Staffing Challenges Post-COVID
This is a hard question to answer because there seem to be so few well qualified individuals out there. Many business owners are so stressed about not having all their open positions filled that they rush into hiring someone. The rushed applicant ends up being the wrong person for the job, which ends up being a bigger problem.
My greatest frustration is the constant “no shows” to interviews; or, even worse, an awesome first interview that later no shows to their working interview. This has happened so often and is so frustrating. I am still at a loss for words!
Places to start weeding through applicants include the DCDS website’s Job Bank, the DCDS Dental Assisting School, DentalPost, SimpTemp Staffing Solutions and KAD Dental Staffing. Even though the staffing companies do the hard work by combing through their applicants, I am finding that they have a shortage of applicants. On top of having a shortage of applicants, the applicants they do have are not as qualified as I would like, and you must pay a fee to the agency for their services.
Where I have found the most luck has been DentalPost. On DentalPost you pay to place an ad as well as pay to search tons of resumes. The problem with this site is you need to comb through a lot of applicants and hope they respond to your message, and then hope they show up to the interview. I have found there are too many no shows, but there are some unicorns in the mix! I recommend using DentalPost because you will see the volume of applicants you are looking for, whereas with the staffing companies you may wait months for them to find you one person to interview.
After you have filled the open staff position, there are other concerns to focus on as well. Integration of new employees into your office is a huge task. The approach to take to make this transition as successful as possible is to make sure you have a clear system in place. The system must be precise, written down, distributed, and practiced. The system should include scheduling, the new patient visit, treatment plan presentation, productivity of the office and how to deal with phone calls and patient interaction.
The ADA has a pamphlet on how to create an employee manual that can be ordered by members. You can also search for sample dental employee manuals online for ideas, but note they may have policies specific to their states.
The most important part of a successful office is making sure everyone is on the same page and following the systems of your specific office. I know this seems like a daunting task; however, once you accomplish it, your office will run like a well-oiled machine.
