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The Hitch With Staff Incentives by Jay Geier

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Many dentists suffer from a condition, which is difficult to self-diagnose and treat. This condition prevents them from being able to create, implement and manage effective ongoing incentives for their staff. Oftentimes the staff are ready, willing and able to elevate the practice if properly motivated to do so, but you haven’t given them any extra motivation.

Take a look at the lifestyle and income of the average staff member in your office and ask yourself, “Does he/she want or need to make more money?” My team and I work with more than 5,000 dental staff a year at our University and I can tell you the answer is a resounding “YES!” Good, talented people want to make a contribution. They want to make a difference and have an impact on your practice’s success. And they can be easily motivated by money.

So if we have a staff who wants and deserves more and a dentist who dreams of a staff-driven practice, why is it so difficult for many dentists to create incentives that work? After 25 years of uncovering and fixing all sorts of staff/doctor problems, I have identified the number-one reason why incentives don’t work. The good news is it’s within your control and can be easily fixed. The problem is the dentist not the staff.

In Wallace Wattles book The Science of Getting Rich, he compares the competitive mind to the creative mind. The competitive mind is the place from which most people’s daily life operates. It is the mentality that resources are scarce, times are tough, and there must be winners and losers. It leads to a natural sense of distrust and inherent competition in everything we think or do. When you operate from the position of the competitive mind, your focus is almost exclusively on you. You are focused on how you will benefit or stand to gain, and on what’s in it for you. You are not focused on others. You look to do the minimum required in order to get the result you want.

This is the barrier that makes incentives unsuccessful. A competitive mind is prewired to be competitive with money and makes you believe that if you pay your staff “extra money” that’s money being taken away from you. If you want a thriving practice that makes a lot of money you must learn how to become creative with money. If you’ve ever promised a bonus or incentive that you either never paid out, or paid with hesitation, that is a result of your competitive mind at work. You want to begin developing your creative mind. Giving money away is a great starting point. If you give little to no money away to people in need, you are competitive. If your monthly incentive payout to your staff is less than 5 percent of total payroll, you are competitive. In the ideal practice, monthly incentive payout is 30 percent or more of total payroll. If you have a competitive mind with money start taking action to shift your mindset.

Here are a few tips to help you begin thinking more creatively.

  1. Commit to being creative from start to finish. This means investing time and energy to set up incentives for your staff and communicate them clearly to each person.
  2. Understand that when incentives are set up correctly your staff is going to make extra money. A good incentive is set so that when you do well, your staff does well. It’s really a win-win.
  3. Happily cut the check when they earn it and hand it to them with a smile!
  4. Focus on helping your staff grow, get better and do well. You can’t just come in everyday focused on yourself. Let’s face it, you couldn’t run your practice without a team to support you, so don’t act like their roles are not important. Your staff is a valuable asset in the practice.
  5. Don’t limit how much money your staff can make. If you ask them to help you grow and make more money each year, they should be able to grow and make more money as well. Think of it as growing together.
  6. Don’t overpay on salaries or hourly wages or pay incentives for things that don’t produce results. If you do, your competitive nature will kick in faster.

Incentives should be performance-based and tied to a statistic that the person has control over. Incentives should be paid out only when the person helps make the statistic rise or improves it over the average. You shouldn’t incentivize someone to produce below-average results.

When creating an incentive for any staff person, here are five aspects to consider:

Statistics
Staff Name Kimberly
Position Hygienist
Average $20,000
Baseline $25,000
Collections Incentive
$25,000 $200
$27,500 $300
$30,000 $400
$32,500 $500
$35,000 $600
1.Statistics
What statistic does the person have control over and the ability to really impact? Here are a few examples of positions in a dental practice with appropriate statistics. Front Desk: New Patients and/or Front Desk Collections Hygienist: Personal Hygiene Collections Marketing Director: New Patients and Referrals

2. Average
What’s the current average for the statistic? Remember, you shouldn’t payout an incentive for someone to just maintain the average in an area. Incentives are to motivate someone to grow an area.

3. Baseline
Set a baseline. We recommend setting baselines about 10-30 percent higher than the monthly average. For example, if your monthly new patient average is 25, you should set the baseline between 28 and 33. The baseline number is where you start to pay the incentive amount.

4. Dollars
Set incentive dollar amounts. Start with the baseline and work up. Five levels of increments is a good place to start, but you can add a few more. Just don’t overcomplicate it.

At left is an example of an incentive plan for a hygienist whose average monthly collections are $20,000 and her baseline is set at $25,000.

5. Communicate
Clearly communicate the incentive structure and expectations to the staff. Confusion over incentives can have a negative result, so don’t assume people understand them. Make sure they do. Tracking and reporting earned incentives each month should be each individual team members’ responsibility, not yours. They need to turn in their incentive reports to you without you having to ask for them.

Incentives work best when given to team members who are motivated by performance-based pay. You can easily identify this during the interview process when you’re hiring. Ask this basic question, “If you had your choice between a little higher base salary or a slightly lower base salary plus the opportunity to earn a significantly greater income based on your performance and the results you deliver, which would you prefer?” Look for the person who wants to be paid on performance. If someone just wants a job to make a salary and get benefits, you will face challenges motivating him/her with incentives. Too many salary-minded team members who are not motivated by incentives can be dangerous.

  Author's Bio
Jay Geier is a speaker, consultant and the president and founder of the Scheduling Institute (SI). More than 5,000 staff participate at SI’s Training Center each year. They are the experts at leveraging staff to produce greater results and have proven that staff incentives are a key to a successful practice. To watch Jay’s latest video on Staff Incentives go to ProfitableIncentives.com or write “Staff Incentives Video” on your letterhead and fax it to 866-651-6445.
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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