The key to a successful practice is a healthy and positive work environment, for which it is essential to create a united team. Just as working for the best of your clients is crucial, the same is true for your team. In the recent times, due to a high turnover rate, you need to ask yourself how to align your team and use their potential to the fullest. You also need to consider questions like: Do your employees show up to work every day? Are you providing a positive work environment for your team? Is there open communication, trust, support, and encouragement between your team members?
The status of your team will determine client satisfaction and the success of your practice. Continue reading to learn all about team-building ideas for your dental office.
Open and Effective Communication
Lack of communication is one of the most common reasons why employees feel like they are working alone instead of as part of a team. Every member of the team should have a comfortable and open space to have healthy communication with each other. Consistent and comprehensive communication is key to keeping your team connected. This can be achieved through team meetings.
The team meetings you hold should promote a positive environment without any negativity and judgments. You should also ensure every member of the team is up-to-date with the vision and mission of your practice and the goals that need to be achieved, encourage every member to offer input in the meeting, take their feedback regarding the current situation of communication and ideas on how to improve it, and also encourage them to address any issues when they arise.
These meetings will allow you to see how every member of your team is doing, give those updates on tasks and also celebrate achievements and promotions with your team.Regular team meetings improve communication, build morale, and increase trust while also proving your commitment to your team. Short team meetings can be done on a daily or weekly basis, while longer ones can be held once a month.
Proactively Handling Conflicts
Disagreements and discord can arise between your team members, but it needs to be dealt with promptly. Handling these conflicts within your practice is not easy, but ignoring the issue can make the situation worse and reflect on your practice and clients. A small issue between two members can spread like fire and may even cause the collapse of your work dynamics. This makes it imperative to tackle the issue head-on. You, as the leader, need to work towards resolving the conflict by following the steps below:
- Find out the cause of the conflict, where did it start, and what did it result in?
- Actively listen to both sides of the story and avoid bringing in people unrelated to the problem,
- Focus on the facts of the problem,
- And avoid unrelated details and information.
Once you know what transpired, you can take action to resolve the conflict. You need to keep in mind that both sides are your team members, so you should start negotiations from a neutral ground and appeal towards a common objective. Both sides need to agree to it in order to settle the issue. After this is done, you need to ensure that both sides are working towards rebuilding their relationships and focusing on the better good. Resolving a conflict takes time, but if you listen to your team members and take the right steps toward resolution, then your team can remain strong.
Build Your Team
A team can only be strong when all members of the team are comfortable with each other. So if you want to instill harmony among your team members, you need to provide non-work related or recreational opportunities for them to get to know each other.
This will not only improve relationships but also lift up the morale and enhance productivity. Not only that, when you share the pictures and videos from such activities on your website or newsletter, you will be portraying a healthy work environment and thus attract clients. Some ideas that you can follow include the following:
- Surprise them by taking them out for lunch. This gesture will create appreciation among your team members while also allowing you and others to get to know each other better in an informal setting.
- Bring in treats every other day to celebrate accomplishments and promotions. You can also encourage others to bring in food to share with everyone.
- Plan regular activities away from the office. This can include a day trip to a tourist spot or a new attraction or engaging in games like mini-golf, bowling, baseball, cricket, etc. There are a lot of recreational activities out there that you can take your team out on to unwind from the daily office grind while also bringing your employees together as a team.
- Plan dress-up days that could be based on different themes, such as a fun movie or book character day, pajama day, mix and match day, etc. Get your team members to pitch in creative ideas. The best dressed-up member can be given prizes.
- You can organize break room contests like cards game, chess competitions, trivia questions, puzzles, and much more.
- Encourage team members to engage in in-office training, webinars, seminars, or workshops. This will help your employees not only polish their skills but also bond with each other.
- In addition to all these ideas, you can also get your team involved in volunteering activities.
Opportunities for Rewards and Incentives
Even though the salary is one of the biggest incentives for employees to work but occasional rewards and bonuses can keep the morale high and your employees happy; these rewards do not have to be expensive and big. They can include:
- A small bonus to acknowledge a team member’s outstanding performance or a team event to recognize your hard-working team,
- Applauding a team member on doing well among your team,
- Giving out gift cards to team members for working productively or for being a good friend,
- You can also have a board for everyone to post notes on to recognize their team members,
- Plan gifts for achieving goals and objectives. These can range from gift cards or tickets to a movie, an event, or an amusement park. It's up to you how creatively you handle these.
In Conclusion
To create a successful practice, you need to have a healthy work environment. This can only be enforced when you have a strong and positive workforce. A team that works together and supports each other will keep your clients happy and make working an easy task.