#916: How to Boost Employee Engagement

Dental A Team Podcast

The more engaged your team members are with your practice, the happier everyone (patients included) is. Kiera shares four questions to ask employees in connection to their engagement, then breaks down how to interpret the responses and what to put into place for improvement.

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:00.75)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm so happy you guys are here. I hope today has just been an incredible day for you. And I hope you guys just remember that we are so lucky and so blessed to work in this incredible industry of dentistry. We are getting ready to roll into Q4 and I hope you guys are just feeling good about it. Like Q4, end of year, here it is. And I hope you guys are just loving it and enjoying it. And you just feel like you are completely and utterly prepared for the greatest time ever.

As always, thank you for listening and please, please, please go leave us that five star review. Please share this in other groups, tag this, snag this. You guys are gonna wanna share today's podcast. I know you will, but you guys downloading these episodes, sharing them with other people, that's how you keep us as the top dental podcast. And you know our mission is to get this podcast into every dental practice out there because I believe that if we can positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible, we are gonna make the greatest good.

We're gonna be able to help teams. We're gonna be able to help owners. We're gonna be able to help patients have the best lives, the best experiences, the best communities. And that's what I'm here for. So today I wanted to go into a topic about how to get better employee engagement. All right? Anybody here for it? Are you here for employee engagement? Because if you are, I am here for it. I think having employees is some of the like hardest and most rewarding part of owning a business. And so today,

I just wanted to give you guys some amazing tips of how can you guys get your employees engaged. So my husband, actually is overseeing several, several, several physicians and people within his hospital. And we were talking about employee engagement and I feel like there's a space of like, we, do we survey our teams? Do we not survey our teams? What do we do with this? And he mentioned that at the location that he's at that they actually hide.

four questions within their survey to find out how employees are engaged. And so I will read them to you. Number one is, my work gives me a sense of personal accomplishment. Number two is, and you guys, I'm definitely looking and I'm reading this right now. I would recommend your company as a good place to work. I intend to stay with your company for at least the next 12 months, and I am proud to work at your company.

Kiera Dent (02:21.742)

So those four questions, my work gives me a sense of accomplishment. I would recommend this place is a good place to work. I intend to stay here for the next 12 months and I'm proud to work at this dental office. And as we were talking about this engagement, my husband has, with all of his team members, he has several, several team members and he just came in getting tens across the board of his employee engagement. And so I was asking him about it I said, what is it? And he said, these are the four questions that at their hospital that they're the most concerned about knowing.

How are they at? And so I asked my husband, said, okay, tell me more. I want to like do some information research outside of dentistry. What are people doing in other healthcare professions? What is that? And he said, I asked him, said, what are the things that really helped for your organization? And he gave me a pretty good list of as a manager, as a leader, what is he doing for his team to make sure that they're taken care of? And one of the things that I thought was crazy interesting is he said, the first one was that they're never alone.

that everybody helps each other out, that they feel like that they're a part of a team. He said that all of them actually talk about getting a lunch break and being able to have that time away from patient care and that they are fulfilled by their patient care and that they're like what they're doing is something they're very passionate and fulfilled by. They're compensated well. They have great hours that they're working and we're talking, this is a hospital setting. So it's stressful. It's hard. They have a lot of cases there and patients that they're responsible for. They see patients every 15 to 30 minutes. like

Just think about dentistry, we're not seeing them that often, at least we're hopefully, unless we're pediatric or ortho. But just thinking about how can we get our employees more engaged? And I've kind of had this like weird space of, we've always done two times that we would actually, send out surveys to our team and something, I was talking to a friend and they have done a lot of studies on, on surveys and your employees actually will rate themselves higher.

than how they actually are because we had some surveys and people were giving us tens across the board and then like a month later they were giving us a notice and I thought, gosh, like how is this even real? And so I'm in this weird, conflicted space of, here's the four questions but how do we actually get that information? Because there have been a lot of studies that have been done that actually show that employees actually want to show up the way they think that their employer wants them to be. So they're going to maybe give higher numbers and higher ratings than how they really feel.

Kiera Dent (04:44.396)

because as human beings, always want to be seen better than we actually are. so thinking about that and how do we build that and how do we build this space? But really, how can we get our employees engaged and excited about what we're doing? I think those four questions, if I were to go back and to look at offices that we consult and work with practices and looking at my practices, like I have several practices that have some of the best engagement. And I think about them that their work does give them a sense of fulfillment.

that they do plan to stay with that office for the next 12 months. And I think that comes from leadership giving a great vision of where they want to go and really having it be something that these people are passionate about. think them feeling like that they would recommend your office as a great place to work and that they are proud to work at your location. And maybe today your team's not that way. And maybe we need to flush some people out and bring on people that really are aligned with that vision.

I know it feels scary because the world has been tricky to hire and the world has been harder to find and retain team members. But I do believe that when we have those four things core and we have our employees bought into it, we have our leadership team in place with that. And we really are working towards that. I do believe that we have stronger engagement. I also think I'm working on really, really speaking the truth and encouraging your team to do so as well.

At the end of the day, you should be able to put your vision out and your team should be buying. And if they're the correct team and the best team, and if not, then it's okay to let people go and find a location that they really are satisfied with and you can keep driving it forward. It's always interesting when I consult practices and I see offices that have right people, right seat. And we were actually just on a meeting. I'll pull up some notes for you guys. We were just on a meeting and we're super excited to be working with this guy. And he was talking about.

If you guys haven't read the book, it's called the EOS life and I really really really loved the EOS life because there's a great definition where they talk about that people are compensated correctly, that people feel like they are having a sense of fulfillment and excitement and engagement, that they feel like they have time for their other hobbies and their lives and that they're just truly truly fulfilled within what they're doing.

Kiera Dent (07:04.844)

and that they have time and the bandwidth to do it. And I thought, how often are we kind of scraping things together, myself included within our companies, because right now it feels like, it's hard to get people hired. It's hard to get people engaged. But if we can think about, all right, these are the four questions that we want for our employees. But in addition to that, we do want people to be really engaged in the work that they're doing. They find it meaningful. We want them to feel like they're compensated very well and that they're giving back and contributing to the growth of the organization and that they have the time.

to have passions outside of work and they feel fulfilled by that. And like we have them in the right seat so much that we almost have to tell them to stop working because they have such a love and a passion for what they're doing. And so maybe today you might be looking and thinking, my gosh, there's no way my team's that way. Or you might be looking and thinking, wow, my team really is more engaged than I give them credit for. But what is a small one or 2 % shifts that you can make that would actually make your team more bought in and more engaged to it. And this is what I think I am the most passionate about within consulting.

is being able to help offices get their teams aligned to be rowing in the same direction where, like this coach told us, they said, the greatest thing is getting all the human capital rowing in the same direction. That's gonna create the momentum with ease. But if we're not there, we need to figure out is our vision wrong, is where we're headed wrong, are people wrong? Do we not have people engaged? Is this a place where culture is wrong, where leadership's wrong? Like what is the piece that needs to be fixed? Because oftentimes we try to like,

throw out so many great things when really it's just one small change that if we were able to make that change, things would actually move forward a lot faster. So really looking at those four questions, really looking to see what is our culture, what is our vision, and do we have all of our human capital rowing together? And if not, it might be time, like myself, where I hired a mediator coach to come in and help us set the vision of our company, to help get our team realigned and reinvigorated on where we wanna go. You guys, I am a consultant and you would think that I would,

always know how to do it the best. And that I would like to dispel any falsehoods around that because, yes, I'm an incredible leader and yes, I have it credible. I also can run out of like, where am I going? And was this vision the right vision? And I need some clarity around it. And so knowing when it's time to pull in a coach or a guide or a consultant to help you get aligned because they can hear things and they're not in the weeds.

Kiera Dent (09:26.602)

I realized I was in the weeds and I can't see clearly myself. You guys, I do this for a living. I coach other practices. I'm able to get their visions, but when you're in it, you're so close to it that you can't see it. And I realized to get my engagement scores higher, to get our team bought into things higher. I needed to hire somebody outside of our organization who can say the things that maybe I can't say, or who can say the same things that I say, but my team hears it differently because it's coming from someone else. And it's crazy because I believe as leaders.

When we can realize that we need that help and that guidance for ourselves and also for our team. That's the greatest thing a leader can do. Our job as leaders is not to know all the answers. Our job is to find the answers. Our job is to guide them on a compelling vision. Our job is to make sure this is a place that's, that's fair. That's incredible that people are proud to work here, but that doesn't mean that we need to enable. That means that we need to empower with accountability and ensure that where we're going, our human capital, AKA our entire team.

is bought in and driving. Now we won't have all A players and that's okay. We might have some B players, but the reality is we want everybody passionate driving towards that same goal with vigor and vim and excitement. Otherwise we've got people pulling us back and that's where things get very hard. That's when we start to have a lot of the team turnover, but truly when we can set our goal and our vision and our sights in the same direction, our entire team will be more aligned. So.

I would love to help you guys. I'd love our team to be able to help you guys guide you, help your team get that vision and that guidance, help give you doctors that vision and guidance, because oftentimes we're on our own isolated islands thinking we have to figure this out ourselves. But I realized that's our own ego speaking, not what's real. There is so much help out there around you to give the guidance, to bring your team, to get them bought in. and I'm so grateful that Dental A Team.

I truly believe is the best consulting company out there to do this for you and for your practice. So let's get your team bought in. Let's get you guys excited. Let's get that energy back. So everybody's rowing in the same direction and we can truly have that incredible definition of an incredible life where we're so fulfilled. We're so passionate. We're compensated well. The business is thriving. We have time for hobbies and family and other things extracurricular. And we do it with so much ease because we love what we do so much and getting people in those right seats, right places with the correct deliverables around it.

Kiera Dent (11:45.408)

is really the greatest way. So reach out, [e-mail] There's no reason to wrap up this year and have it be hard for you when the easy answer is right in front of you. You just have to reach out. And I promise you that if you're not the right fit, we'll let you know. We'll let you know if you are the right fit. But generally speaking, when you come, we probably have a solution that you haven't thought of. And we always do everything with ease, simplicity, and making sure it's fun for you and for your team. So reach out, [e-mail]

And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.