2023

Introduction

First let me say this doesn’t happen overnight. I often get emails and phone calls from dental practices with an air of panic stating they need an assistant or a hygienist immediately! Unfortunately, these are from offices who haven’t done their homework that requires them to be prepared for the sudden loss of an employee.

Whether it be from an accident, emergency, or from an employee walking out, all of these situations can be avoided if they do their homework in advance of these occurrences..

I know some of you are saying you don’t ever have problems like this. These offices are few and far between and  they are ready in an emergency. Preparation takes some time and energy, so let’s talk about how to start today to safeguard against this potential problem if you haven’t already!

Are You Dental Temporary Ready?

This is one of the first questions I ask a dental practice that is struggling with employees. I  encourage all dental practices to plan ahead for the need of a dental temporary. This is easier said than done in smaller communities, but in large metropolitan areas, there is no excuse.

Find those dental professionals who are willing to temp. This can be dental assistants or hygienists who only work part-time for other practices, or perhaps they are instructors at a local community college. These dental professionals are off during holidays, spring, or summer breaks. Include your dental temporaries in your monthly staff meetings, dental team continuing education, Holiday parties, or hopefully you plan fun outings with your Dental Team? Include them as well!

Again, this takes time to find these people, so don’t put this on the back burner! Assign someone on your Dental Staff to work on this issue until you’ve established a sound list of Dental Professionals willing to temp.

Write a Compelling Job Description

I can’t tell you how many boring job descriptions I’ve read. A poorly written job description says this is a poorly (boring?) run dental practice. Get innovative, excited and write a drop-dead.  awesome job description that compels the reader to contact your office!

Does your dental practice have a mission statement? Does your office culture reflect your mission statement?  Does your ad talk about your awesome office culture? It has been said that office culture is far more important than wages and benefits.

Are you able to include information about competitive compensation and benefits? Again, I have read that compensation is far less important than office culture and appreciation, the condition of the economy may play a role as a determining factor for dental job seekers.

If you feel you can’t brag a little about how great a place your dental practice is, perhaps you need to work a little on improving office culture. Don’t know how to go about doing that? Find a dental office manager who does!

Leverage Social Media

Do you have a fun and exciting Social Media platform? Make certain you have the right dental employee posting on your social media sites. This is a great opportunity for your dental practice to share all the great reasons why working in your dental office is the best place for dental job seekers to spend their time.

Attend Job Fairs

Become a vendor at a job fair. You’ll never know what you missed unless you put yourself out there at a job fair. Encourage your dental employees to work with you. Some of the very best dental employs are found in the most unexpected places

Utilize Job Boards

Post your ad for dental job seekers to see on a large scale! Dental job boards, such as DentalStaffing.org places you out over the entire United States! We have dental job seekers who are willing to relocate for the right position. We offer dental job seekers the opportunity to register anonymously, therefore keeping their desire to make a change private. They can see your ad; you just can’t see them.

Our site is very reasonable! We offer a 60-day ad at $79 with the opportunity to renew at just $29 for an additional 30 days. We also offer memberships for single dental practices at $139/year and multiple dental practices at $169/year.

With a membership, dental practices can post as many ads as they need for one year. Memberships also provide discounts from our very vetted dental partners. I am very comfortable stating there isn’t a problem they cannot solve!

Thanks for listening and have a Blessed Day!

Dr. Deborah L. Marynak