Dr. Allen Nazeri explains why new dental employees stay motivated for about 90 days then drop off: they lose confidence in leadership or stop believing in the practice's vision. He recommends transparent communication, leading by example, letting employees make decisions, offering growth opportunities, and incentives they actually want.
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Hi, this is Dr. Allen. If you're reaching this channel for the first time, this channel is dedicated to medical and dental practice professionals, and I try to help answer any questions they have. I had a direct message from a doctor in Houston, Texas. He's a dentist, and his question is, how do I keep my employees motivated? Well, doctor, that's a great question. The first thing you need to understand is why the employees are not motivated. Okay. I hardly ever see an employee who has started a job and they are not motivated the first 90 days. As a matter of fact, they are extremely motivated the first 90 days. They're excited about the new job, about the new position, you as the leader. And they like everything about the business and the practice because they're sold on the idea of coming and working with you. Now, after 90 days, typically they lose their motivation. And one of the reasons for that, which as leaders, we need to discover, is that why that happens. Well, many times the reason for it is because of the fact that they have lost confidence in us as leaders or our product or services that we are offering. So, for example, they could be the best receptionist for you. They're closing a lot of cases, closing a lot of appointments. They're raving about your practice. But then after 90 days, somehow they find out that they are not aligned with your vision or what you're talking about. You're not basically walking the talk is not true. So they may lose confidence in the practice. So this is the first step is to try to find out why they are not motivated. Okay. But as a general rule, I can give you some ideas of what is possible. And I made some notes so I can help you understand this a little bit better. As leaders, number one thing is that we need to communicate better. We need to have an open, transparent communication, communication with our team members all the time. Our team is nothing different than being a football team or a soccer team. They need to know what's going on at all times within your practice and what is the scoreboard. So if you are keeping them out of the loop, if you're only sharing information with them, when you have problems in your practice and.
Not being transparent, okay, they're not going to like it. Okay? So communication is the key. Second thing is, you need to be a good example. We cannot.
Expect our employees to do something for us, let's say, to take care of the customers. We don't value them. They need to genuinely see that from us, that we truly value people and customers before.
We can ask them to do that. So we have to be definitely a good example. Number three, we have to empower them. People like to be empowered.
Our employees are all adults and they can make decisions on their own. They can go and buy their next car or make decision on their next apartment or resolve conflicts and issues. So they can make pretty good decisions about everything. So it's our job to empower them and make them.
Understand that they can make decision on behalf of us or the company as what is good. Now as leaders, we need to be fully matured enough to be able to stand for the fact that if there are some decisions that are made is bad, it's going to be a mistake. We will be okay. And that takes time to develop yourself as a leader. And I certainly had this problem, you know, when I initiated practicing and so forth. And as soon as somebody made the mistakes, I wanted to take over and do the job for them. So this is something, something that obviously as leaders you need to learn and develop those skills. Number four, you need to offer opportunities for advancement. Nobody wants to work for anyone for long term.
Unless they're advanced in their career. So if your practice is not big enough, if your company is not big enough for the person to advance, you know for sure they're going to leave the loss. They have to have some sort of opportunities for advancement. So my recommendation, Inc. You can partner with them in some sort of a. In some sort of a, you know, side business. You, you can, you can help them grow to a next level through your connection and network and still be connected with you and your company. But we do need to provide them some opportunities for growth. And finally we need to incentivize them. And incentivize them not talking about only financially, but also non financially. It could be offering take courses for advancement, degrees, education and so forth. And those things should really be left to the employees to decide, not us to decide. So don't assume if what you think should be the incentive. So just talk to them. Do you want to go to school or you want the money instead for it? But everyone loves to be incentivized. I'll be happy to answer any Q and A. Please email me@drallenci mail.com I'm here to help our medical community to grow across the globe. So if I can help you in any way, form or possible with education, corporate trainings, consultations, be happy to do it. Thank you very much. See you on the next episode. Thank you.
