Hiring the wrong person can be hurt both your dental practice as a whole and your wallet.

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We go over some of the main reasons how a wrong hire can harm your company

You may initially think that it will only hurt you as the business owner, and your bottom line when you hire the wrong person for the job. However, this could not be farther from the truth.

Bringing someone into your company can affect your entire company culture and the rest of your team. There are a couple of ways that they can do this.

The first is not being well prepared to perform their job. This will lead to the rest of your team having to pick up the slack in regards to that employee. This is referring to after the hire has gone through the adjustment phase after being initially hired where they have to get used to the operations of your specific dental practice.

This can lead to the rest of your team getting very stressed out due to their workload, as well as being aggravated with your decision to bring on this employee. This can lead to your staff being less trustworthy of your judgment.

A wrong hire can also hurt the morale of your team through their negative attitude about how your dental practice operates. There is a strong difference between someone who is being constructive with their criticism to help improve the office itself and those that are just being negative and harming the company culture.

Negativity can spread very quickly, especially amongst coworkers. An example of this would be that a new hire is always talking about the better processes of the dental practice they used to work for.

Continually talking about this, and bringing it up, will lead to negatively spreading throughout your entire team.

This is the most commonly cited drawback of hiring the incorrect team member. Just because it is the most commonly cited, does not mean it is any less important or overhyped.

No matter the reasons for opening up your dental practice it is still a business. It still needs to turn a profit to be able to continue to operate.

So take a look at hiring the incorrect person as a business decision. When you hire someone you have to bring them through all of your onboarding, any necessary training to get them up to speed, provided benefits, and then working with them through their adjustment until they get into a full routine and are comfortable with it.

These prices could range from any amount of money that depends on how long you’re willing to maintain that employee, how much work other employees have to take on, and how long it takes you to come to the conclusion that that team member was not a good hire.

More often than not you will find out that they are not a good hire relatively quickly. However, there are some instances of a poor hire that will cost a business upwards of $15,000. This is not including the hiring of a new employee to replace them.

Odds are that if your staff morale has already been plummeting due to a poor hire, they will not have as positive interactions with your patients either. It’s almost unrealistic to expect your team to provide the best possible service and patient interaction that they can when they are overworked, understaffed, and have low morale all due to your previous bad hire.

If your patients are having a negative experience at your dental practice then there is no reason for them to continue coming to your dental practice over your competitor. You have to hope that your patients have had enough positive experiences with your dental practice to continue to give you the benefit of the doubt until you are able to hire a new team member.

If you have a heavy decline in your patients, then you will probably not be able to provide all of your team members with the same amount of hours that they were working. This may lead to your staff leaving as well due to financial obligations.

Your staff could also leave due to the negativity that is spreading throughout your office due to the bad hire. Like mentioned earlier in this article, a bad employee can spread negativity throughout your entire company culture.

Before interviewing anybody you should have a full understanding of what the position is that you were hiring for. If you are hiring a dental assistant or a dental hygienist, be sure to consult with the ones at your practice to find out their daily responsibilities. Typically positions differ from practice to practice. There may be some more responsibilities in one area of their work, and less in another.

Ask those team members what they feel the most important attributes, qualities, and skills are in order to perform in the best possible way in their position.

Next, make sure that you write a detailed job description. This should include more than just the standard responsibilities of the position. This should also include the expectations that you have for someone coming into this position. If you would like to know more about writing an effective job description then you can find that here.

Remember that you should take your time when hiring an employee. The worst-case scenario is choosing the wrong person. It is even worse to choose the wrong person twice.

If you need someone to come in immediately due to your staff being understaffed, consider bringing in some temp workers. Here at Princess Dental Staffing, we pride ourselves on providing quality temp workers, and quality permanent team members for you to browse and reach out to.