Episode 101 – What’s Up with Unemployment?

“In a time where there’s a shortage of employees, find the potential team members that have a true love for other people, and train them how to do dentistry.”

Since the pandemic, a lot of dentists have struggled with keeping and finding good team members. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this topic so today, I’m going to share my perspective and experience 

• I can’t find good employees. What’s the deal with unemployment? 
• Where do I find good treatment coordinators and dental assistants?
• Employees are expecting higher wages. What do I do?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

This is Dr. Bruce Baird with the Productive Dentist Podcast. This is Episode 101. And this is going to come from a lot of questions that have I’ve had and have heard since the pandemic since since COVID-19. We are currently coming out of it in the state of Texas, state of Florida. In fact, even California is opening up now, since the vaccine has come out, so a lot of new things. You know, we’re starting to see things getting back to semi normal.

What’s the deal with employment? I mean, what is the deal with people not wanting to come back to work? That’s one of the questions. And you know, part of this has been because of the extended unemployment benefits that have been extended all the way into September of 2021. This year. Some of the states like Texas are saying we’re not going to do that because we need employees back.

I said, you know, I’m down in Cancun, we’re down here for a week. And you know, even the employees here are having they, some of the people didn’t come back to work. And why why is that? They don’t have unemployment benefits down here. I don’t think if you don’t work, you don’t eat, but they still have a shortage. I think it’s because everything came back online. People started doing other things to make a living during the 18 months that they were laid off. And we see the same thing in dentistry. Getting hygienists to come back. You know, there’s a major shortage. And I don’t know if there’s a shortage of hygienists, but there’s a shortage of hygienists that that want to work right now.

For whatever reason, that is I’m not blaming anybody, but what do we do? And that’s one of the questions I had, what do we do? I’m, I used to have three hygienists. Now I have one, do I do my own hygiene? And, you know, we have to think differently. And what does that mean? Well, you know, we’re going to be much more aligned with periodontal disease, you know, now’s the time to become very, very, it’s always been the time but now in particular, is the time to be very adamant about doing a comprehensive exam, looking at periodontal disease differently, looking at everything that has to do with perio, erosion, you know, biomechanical risk, functional risk and aesthetic risk. It’s looking into each one of these things. And why why do we do that? Well, I think it’s so easy.

And there’s a lot of new patients coming in right now. I see our practices that have been working with us, they’re growing their business, but they’re having problems, hiring the right people, or hiring anybody. Now, I’ve told you guys, you know, hygiene is a little bit different, because you can’t teach somebody to be a hygienist, you have to actually have to have a license and go through school and do all that. Am I going to recommend that you start doing hygiene, you may decide that as part of a comprehensive treatment plan, you will be doing some of that hygiene, along with doing three crowns and restorative and other things.

So when when I left, if it’s a long appointment, what I would say is, that’s the time for nice sedation, we’re going to do your cleaning, or we’re going to do your scaling and root planing or we’re going to do your laser pocket disinfection, we’re going to do your lap surgery, and we’re going to do whatever it takes to get you healthy. And when we say that, so So by doing the comprehensive exam, you may be able to take some of that work. That was going to the hygienist that you don’t have anymore.

And you can start doing it as a part of longer appointments. So that’s that’s one thing. Another question that I got was, you know, what about my treatment coordinators, my my dental assistants, you know, I can’t find any, there’s not a, you know, we, as a matter of fact, at the office, for six weeks, we were looking and had no applications. And this is, you know, one of the fastest growing states in the country in Texas. And we didn’t have any applications, then all of a sudden, the the, we started seeing applications, but they had no experience. And now you guys know what I think about experience.

I mean, I think experience is way overrated. It is. It’s something that no, I’m not going to turn down somebody that has been working for a top notch dentist, that is does restorative dentistry and has great communication skills. And you know, those things? Yes, I want them in the office. However. Gay has been with me 30 years, 31 years, and gay came from Walmart, summer came from and summers probably one of the toughest treatment coordinators in the entire country. She was working at a vet clinic. Shannon was a masseuse.

And and now these people are top notch, why are they top notch, because we had the last, the last episode that we did was on commitment. I had the commitment to train those people to be the best I could be. So I think when you’re looking for some good treatment coordinators, it comes down to the right person, though somebody who can communicate well, somebody who is teachable, somebody who doesn’t come in cocky, like I worked for this doctor and that doctor and this doctor, my question is, well, why aren’t you still working for now? If they’ve moved and they’re in a, you know, they’ve just come to the area? Well, then I’m very interested in giving them a chance I want to go through but I want to have a want to find out what kind of person they are. How do we do that?

Well, that’s where my team does the interviewing, they actually go in and take them to lunch, and they find out all the good, the bad, and the ugly. And then they come back and report to me. And I don’t know if that’s HR friendly. But they’re just going to lunch. So that’s all I can say. And so from that, from that standpoint, I find people who are now not only are they top notch people, but they’re also somebody who the rest of my team says yes, you know, we, we like this person, we really want them on our team. Why is that important? Well, if your team’s not excited, if and I used to do all the hiring, and firing. Now the firing just happens. When it does happen, it just happens. That person realizes they’re really not. They’re really not a part of this team, because the rest of the team is committed.

So I kind of, you know, I kind of laugh when, you know, when my my team comes back to me, let’s just say it’s three weeks later, and one of maybe Gay comes and says, you know, this person is just, you know, they’re not, you know, they’re just not working. They’re not doing what you said, I said, but you guys hired him. And, and I remember we had a hygienist who was a just a top notch, and she’s still as a top notch hygienist. We had a new hygienist coming in. She says she doesn’t know anything about this, and that and this and that. And I said, I tell you, what, Would you do me a favor? Would you train her to be as good as you? Can you commit that to me?

Because I you know, I don’t think it’s really helping, just saying, she’s not good enough. And she doesn’t know things. Now, she was mean to patients. And she was that that’s a whole different animal. But she wasn’t mean to patients, patients loved her. So guess what, that person became just as productive per hour. As the as Michelle, who was the hygienist who I asked to train her. And you know what, that’s the kind of commitment when you ask them, ask them? Would could you do this for me? And that’s that relationship question where you look them straight in the eye and says, I need you to help me. I need you to help this office. I need you to train her to be as good as you. What does that take? Well, that takes extra time.

It takes but it’s a lot better to have your team training your team than it is for them to bitch about it. Or even worse for you to bitch about it. I hear it all the time. The doctors bitching about this person, my team, they’re just not the team I want to bring we’ll get the team you want to bring? Quit, quit? No, I just don’t understand why people keep people that why do you understand because I did it for probably 50 10 years in practice, but I don’t understand it anymore. You know, if somebody is not committed, if somebody is not happy if somebody is not doing a good job, first step, train them well.

Second step, retrain them, well keep working with them. Third step is invite them to go to their happy place, if they’re not working out, have you done everything you can do? Has your team done everything they can do. But that’s where, especially in a time where there’s a shortage of employees, find the employees that have great personalities, find the employees or the potential employees that are people, people, people persons, and they and and have a true to love. And for other people. You can train them how to do dentistry, they trained us how to do it, and by golly, we can train them how to do it, whatever is within your state law mandates.

Yes, you can do that. Another question that I’ve been hearing a lot is, well, how much is how much is your hygienist making? How much is your front desk making? How much is it because everybody’s coming now. And they’re expecting Higher, higher wages. Some of the states I mean, they’ve they’ve adopted the $15 an hour minimum wage. And so so that’s got everybody thinking, inflation is inflation happening right now. Yeah, it’s happening. You know, everybody got everybody got millions and billions of dollars. From the from the government, they saved it. They didn’t spend it.

But now that COVID is over, they’re going on trips, they’re going on vacation, they’re going to the dentist or having work done. And they’re expecting top notch people like me down here in Mexico, and I’m noticing, Hey, there, they’re short on employees. Don’t have your office be short on employees. But you’re going to have to pay more. inflation’s gonna have your fees gone up to cover it, because I guarantee you restaurants are raising their fees, building houses. Home Depot is raising their lumber prices three times a week right now. So if times have changed, things are different right now. Now, is it going to always be this way? No, it’s not always going to be this way. But I’ve been through this in my lifetime, probably five times.

So don’t let Don’t let the price that you’re going to have to pay for great people. Don’t let that be a problem. increase your productivity. Consistently understand your business. Yeah, there are hygienists now making 50 bucks an hour, 5560 bucks an hour. I listened on some of the threads. They say, well, you’re losing money. You can’t do hygiene. You can’t do this. Well, that’s because you’re listening to you’re listening to the insurance companies you’re doing. You’re doing dentistry based on what they’re willing to pay.

And that’s not and we’ve done multiple podcasts, hopefully you’ve heard them on, you know how to get away from that type of thing. But you’re going to have to pay more for employees, does that mean your percent overhead of employees is going to go from 20 to 28? No, you’re going to increase your productivity, you’re going to concentrate you’re going to be more committed, you’re going to start doing the things that you need to do to keep your team overhead at 20 or below. Now I know there are people out there say oh 2520 sevens, okay, 20 nines, okay, that’s bullshit. They’re just not teaching you how to be productive.

That’s just total BS. You know, if you’re productive, like I said, multiple times are our team overhead and we pay very well. The most in our area was 17 and a half percent. Why because we produce dentistry and everybody’s trained and we work together. So anyway, hopefully, this has been helpful, these are three of the questions that I got. You’re gonna have to pay more inflation has gone up, you’re gonna have to train more, because you’re don’t have as many qualified people applying, and you’re just going to have to be committed, like in Episode 100, you’re gonna have to be committed to doing whatever it takes to have a successful business because that successful business is gonna allow you to have the lifestyle that you want.

So hopefully, this has been good for you guys. I will be back next week with another podcast from the productive dentist. If you have any questions, send them to Bruce at productive dentist calm. Thanks for listening.