Celebrate Your Staff This September

Celebrating Office Manager Appreciation Month 

With September designated as Office Manager Appreciation Month, dental offices around the country are looking for ways to honor those who help keep our practices running. No matter which way you decide is best, it’s important to recognize the work that your management puts in to better your practice, as well as all the ways they and yourself can improve in 2021 and beyond.

What it means to run a successful dental office

All of the components that correlate with a successful dental office are the responsibility of your management, but also in the tools that you provide to help them with that task. When you hire and place your employees correctly, you get positive results. However, when you’re successful, it’s hard to imagine things could be any better, but that’s just complacency talking. If you’re not looking for new opportunities to innovate or improve, you’re losing them. 

What does my management need from me?

Giving your management employees real decision making power is incredibly freeing, and you will find that it works out in your benefit more often than not. This can be as simple as ensuring that your line of communication is open, and that opinions from employees are seen as valuable. It goes without saying that when employees feel appreciated, they feel more motivated, and motivation is the key to innovation. By recognizing the individuals who represent your office this September, you’re motivating them to achieve personal successes for themselves as well as your practice.

Simple management strategies that work

Fostering a culture of success and innovation starts and ends with communication, and there’s no better way to nurture dialogue than to open up your availability. That means: 

• Communicate, don’t just delegate. Everyone should know their responsibilities, as well as how they can help outside of their immediate specialty. Making employees feel included gives them the opportunity to do more for you.
• Allow management to make decisions for the company. They might see things that you don’t, and it’s important that you’re always receptive to new information.
• Have a weekly or monthly meeting with your entire staff to discuss their thoughts, not just the issues. Allow your staff to have free rein of the conversation, but have an end goal to discuss pertinent ideas.

Appreciating the little things

Even with all of the important decisions that go into improving your practice, give yourself some time to celebrate with your office managers in the coming days. Discuss any of the new ideas that you’ve been wanting to implement with them, and take their input into account before coming to a decision. More importantly, make a personal commitment to management changes that you will make in order to foster a motivating workplace culture. This September, it’s our job to allow others to celebrate their progress with us, and to remind ourselves that by doing so, we can help make both our employees and business succeed.