person the right person for the job (e.g. do they have the right skill set, do they have time?)? Also think through some of the impediments they might hit. Do they have time? Do they have other necessary resources (e.g. access to a computer, a budget)? Consider also how you want them to think as well as you want them to do. Most delegation stops at the task; we tell people what we want them to do and leave it at that. If you have team members have known you long enough to read your mind, or who think the same way you do anyway, then great! But everyone else needs to be taught the way you want them to think. If you think something is “common sense”, then you’re making a big assumption here that every single person thinks the way you do, and that’s not always right! Some useful ways to train people in how to think involve using the delegation conversation to explore your own assumptions. Do this by asking questions about the process, e.g.: u Now that I’ve told you what I want, how will you go about it? u Can you foresee anything that might stop you getting it done? u How will you manage this task with your other priorities? u Can you think of anything you need in order to get this done? u How long do you think it will take you? u What will you do if you get stuck? If their answers to any of these questions are different from what you had been thinking, then it’s excellent that you’ve had the conversation! That area of difference may have become a Delegation Fail if it hadn’t been uncovered in advance. That’s when you can negotiate with them. Let’s pretend that you’ve asked how long they think something will take and they’ve said 8 weeks but you were hoping they’d get it done in two. You might say: “Oh, that’s interesting. I thought it would take less time than that. Can you please tell me how you reached that conclusion?” They might have a good reason that hadn’t occurred to you. Or they might be unsure how long it will take because they’ve never done a task like that before. Talk to themabout how tomake it work with their other priorities. In short, then, a delegation is likely to be successful when they understand not just what you want them to do, but how you want them to go about it. So, plan, and practice! “ “