Can you imagine baseball without any rules? Or, driving in rush hour traffic with no laws or guidelines governing what to do when the lights turn green or red? The obvious result would be confusion and chaos. This same logic applies to every organization.  If there are no guidelines and rules for employees to follow they will not know what is expected of them. Frustration, confusion and unnecessary disagreements then happen.  For these reasons, it is vital that you have both a general policy manual as well as individual manuals for each position in your dental practice. In addition to achieving your...

While it is important to understand what is unacceptable conduct for your dental staff, it is equally important to understand what is “acceptable conduct” in a dental practice so you can concentrate on the positive not the negative.  In order to create a positive working environment I encourage you and your staff to practice the following code as much as possible: 1. Ensure patients have your full interest, receive top quality care, and feel valued. 2. Exceed patients’ expectations for treatment, communications and office experience. 3. Be courteous and considerate toward patients and fellow staff. 4. Conduct yourself in an honest,...

AVOIDING INEFFECTIVE MEETINGS A very poor way to run an office is for you and your staff to have meetings infrequently and only when there has been a problem.  Staff meetings should be something that are useful and routine, not something that are called as emergencies because you’re upset or there have been problems or somebody has made a mistake.   You can make the mistake of calling a meeting when only one individual needs to be corrected and that individual is talked about in the meeting as if it’s “everybody.”  That will do two things very poorly.  First, this is a way of chastising...

Based on a 2015 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling, office manuals or handbooks can't have overly broad prohibitions on employee use of cell phones. Besides which, if you feel you can't treat your staff like adults, that's a bigger problem. That being said, there is nothing wrong with issuing a simple and sane cell phone policy just as you might do for a dress code, calling in sick, vacations, PTO, etc.  If you feel you need a cell phone policy here is my recommendation: CELL PHONES Cell phone use (including texting, checking Facebook, etc.) should only occur during breaks or meal periods...