Hiring is hard right now. Kiera talks about a critical mistake offices tend to make when filling new seats: Hiring not just for skill, not just for culture, but both. She walks listeners through aligning your hirees with your core values, requiring a full team assessment, and involving your full staff.
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today I wanted to talk about a big hiring mistake that I see offices make and how to fix it. I'm not just going to leave you on a cliffhanger, but like, let's talk about how to fix it because I know hiring's a beast right now. I'm in the suck of it, but don't forget, this is the success tax. We don't get the suck without the success. Like you have to have both. so hiring is a beast, but I think fixing some of these things, working through it and great news times are changing everybody. ? it used to be that, ?
It used to be an employee market and I think it's now shifting. so for people feeling like there's not great team members out there, I will say that the market has shifted and we've actually made our most amount of hires in the last eight months as a Dental A Team company. And ? I think I've learned a lot that I'm excited to share a lot of these hiring mistakes that I've made, that I've seen offices make and how you can fix them. So ? I really think that there's a simple three steps around it that you can solve it. And who knows, I might go beyond the three.
But really helping you guys prevent that team turnover, protect your culture, um, and really, you know, doing it in a great way. Then only teams obsessed with making dentistry easier for you guys. Um, our experiences helped hundreds and thousands of team members build strong teams and to do it with fun and ease and to make it a place where you're obsessed with going. I actually just spoke with a doctor the other day and she said, Kiera, you need to use me as a testimonial and I need to get her on the podcast. Uh, but she said,
A year ago, I hated my practice and I didn't like going and I was ready to literally burn the whole thing down, burn my life down and walk away. And she said, Dental A Team changed my life and you saved me and you saved my practice. And now it's a place where I'm obsessed with going. I'm so happy going there. I love my team. I love my patients. I love what I'm doing. And I think if that's not a testimonial for you of what Dental A Team can do in a very short amount of time, having a doctor who absolutely hated their practice to being obsessed with their practice and being so happy every single day is amazing.
? I also think that ? just really being here as a person who is hopefully a friend in the industry, we help practices, we fly to your office, we work with you virtually, but you don't have to do this alone. Everybody says dentistry is an isolated island and I would say only if you want it to be. We have a community, we bring our doctors in person together if you want so you can be around a community of like-minded dentists. We physically come to your office and we also work with your team virtually and being team members ourselves.
Every single consultant on our team has to be a team member, front office, back office experience to where we don't just understand you, we actually are you. So let's talk about hiring. So that was talk about like hire for culture and not just skill. And I think mistake number one is not getting both. I think there's certain roles that you absolutely 100 % can just do culture and train it up. I will also say that there's a lot like an office manager role. There's no way I'm going to recommend that you train them up.
Now you can pull someone from banking, you can pull other people and yes, you can train up, but depending upon the space of your practice, hiring for skill and culture is essential. And I think I used to just feel like, like we train, some great people on for culture. And I was like, do you know how much of an uptick learning hill I had for not having any skill there? So you can, but I want to say that if you just hire for culture and not for skill, you've got to have a longer bandwidth, lower expectations of them being able to immediately help you.
Like that person's gonna take a good six to 12 months. I have an office right now and they train up dental assistants. They go through 90 days worth of training in an office and it usually takes those dental assistants about six to nine months before that assistant actually feels comfortable and competent to where the doctors feel like they can trust them. So when we look at it, I know you're desperate to fill the seat, but I wanted to say like hiring mistake number one is being desperate and just filling the spot. And I have done this, Britt and I talk about it often.
And we always say like, is this a red flag that we're not paying attention to? So I feel like hiring mistake number one is you ignore the red flags. So it could be a culture red flag, it could be a skill red flag, it could be an expectation misalignment red flag, but getting better at hearing those red flags and not being desperate on your hires is a big mistake that I'm watching dentists make. And so like, make sure that the resume looks great, but how can I then like test them on it? What things can you do? And as you go through the hiring process, don't be afraid
to refine, tweak, change up and make better your process. I can't tell you how many times Britt and I were like, great, we missed that on that last hire. We're gonna add this to our hiring interview questions and we're gonna ask that next time. I just had a doctor and they brought on somebody and clinically they're not on the same page. And I was like, you guys, this is like a one in a million. I've never had this in years and years and years of hiring doctors. We're gonna add that to it. For hiring doctors, we started asking for actual production procedure reports.
I'm not just gonna take you telling me you're doing a $7,500 day. Show me the reports. I don't need to see patient names, but I do need to see what you were able to do that is diagnosed under you. I need to see a sample HIPAA schedule of what your normal day was. Like there's ways that you can ask for things and get better at sleuthing and sussing out information rather than just taking it at face value. Resumes are lied on all the time. I talk to recruiters and I'm not saying people are bad.
I'm just saying that like 90%, I think they told me, think it was 75 % of all resumes are lied on. And I was like, wow, okay. So then we need to trust and verify. So I would just say like, don't miss the red flags and have somebody like Britt, appreciate, she calls me out and I call her out and we say, is this a red flag that in three months we're going to regret? And sometimes that desperation can hit you hard. I would say have somebody on the other side of you that doesn't allow you to make desperate hires. So,
And then what I do is for us, we really do hire by our core values. So you guys can either have core values or have like the top three personality traits that thrive in our office and put that in our interview job ad, put that in our interview questions. So for us, like we hustle, like that is a big thing. Like Dental A Team runs hard. And if that's not your style and you're more like slow, steady, move on. Dental A Team will never be a happy place for you. Like I move quick, our team moves quick. You've got to be a fast paced individual. So for that,
look to see what are some of those characteristics and then really do a litmus test on those employees, future employees, and make sure that they're really going to fit you well. So I think that you can do filtering systems on culture fit surveys. You can have video intros where they can come, phone screen for core value alignment, but really truly having a filtering process where you're not missing those red flags. You're improving your interview questions consistently, adding one more filter step to the interview. It's like for us for consultants, they have to
apply, we do a mock, and then what they do is they have to do a video one. We have to do a mock scenario with them. Like have a pretty intensive consultant hiring process. For you, look to see how can I really know without hiring this person that they're going to be a great fit, not just a good fit for my practice. And I think raise your standard for hiring that we only hire great people, not just good people. ? I think then other people, another mistake that I found in hiring.
is that you don't involve the team. just make these decisions and you don't use the team. And honestly, having team involvement helps protect the culture, but it also makes them bought into this hire. So have them come in for a working interview, have a team lead, ? lead the second interview, ? and then feedback after the candidate where it's kind of a 360 awareness. So like, what does a hygiene department see, dental assistant department, front office and doctors. So have everyone have kind of like a four view and you can randomly ask people and if you're like, I didn't even meet them.
Well, that's a red flag to me that that team member didn't even go say hello to each potential teammate. I know you might have a large office that might not be doable, but really trying to get that four different angle perspective on this person can give you a really good insight. know there's certain roles that I've had people help me with, assess me with others where it's like, that's just my decision to make. But the more I can get more teams involvement, more perspective on it, the better. And I will say, I just recently had a candidate and I had our leadership team give me assessments and they didn't like this candidate.
And it hurt. was a big candidate for me. It was someone I really wanted to hire. And I had to just trust and believe that my team can see things that I can see. well, there's no way for me to know, right? I didn't hire the candidate. I passed on the candidate. There's no way for me to know if that candidate would have been great for us. But what I do know is the team that I have, trust. And I know they're looking out for my best interest always and for our team's best interest always.
and I need to trust them. And sometimes they can pick up on things that you can't. So I would say like fix number two is involve the team. Fix number one is don't miss the red flags and improve it. And then number two, gosh, I'm like all over my mouth. So number one is don't miss the red flags. Number two is make sure that we're using a full team assessment for it. And then number three, sorry, is involving the team. Sorry guys, I'm a little all over the map on my numbers. You guys got it, we're there, we're clear, okay?
Use the team, have them look at those four different perspectives, involve them, have them come in for working interviews. And I know you're like, but Kiera, people are being snatched up. The only position that's really being snatched up is hygiene. And I want to say, if you have a great culture, you've got great reviews. I also pull my team in and I have them like, we recorded our consultants saying why they loved working here. We put that on our job ads out there. We have our consultants love working at Dental A Team. And I use that in my posting.
have your hygienist say why they love working for your practice and put that on your job ad if you can, have it on your website so people can go look at it. But that can also help you not have these desparate where I've got to hire them right here and right there. Also though, if you do hire and they're not right, fire faster. ? I've started making decisions like I should know if a person's great in 30 days. And if in 30 days I can't say that I'd rehire them, I probably need to fire them. Anyway, but I care that so fast. And I've accepted that.
Well, yes, it is fast. My A players, they rise to the top and they're great within 30 days. It doesn't take them 90 days. Within 30 days, they've made a pretty big impact into the company and I'm good with them. My ones that it takes 90 days for them to blossom and bloom, it never works out. And I know that sounds icky. I know that sounds like cutthroat. I'm just here to like speak truth to you guys. I'm here to say like what I've been noticing. when I bring on my higher level, so like an office manager or some of my bigger players,
60 days max. If I haven't seen ROI on you in 60 days, we're out. And I have put that as my standard. I used to do 90 days, but 90 days to me, that's an entire quarter that I've wasted. And usually within 30 days, you guys, you can tell, are they a great culture fit? Are they going to be a great person? Now, not always, but like I said, I have probably hired...
10 plus people in the last six months. I've gone through probably 200 plus interviews and I have cut several people in that 90 days. And that's okay. I just want to give you, I feel like I'm like really speaking to you. here we are. Like, hi, I'm Kiera. I'm going to be in your living room right now. I think I've just realized that I sit here hoping and waiting for potential rather than seeing that it's not going to get there.
And for me to cut bait sooner, it's better for them. It's better for me. And it's better for the team. No one's going to land and knock hiring out of the park. 10 out of 10. You're not. And when I accepted that and I accepted that, like that's my trial period. People can interview insanely well, but I'm not giving them 90 days to prove me that they're great. I want people and I tell them, you got 30 days to show me that you're awesome. And if it's not, I'm going to call it. So they know, I know we're on the same page. And I think if you can do that, it's going to be a lot better. And then train.
culture from day one, all of our team goes through meeting with me, talking about our core values, we go through every single Monday, our vision of the company, our mission of the company, how we behave. I ingrain that from day one. And if that doesn't resonate with people, accountability is high for us. People respond and they have a daily slack reminder that asks what they were, what did they work on? And I'm checking to see if accountability is a natural byproduct of this person or if they're gonna shirk and dodge away from it.
So everything I do from culture from day one is put into place. We have onboarding checklists with culture values. We have a culture mentor that they work with. You've got weekly check-ins for the first 30 days. Like you've got to ratchet those first 30 days. And I know it's hard and it's even hard when I'm like, ? my gosh, I put so much into this person and now they're gone. But to me, that's an opportunity cost that I have to accept and realize that that's part of hiring. So when I look at this,
You got to really make sure that culture is rock solid. You've got to know that all these different pieces are so great for you, that they're there for you, that they're going to help you, that culture is big. But my big thing is make sure you don't miss the red flags, cut bait faster and make sure you really involve the team and hire for that culture. Make sure they're a great culture fit. Make sure they're amazing within that first 30 to 60 days. And if not cut bait and move on.
? and get better and better and better at refining your hiring process. You do that and you will not be in the hiring suck and make sure you've got people that wanna be with you for the next five, 10, 15 years. I had a great candidate. I was so excited to hire this person but things just didn't feel right. And I wanna say with you passing on people that doesn't mean it's a no forever but it's a no for today. And my word, have bracelets on here. My word this year is happy but also.
I have a bracelet that says no, it's a very incognito one. I mean, I've got it held up and you can't really even see it. To remind myself that saying no often is saying yes. ? Me saying no to potential and hiring as a yes of a, it's an all in, is a way better decision to make than Habsies. And the more you can grain that and set solid on that, the better you're going to be long-term. The right people you feel it, you know it. So don't get desperate, wait and hold out and they'll be there, I promise you.
You can, and then have great training and onboarding. We can help with that. have 30, 60, 90 day onboarding. We help assess this. help offices hire office managers, those bigger roles. We don't do the hiring for you, but we teach you, we get on interviews with you. If you need help with this, you're not getting great people. had another doctor who just joined us and she's like, Kiera, lost 40 team members in a year and a half. And I was like, great. Everybody has a hiring graveyard. And the goal is that we get better from that. We move on from that and we do it better the next time. And that's what we commit to.
Raise your standards, raise who you are, and I promise you'll be in a good shape. So you don't need more resumes, you need a right process. You need to stop skipping over those red flags, you need to stop being desperate, and you need to stop giving hope and potential when they're not going to work out. We need to make cuts harder and faster, and we need to be more intentional with who we do hire. And I promise you, you're gonna have that during team before you know it. It's hard, it's scary. We don't wanna do it, but I promise you it's very worth it. So.
? Reach out, I'd love to help you. We've got a lot of resources for hiring. We have an entire hiring course part of our virtual academy. It's all online. We also have downloadable forms. You name it, we probably have it. So reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Commit to only hiring your dream team. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.