Sometimes, you have a bad hire. But oftentimes, it’s bad onboarding! In this episode of Practical Solutions Day, Kirk Behrendt brings back Adriana Booth, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to help you understand the importance of onboarding and how to do it right. To learn how to onboard — not waterboard — new team members, listen to Episode 911 of The Best Practices Show!
Learn More About Adriana:
Learn More About ACT Dental:
More Helpful Links for a Better Practice & a Better Life:
Episode Resources:
Main Takeaways:
Quotes:
“We work closely with Bent Ericksen. They say 50% — 50% — of retention is the onboarding process. So, I'm here to tell you this is crazy important. When it's poor, new hires stay quiet, they make avoidable mistakes, they question the right career move, and you get turnover. So, let's start the right way.” (4:13—4:41) -Kirk
“A lot of times, the doctor or manager, whoever does their hiring, will say, ‘Oh, it was just a bad hire.’ But we have to put that mirror up and say, ‘Did we just do a bad job onboarding?’ because we might have. They might have been a great hire had we given them the right tools.” (4:46—5:02) -Adriana
“We all want to feel like we are where we belong. When we start in a new position, a new company, we want to know what the purpose is of that company, of that team. What are their values? How do they behave as a culture in that practice, and how can I integrate into that? If that's laid out really nicely from day one, we don't have to ask that as a new team member. It's already going to be there, so the hard work is already done. So, then we can use tools like our 3-3-3 Onboarding Tool here at ACT to encourage a very nice cadence of, what do we expect them to know in the first three days, three weeks, three months, to really be able to measure the success of the onboarding and really to learn about the practice in a slow but predictable way.” (5:15—6:14) -Adriana
“Hopefully, gone are the days that you walk into a new practice as a new team member and they say, ‘Oh, maybe sit in the lunchroom and read through our manual,’ and it's like, ‘Oh, I'm just supposed to hang out by myself all day?’ That's not our culture . . . It’s, ‘Susie is going to be your onboarding partner.’ So, I'm going to hang out with Susie today. Susie is going to show me the ropes, and I am going to see by interacting with another team member, when I'm reading the core values and core purpose, I'm looking around, I'm watching it in action. So, that team member is also going to help guide me, and they are also going to be able to point out like, ‘Okay, that's one of our values in motion. Hey, this is one of our core purposes, our vision for the practice.’ You can see it starting to unfold. That's going to help that team member really integrate and grab a hold of that value and vision as well.” (8:26—9:25) -Adriana
“Now that we have onboarded in the part of core value, core purpose, ‘I know I belong here,’ now, what am I going to do here? I need to know what the clear expectations of my role, tasks, and job duties are going to be here in this practice so that I can confidently achieve them. So, when you think about hiring for, let's just say a scheduling coordinator, and someone shows up, they've accepted the position, and now you switch it up and you say, ‘Oh, no, no. Now, you’re the billing director,’ and they're like, ‘What are you talking about? I don't know that job.’ We have to make sure where we start is where we end. So, when we say, ‘Kirk, you are now the billing coordinator. You are now the patient coordinator,’ that's where we want to make sure we are clear.” (12:10—13:09) -Adriana
“One of the internal dialogues we have here is E – R = C, expectations minus reality equals conflict. All of our team members know it. We teach it and we talk about it. The only time we'll ever run into conflict between you and me, a team member, is when expectations and reality aren't met. Now, sometimes expectations can be too high. Sometimes, reality can be too low, whatever. But it gives us a diagnostic tool to see where the conflict may or may not be coming from.” (13:42—14:12) -Kirk
“Do regular check-ins with team members, which I'm highly going to recommend. A check-in is when you sit down — you'll see all this back in the Best Practices Association — you start with a personal high, personal low, business high, business low. What can leadership help you with? What are some of the three things that you're working on? And naturally, it's a regular system where team members in the onboarding process can tell you how they're doing, saying, ‘I'm not understanding this,’ or, ‘I'm not getting this,’ and you're like, ‘I'm so glad you told me that,’ because all too often, we get so far down the line and we're like, ‘They're not cutting it.’ Well, they haven't been given a chance to cut it, or hit the mark, or ask questions. That's why the clarity is so important in this stage around expectations.” (14:13—14:59) -Kirk
“If I know by the end of my three days, three weeks, three months that I've hit all of my markers, I've gotten great feedback from my lead, my boss, my manager, I'm feeling pretty successful here. I'm really confident, and if they ask me to take on more, I think I can do it successfully. And we're not encouraging to keep adding more to someone's plate. But it could be a little higher-level responsibility than maybe you even realized they were capable of when you hired them. So, confidence and trust can really go a long way, and I think we can set each person up that way if we follow the 3-3-3 [Onboarding Tool].” (15:23—16:04) -Adriana
“When you feel like you belong to a group and you feel like you are actually part of that group, the bonuses that you get as a business and that person gets as a team member will grow exponentially. They are going to want to stay there and be forever a part of your team as long as your team is in existence. That is, in itself, a great feeling. It's a great feeling that you can provide being the practice owner, and it's a great feeling when you get that feedback from a team member like, ‘I love it here. It's great here. I really like all my coworkers.’ You know you're doing something right.” (17:44—18:27) -Adriana
“Make sure people feel good about being in your office, and you can ultimately start to create that belonging and ownership.” (19:46—19:54) -Kirk
“As you can see, there are three ways to make onboarding stick. Number one, we're going to talk about culture, core values, how we behave, how we work together, and what this means. The second piece is what's expected from you in your role every single day. The Right Person, Right Seat Scorecard basically covers those. We use a score of zero, one, two. So, zero is below expectations. One is meeting expectations. Two is exceeding expectations. Now, you're giving people clear feedback on whether or not they're hitting the mark. You can use all of these tools to create a great experience for your team.” (20:30—21:04) -Kirk
“If we can master that piece [of creating belonging and ownership], then you will have a committed team member who does okay with the challenges and the speed bumps that can come along in every team and every practice, and they are going to be more committed to helping not only you and the practice thrive, but their co-workers as well. They become very relied on. They become very valued even by their other peers, not just by you.” (21:15—21:43) -Adriana
“You can get what you're seeking as a leader. You can feel like we're all closely connected as friends, but we're also very productive and it's very healthy here. I've done it the other way where I want to work with my buddies, so I'm going to make them all my friends first, so there are no expectations. You can imagine how that ends. You need both. You need people to like you, and you also need them to respect you. And it's not so much respecting you, it's respecting the structure, the organization. That's why onboarding is so important.” (22:26—22:57) -Kirk
“When [onboarding is] done well, it's going to be that they're part of something bigger. They're more productive, they feel valued, and they feel heard. It's just the right thing to do as a business owner. But if it's done poorly, we also know what happens. People don't feel valued, they feel overwhelmed, and they may have a very negative attitude. They lose trust in not only the practice, but maybe their coworkers and the business owner. Then, what are they going to do next? Go look for another job. So, we're back at the starting point, and that's where we don't want to be. We want to do it right the first time, get it as right as we can. Be consistent, show up, use our 3-3-3, use your Right Person, Right Seat, do our check-ins, and we'll have much more successful onboarding.” (23:06—24:00) -Adriana
“An onboarding process that's done well will help people be effective sooner.” (25:48—25:53) -Kirk
Snippets:
0:00 Introduction.
2:59 Why this is an important topic.
5:03 1) Start with purpose.
12:01 2) Set clear expectations.
17:20 3) Create belonging and ownership.
24:01 A crazy onboarding story.
26:35 ACT’s BPA and resources.
Adriana Booth, BS, RDH Bio:
Adriana Booth is a Lead Practice Coach who partners with dentists and their teams to cultivate leadership skills, build practice growth, and streamline business practices. After spending nearly two decades in the dental industry working with top-notch dental teams, Adriana came to ACT to share her passion for professional growth, high-level training, and systems creation with our clients. As a dental hygienist with a love for continuing education and personal growth, helping a practice become successful is at the heart of her passion for dentistry.
Adriana has a B.S. in Dental Hygiene from West Liberty University/O’Hehir University. By being involved in several Columbus, Ohio, study clubs, Adriana maintains strong relationships within her local dental community. She enjoys a variety of fitness activities, family time, good books, and at the top of her list, her fur babies.