Ideally, dental leaders would love to have the perfect work atmosphere that attracts a productive, cooperative team. However, conflict is bound to happen at any job site, and a dental business is no different. The best dental leaders are the ones who understand that conflict is inevitable and go out of their way to create an enjoyable work culture that makes every staff member feel highly valued. They develop key conflict management skills like clarifying misunderstandings, dealing with disputes, and improving communication lines to successfully address conflict early and effectively.
What tools can dental leaders employ to ensure an enriching work culture for their employees? Understanding how to diffuse tension and improve collaboration help. However, a deeper understanding of what a work culture is will enable dental leaders to refine their management approaches to create more functional, harmonious dental teams.
Defining the Work Culture for Dental Practices
How can you define the work culture for dental staff?
Creating a viable dental business culture requires a clear definition and a well-layered strategy that outlines the business’s goals. Dental leaders carve a strong logic structure through strategic planning that details the business goals and makes them measurable. Dental practices can transmit these goals into expression through the introduction of strong work culture. Everyone within the practice gets a dynamic view of the values and beliefs within the business.
No matter if their initiatives had good intentions, some dental practices lack cultural intelligence and awareness. Dental leaders need to set the right pace for refining the culture and making it a place that’s truly welcoming to people from all walks of life. Building a welcoming culture requires having high levels of diversity intelligence—this type of intelligence factors in things like geography, gender, and abilities. And, diversity intelligence can be successfully leveraged to boost employee engagement, foster innovation, and improve team chemistry.
As dental leaders define what their culture is, they should consider a few notable questions. These questions include:
- What is the purpose of this practice? Why did you create it, to begin with?
- Who do you intend to service with your practice, and how do you plan to reach this target market?
- What is the vision for your dental practice?
- What is the lasting legacy you want your dental practice to leave?
Answering these questions clearly and effectively will help dental leaders create strong mission/vision statements that all staff members can follow. Vision and mission statements should reflect the unique aspects of a dental practice and help a practice stand out from the competition. Creating strong statements with core values that prospective hires relate to presents a more enticing work environment for them to consider.
Making Culture Actionable
Writing the above recommendations is a starting point. But, creating an enticing culture to welcome the right dental staff requires action. Leaders have to build on the foundation that the cultural strategy created. The work culture in a dental practice is a shared experience that affects various levels. Culture is dynamic and requires action to prove its intentions.
The actions to convert culture from strategy to reality don’t have to be overly elaborate. There are small details that dental leaders can successfully utilize to foster a positive culture, such as checking on the mental and physical well-being of staff members and patients alike. Also, leaders facilitating open communication and fluidity throughout their dental teams improve productivity and ensure staffers understand how valuable their roles are throughout the practice. Also, leaders should make their staff members feel safe in their new environs, something that’s being especially emphasized in the new normal. When doing dental temping, it’s important to provide a safe and collaborative environment so temporary employees feel like they have the license to make suggestions that will enhance productivity.
Successfully introducing actions that enhance company culture and attract dental staff requires establishing clear details during staff training. Optimizing training programs help dental temp staff, and permanent employees feel more confident about the culture that’s been established or is being introduced.
Workplace culture is the culmination of all the actions of a dental leader. Every action that the leader and their team members take will gradually shift the culture. One thing leaders must always understand is that culture constantly evolves, especially as the practice grows. This means that the leadership strategy must be adjustable and agile so that practices comfortably welcome new staff and have an established culture to help them acclimatize to their new surroundings.
What Other Ways Can Dental Leaders Improve Their Culture?
There are small, yet highly effective measures leaders can introduce to boost workplace culture
Dental leaders can introduce awards and celebrations to ensure staff members are duly recognized for their efforts and highlight which employees best exemplify the company culture. The awards for highlighting work performance and culture can be sizable or small gestures that motivate dental staff to produce a higher level on the job. Leaders can also host celebrations to recognize the achievements of their dental staff. Having these celebrations and awards on hand immediately motivates new dental staff because they know that they can attain goals from the moment they’re hired.
Dental leaders should also encourage team activities to foster team building. In addition, leaders can help new staff members become familiar with their teammates.
Work Culture Should Also Be Tied to Outcomes
Culture is consequential. The more robust the culture is, the more the results and success that a dental practice attains will be affected. As mentioned, culture regularly changes, meaning that what worked to produce quality results before may not work now.
It’s important as a dental leader to periodically review your cultural practices to determine whether they are effective. Leaders should keep a scope of important elements such as branding and system operations. Tracking these factors helps deliver top-quality services to their patients while also attracting qualified staff to work for their practices. It’s important to reinforce cultural strategies and monitor their impact. This process helps determine whether you should build on the cultural objectives you’ve introduced or should change course.
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