Episode 456: The Golden Poaching

Do you know someone who’s been poached from one job for another? In this episode, Kiera talks about her experience with poaching as an employer (spoiler alert, it’s not fun) and encourages listeners to be ethical in their hiring efforts. Her advice: Don’t poach from other offices and have a good culture — that way, your employees will think twice about leaving your business.

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0:00:05.8 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent. And I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives, I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices, coaching teams. Yep, you don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams grow VIP experiences, reduce stress and create A Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast.

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0:00:52.4 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, happy day today. I hope you guys are doing awesome out there, I hope you are loving your life, I hope you are just doing good today, find... I had a really awesome friend, not had, I still have, we're still friends, but she was talking one day and she said, "You know, every day... " And she literally has a magnet on her fridge that says, "Who can I help today?" And sometimes I think I'm a selfish person, so I went on Etsy and got a magnet made and it sits on my fridge, and that thought of, who can I help today? Just rings in my head. So today, go help somebody. Give someone a smile. Help somebody at the grocery store. I think with COVID, we've all kind of forgotten how to be humans that are nice to one another, so just go be kind to somebody today, even if that someone is yourself. So I hope you guys are just crushing it, I hope you are loving yourself. You guys know the reason we built this podcast, and if you don't know, I'll tell you, is to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible, so I hope we're doing that for you, and if we are, please leave a review, share this podcast with someone else.

0:01:54.3 KD: Sometimes we say that and people like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah." No, I'm genuinely asking you, not the other people listening, you. I might not know your name, I might never have met you, but you because you can make an impact. You can change this world. Your words that you say about how this podcast has helped you could transform somebody else, so you might not even know. Guys, I don't know half of you that listen to this podcast, I'd love to get to know all of you, so if we can ever come up with a podcast to meet and greet, that'd be kind of fun. But reality is, I don't know most of you, but I'm hopeful that this podcast has positively impacted your life, and if it has, I would say you have an obligation to have it positively impact someone else's life, so do us a favor, write a review, share this with somebody, and thanks for just being a listener, I love having you here, I love sharing life with you. It's a good time. So today's topic is going to be on poaching from other offices. Yep, you heard me right. Welcome to 2021 guys. It is the year, it's called the Great Resignation. I just heard a stat that 4% of the working force quit their jobs in August, and that's the highest percentage we have ever seen.

0:03:01.8 KD: What the heck, guys? Oh my Lanta. Don't worry, this one I'm gonna be a little passionate on, you're gonna hear a different side of Kiera Dent possibly, maybe, we'll see what comes out today, but reality is, that's hard, as a business owner, you better believe I've sat down, looked outside and said, "What the heck am I doing? And do I wanna keep doing this?" Because this is hard. This is not for the weak of heart. But I think back to a podcast, I think I did it with Mike Pain, if you guys didn't hear that, he is one of the co-authors of How To Be A Great Boss, I believe, in the traction series and really great, really great. And I lied to you, it's Get A Grip. Part of the traction series as well. But he and I were doing a podcast, and I remember asking him like, "Pain, how do you keep going with everything that's going on? How do you keep moving forward?" And he said, "Kiera, you just look at this as a flavor of business, there are gonna be lots of different flavors of business, different things, and right now the... "

0:04:07.7 KD: So before COVID, it was the fear of the shut down, loss of revenue, guys, most of us manage really well, we're really proud of our Dental A Team clients because you guys, part of our Dental A Team Consulting, it's not just about teams and systems. I know I preach that all day long, but you better believe there is a whole other side of our consulting that's business ownership, and making sure that you are profitable as a practice and as a business. The reason why is because as owners, if you are profitable and you know your numbers and you're successful, and your team's bought into that as well, guess what, everybody's safe, everybody's secure, and we have way more opportunities to do a greater good in this world, so we do business ownership, making sure you are a solid business owner and you know how to run a business successfully. I did not know how to do this, so this is a passion project to give back to teach you owners how to be successful, to be profitable, to know your numbers and know how to drive those numbers to success, also it's on team development, that includes you doctors of how to be an awesome leader, to be a developed person in leadership and skills and accountability, that way you have an accountable team that loves to be accountable, and then we also do system development from top to bottom.

0:05:15.6 KD: So if that jives and resonates with you, you better believe the Dental A Team is the right place for you, so take massive action because you're just one decision away from a totally different life. So with COVID, we were all stressed about being, hopefully, financially secure, most of my offices took three months off and they did more production than they've done in years past working 12 months. Well, that was a pretty cool test study that we did, and now welcome to 2021 where it's the cranky patients, it's the stress of our teams, it's not having hygienist to hire, anybody out there with me? Good night, hygienist, we need you, come back. But there's just all these changes, I think what happened was people realized they don't need to make as much money, there's also a lot of money in the economy right now. And I think what happened is people just kind of shook up their worlds. We've had a lot of divorce, we've had a lot of relationship changes, we've had a lot of people moving. Oh my gosh, people are moving like crazy, it's like the world opened up and we're all like, forget living here, I'm going there.

0:06:22.1 KD: It got exciting and crazy as an owner to think, "I need people to run my business." And I think we should stop right there, we need people to run our business, and we better be good at treating those people really well, and those team members need to be good, and realize, "Hey, this person, they took a risk to give me this awesome life." So that's a whole different topic about how to treat team members really well, I've got a whole different podcast I wanna talk about for that one, but for this one, with this great resignation. It's poaching from offices, so I'm just gonna let you know a story. We had a team member, awesome team member, team member loves her job, team member hasn't even considered working anywhere else, doesn't have a resume out anywhere, just literally doing her job, a recruiter, full well, on LinkedIn, it shows that she's working at Dental A Team, a recruiter reached out to hire her and gave her a wicked good offer. Guys, I am on the receiving end of being poached and it felt yucky, it felt awful. It felt like, what the heck? We have a great culture, we pay really, really, really well, we treat our employees insanely well, we have flex varieties on Friday, so people can work from home or wherever they want to, our consultants have incredible lives, they get to travel, they get to pick their own hours.

0:07:47.0 KD: I try really hard to be a stand-up boss, I feel like I'm very understanding, I feel like I give a lot, and I want to. We have fun prizes, we have fun rewards. I'm sure I could be an even better boss, but I try really, really hard to have just an awesome culture with our team, giving people autonomy, I'm sure I don't do as well. Sometimes I'm sure people could tell you I'm a terrible boss, I'm sure some people love me as a boss, I genuinely take this so, so personal of my job of being a great boss and a great leader, and to give the vision and to give the culture and to get out of people's way. And again, I don't think I'm perfect at it, I know I've got some shortcomings on it, but I really try hard. And so it's like people say culture trumps pay all day long.

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0:08:33.3 KD: Hey Dental A Team listeners. How has your 2021 been? Is it the year that you always imagined it being, was it awesome, or was it maybe not your best year, or was it a great year that you know you could enhance? Anyway, as we were looking back on 2021, if it's been a year where you think you could ramp it up or you wanna take your practice to the next level or you yourself wanna go to the next level, reach out, we'd love to help you in Dental A Team Platinum. We see massive success with all of our Platinum practices, typically a 10% to 30% increase in revenue, reduction of stress and reduction in overhead, we focus on team's top-to-bottom, system development and implementation top to bottom, and making sure you're business savvy all the way around. Guys, it is a season to make a change, you are always one decision away from a completely different life. Be sure to reach out, guys, [email protected], and I can't wait to see you in your practice next year.

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0:09:29.1 KD: But I don't know, and I'm questioning if that's true, because I have a great culture, my team is a great culture, we really attract incredible people on our team, we're really picky on who we hire and let into our company, it is not easy to get a job with Dental A Team, so if you wanna apply, go for it. We'd love to, like we say, we don't take from offices we work with, but if you've been thinking about it, we'd love to obviously, don't do things that would ruin your past relationships 'cause that doesn't work in our world, but it really was yucky. And I wanted to find out who this recruiter was and I wanted to go just write mean things and genuinely... Because I thought, "Who are you? This is somebody who's working at a company that they love, and you're just gonna come in and poach them." So it really gave me an interesting insight.

0:10:16.0 KD: Now, lucky for me, me and this employee have a really good relationship, I countered with something different, which was already in the works, it wasn't something that I was trying to just do a Hail Mary, it was something that she had come to me with of how she wanted to grow in our company. And I feel like it's a really happy success story, because guess what, this employee is a rockstar, and even though she was leaving, she found a way to get us four months ahead on her projects, that way we had a long enough window. She also was willing to train our next person, and she was willing to do some freelance work for us while working at her other company to help us out. Now, to me, that's an employee, I don't wanna lose, so you do believe the day before her last day, I called her with the craziest Hail Mary move I've ever done. But this was an employee I didn't wanna lose. It was already in the works, it was nothing that was going above and beyond, what we were already planning, but it was showing her value in her. And I feel like it's a really successful story, she is with us, and we didn't lose her and I didn't have to do this crazy dollar amount because it was something that we could do and she found ways to add massive value to be able to have a comparable, I guess, offer from the other company.

0:11:30.1 KD: But I will say, number one, don't poach from other offices, I'm just gonna put it out there. It's yucky, it's wrong, and it's gonna bite you in the booty in the future, because to me, I'm like, that's just playing dirty. That's like hitting somebody and trying to get a foul in basketball, it's just playing dirty, and I don't believe in playing dirty, I believe in being better than that. And maybe I'm just Mary Poppins over here or Poliana, and I think that the world can still be great, but I genuinely do, and I think we can rise above it, yes, it's hard, but I would much rather hire people ethically and honestly than taking from someone else and hurting someone else's business. I would much rather do that, and I believe though, if somebody does leave your practice, it's an opportunity to hire better, to have somebody better than that last person because they're out there, so I would say, don't go poach from other offices and also make sure that you really do have a good culture.

0:12:20.8 KD: Have a culture where people genuinely love their jobs, it would not have worked at this if our team member didn't like her job, and I do believe... So when I said, I don't know if culture trumps pay every single day, I actually think it does, I think it does, and it might not win every single time, but you better believe people think twice when they're being offered other jobs because they love your job. Have a culture where people can talk to you, they can be open with you, they can tell you that, "Hey, I got poached." Team members, don't use it up against your employers because, guess what? A lot of you wanna do a negotiation like, "Oh well, I got this other job." To me that doesn't fly well either because I'm like, "If you're already looking for jobs and you're using me to go battle with the other employer, I don't want you in the organization, you've already chosen to leave, so you might as well leave because neither of us are going to be happy, and it's only a matter of time before you do it again."

0:13:12.7 KD: And so I would say when it comes to this Great Resignation, it's becoming kind of a dog eat dog world, I say, rise above it. Be better than that. Have a great culture, post those ads, talk to other people, talk to your reps, ask for other people that are looking for jobs, other people that might be a great fit, talk to people, they might be moving here, post your ads nationally, people might be moving to your area, post on Facebook, post on Instagram, post on Indeed. Talk to other doctors in the area. You might be able to share hygienist, you might be able to offer hours that maybe a part-time hygienist is at another office, could make up at your office, get creative, talk to doctors who are looking to retire, be a solution for them, maybe you could take their practice and get team members that way. There's a lot of different ways that you can do this, but I say be ethical in this world, be good, treat your team members really, really, really well, and team members, treat your owners really, really well. They take a lot of risk, it's really hard, there's a lot of sleepless nights, stressing to make sure that your job is protected, that they're being good business owners and they're making sure that you'll still have a job.

0:14:19.9 KD: And so I say for both sides of this, this is why I love this podcast 'cause I can speak to both sides of this coin, be great employees and be great employers, and trust that by being good people, great people will be attracted to your practice that will love you, that will wanna drive your company, that will wanna move you forward. I look at our team, we've got Shelby, Sissy, Tiffany, Britney, Dana, those are our main core crew, we've got Kenzie and Alex who are additional crew people, we've got Liz as well. Very incredible. Those are amazing people that have come to our company that I am so grateful for, we've had past employees that were amazing, and I believe you hire better every single time, it's an opportunity to elevate to the next level, so if you've been poached from or you've had those issues don't get bitter, get better, look to see what could you have done better, take every person leaving as an opportunity to improve yourself to see what you could have done better and then make it happen.

0:15:14.7 KD: Guys, it's crazy times, but again, this is just another flavor of business, rise up, rise to that level, talk to your team members about it, I promise you, good team members are worth all the headache to get them and then do everything you can to retain them, but that doesn't mean you gotta go do hula hoops, it doesn't mean you gotta go out of budget, it doesn't mean you've got to do all the things, be a good person, have open communication and have an incredible culture, and let's just pray that more people get back into the work force soon. We'd love to have you guys back. If any of you are listening, get back out there. We need you, we depend on you. Our society and our economy depends on you, we need workers and we need people that are willing to give back and serve, so that way our whole economy can thrive. Guys, this is crazy times, totally unprecedented but guess what, I believe that we are the future, and I believe the things that we're doing now are laying the foundation for future generations so be great people, give back, love hard, have an incredible culture, and just trust that great things are coming your way, they always are and everything, everything is always working out for your good. Alright, guys, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.