Episode 574: How to Stop Having Turnover

Transcript:

0:00:05.6 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I have 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, pillar, 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, we 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 team. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast.

[music]

0:00:51.8 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys today, I am so excited to bring on someone that I have admired from afar, I'm super excited to bring him onto the podcast. He is somebody that I actually got a lot of exposure to. I used their company prior to owning Dental A Team, but I really got a lot of exposure to him and his company and all the amazing resources that they did, we are active partners with this company, and I am so obsessed with them.

0:01:17.5 KD: I am so excited to welcome Paul Edwards, he is the CEO and founder of CEDR. If you guys have not used them, use them. I surely used them long before I even opened Dental A Team. And Paul is just a wealth of knowledge. So Paul, welcome to the show today. I'm super happy to have you.

0:01:32.4 Paul Edwards: Those are very kind words. It's now, I'm really happy to be here.

0:01:36.4 KD: [laughter] Well, they're true. I remember watching you all through covid, CEDR was really popular, and I recommended CEDR a lot prior to covid, but then with all the different changes happening, all the policies, do we lay people off to an, I was like, I don't even know. Go listen to Paul, he's putting on a ton of webinars, talk to CEDR. So I really, really ramped up my CEDR love affair with you guys during covid, and now I'm just super honored to have you on our podcast today.

0:02:03.2 PE: I have an amazing team here. So as much as you are kind enough to make this about me, I, like everybody who's listening today. It's all about the folks I'm surrounded by that make me look good, that's kind of... Think of them as the back of house and I'm the front of house. And they're constantly... I don't know. They're just constantly doing the right things for our business and for our customers, and it's kind of a... I feel kind of blessed to have that.

0:02:33.3 KD: Well, that's amazing, and I think everybody who has a great team and those who are aspiring to get a great team are very much appreciative of those teams, especially right now, last year with the great resignation, this year, it's still tricky to hire. Paul, for those listeners who may not have ever heard of CEDR and all the HR solutions, you guys were a part of our summit, you guys have worked with us, we've had you on a lot of our things. Just kinda fill the listeners into what CEDR is, how did you even found it, what's kind of your background in CEDR to get here.

0:03:03.7 PE: Okay. So what CEDR does is it starts from a place of compliance, so we work in all 50 states and we know the employment laws and everywhere, so whether you're in San Francisco or you're South Dakota or wherever you are, we understand the employment regulations that apply to small businesses and practices, from that base of compliance, then we get to say the next thing, which is almost any issue that you deal with in your practice with an employee. Almost every issue has some kind of law or regulation that applies and... So when you go to seek a solution or to try to correct something, you have to know what those laws are, you have to solve them within the context of whatever those rules are, and they vary widely across the country. And so that's where we come back to our company, not as just a compliance company who puts customized employee handbooks in place so that you have the right regulations in place, the right understanding for your practice, but we're also problem solvers, so we help managers solve problems, that's really the main thing that we do. And we help you do it in a safe and effective way.

0:04:22.5 PE: And we do it from both the human standpoint, we understand that we're working with humans and teams, and we also, as I said before, we have to make sure that we're in compliance when we do that sort of thing.

0:04:33.9 KD: Which is amazing because honestly I think as an office manager, that was one of my biggest fears. Before owning Dental A Team, I was terrified of, can I fire this person? Can I not fire them? What are going to be the rules around it? Have I documented everything correctly? I have no idea. [laughter] Perfect...

0:04:51.5 PE: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's a legitimate fear and it feels... You feel less powerful. It's not very empowering to not understand everything that you need to know when you're kind of dealing with a tough situation. So, I mean, let's be honest, there's easy problems and there's difficult problems, and again, that's our job to kind of help you out. The other thing too is working with someone like us and working with someone like you guys, we have the benefit, and therefore as a member, they get the benefit of us having solved these problems across a wide array of different practices, and so sometimes when we're talking through something we're actually getting some pretty great input from an office manager who's said, "I'm gonna take this approach, and this is why I wanna do it this way." And we're like, "You know what, that's actually a... That's a safe approach. Where you are and what's going on, let us add a few things to it," and then we help them get through it. So there's a big benefit in the beehive knowledge. Right? Like thousands of office managers bringing their problems in, makes us all that much smarter, so.

0:06:02.4 KD: Which is amazing. And so I am curious though, Paul, this is something totally just my own random... You obviously are the CEO and founder. So I'm like, "this is perfect." Why is it C-E-D-R? [laughter] I need to know I've got... I'm like, "Okay. Is it because it's doctor? And it's like CE Doctor." Like what is the relevance event of not having A? [laughter]

0:06:23.4 PE: This story is not very exciting, but I'm happy, I'm happy to... I'm gonna tell the story and I'll make it succinct. Every time you create a company, you're trying to come up with a name, right? And when we first started, we were focused on providing something that we actually don't do anymore because the laws have changed so much, but it was a mandatory arbitration policy, which said that before employee could sue, they had to inform the practice of the problem and give the practice an opportunity to solve the problem, so it basically mandatory good, well-written fair arbitration policies are designed to prevent lawsuits, but they still have to empower the employee and the employer. Alright, so that's where we started, and we were kinda trying to come up with a name, and I think you're gonna remember back 15 years ago, a lot of coaches were coaching dentists to call their practice the Center for dental wellness or the Center for whatever. And we were like, That sounds good. So we called it The Center for Employment Dispute Resolution.

0:07:31.8 KD: No way. [laughter]

0:07:34.0 PE: This is a podcast, so you can't see my embarrassment, but... Okay, look, you do the best you can. And so what I learned from that was that if you are trying to make a sales call and you're trying to get... And that's where we started, just me, as... And you're trying to leave a message and you tell the front desk person that the Center for Employment Dispute Resolution is calling, that the doctor would answer, he would pick up the phone and he would be scared. And that was not what I was trying to accomplish at the time. So we changed it to CEDR. And that's the story.

0:08:13.8 KD: That's so wild.

0:08:15.4 PE: And you're never gonna hear that any place else. I don't tell the story, I don't answer the question, so.

0:08:19.9 KD: Well, I've been dying to know because since I found out about CEDR in my first practice I owned, one of the doctor was like, "Hey, I got this from CEDR, this is our employee handbook." and I'm like, "Wow, what is this CEDR fairy godmother in this world?" And I'm always like, "Why did they drop the A?" I wonder if it's the founder's initials or... So I'm like, "Oh, I've got Paul on the podcast today. That's it." I mean, there we go, Center for Employment Disruption Resolution."

0:08:46.2 PE: Yeah. They're dispute resolution. The Center for Employment Dispute... Yeah, yeah, so. Now we just think it of as a big tree, a big happy tree.

0:08:53.5 KD: Exactly.

0:08:54.4 PE: It's a big happy CEDR tree, and it's full of helpful things and knowledge and education, and our members get to stand underneath it.

0:09:01.8 KD: I love it. Well, that's what I think of. So good job on that rebrand. As a business owner, I agree. My first naming of the company was not my finest, then the second one wasn't great, and so on the third rebrand, I think we're doing alright, so.

0:09:15.4 PE: Oh, there you go. Okay, yeah.

0:09:17.0 KD: But Paul, I'm excited because pre-show, we were talking, and I think you've got a really great topic to dive into today of a lot of offices right now are struggling with wanting to hire, and you were mentioning there's quite a few things to do pre-hire. And I think that that's often forgotten, and it's almost like we jump out of the plane without looking to see if we have the parachute. So I'm excited to kind of dive into some of those pieces you guys are seeing from that legal standpoint across all 50 states that we should be looking at to protect ourselves prior to hiring these employees.

0:09:50.5 PE: So, well look, One of the points I do wanna make is before the pandemic, it was difficult to hire too, so the number one complaint was, where do I find people? So where do I source people? And then the other thing was like, I keep hiring folks and they keep quitting, and that was going on in the two years prior, and the reason why was that we were at full employment, so I want everybody to remember, it was just a different challenge. We had full employment, we actually had full employment running for about four years prior to the pandemic, and so everybody who was great, figuratively, was kind of working somewhere, so it was difficult to find good people. Then we went into the pandemic, and then we come out of it. And we look at this thing called the Great Resignation. I think it's more of a... It's more of the Great Retirement. A lot of people just said, "I'm 58, I'm 60, I'm 68. I'm out." Okay. So When it comes time to hire. Now, it's still quite difficult, nothing's changed. We've been kind of preaching this all along. The work that you do prior to trying to hire to get the right people, and we call those right people difference makers.

0:10:57.8 PE: So Kiera, a difference maker, simply put, is someone who can bring skills to your practice or a way of being that you don't already have, so this could be someone who has a mountain of experience in insurance billing when it comes to having a host Doctor and three associates, which would be quite a bit different than it would be if you had a smaller practice with just one doctor in it. So your thing is, is you realize you're not getting back as much as you should on your insurance. So you're looking for someone with that kind of experience and that's your difference maker, if that's the person that you're looking for, now, there's a lot of other attributes that should come with that, but I kind of focused on a skill set and you can always focus on the skills, but you also wanna look at the kind of the softer stuff, like how well do they fit into your culture? Like are they good to be on the team? And that's another way that they can make a difference. If you don't have a focus team and you hire a difference maker who's hyper-focused on accomplishing things and they're very good at accomplishing it, that all of a sudden they become a de facto leader within your own practice, and if you're a doctor listening, you can spend more time being a doctor, more time in treatment, less time thinking about the things that your difference maker's taking care of for you, or difference makers in my company, there's many, many...

0:12:26.4 PE: Every company should have many difference makers in it, if you're a manager listening, you have the same thing, you already have 74 things on your plate. If you can find five difference makers to take half of those things off your plate and take care of them on your own, then you're winning... You're getting ahead.

0:12:44.7 PE: And the other thing about a difference maker is, is they love what they do, and so it shows up in the work that they do. It's the reason they're on time every day, it's the reason why they put in a little bit extra, it's the reason why they wanna be creative, it's the reason why they think about everything surrounding a problem and try to solve for all the conditions around a problem, those are the folks that we should be looking for. And you know, ironically, you can actually become... A team can become almost a victim of its own successes, so you can have a whole group of difference makers, but as your practice gains, purchase grows, gets bigger, maybe has multiple locations at some point, you go from 8 employees, which is manageable to 18 employees, which is a whole another.

0:13:32.5 PE: Right? Kiera, that's a whole another animal.

0:13:35.9 KD: It is. [laughter]

0:13:36.0 PE: You can't run that off charisma. I mean, you've gotta start having some leaders amongst your leaders. You can become a victim of your own success and your difference makers that you had five years ago may not be of a mindset that they can grow like in the direction that you need them to grow. And so that's one thing we wanna try to figure out how we find difference makers...

0:14:00.5 KD: Yeah, which I love that you brought this up because I think... I don't know how you are, I've seen this. I'm sure you've seen it all over, different... Like practicioners who are very successful think differently. And they do things differently, they don't follow status quo, and so I really love that most people are going out and throwing fishing bait out there, AKA ads or just saying, I'll hire whomever. And I agree, I remember sitting at a conference once and they said, "Kiera... " Well, they didn't say Kiera, I heard them say Kiera, 'cause it's like spoke so hard to me. But it was really make sure that you hire people that are different and complementary to yourself, we often get stuck hiring people...

0:14:37.0 PE: To get out of that bias.

0:14:38.0 KD: Yes.

0:14:41.4 PE: Yeah.

0:14:42.8 KD: And it's funny because I hired somebody, she drove me absolutely crazy on some levels, we were very different, but yet her attention to detail and finding the compliance that I was lacking, saved me so many areas and she was passionate about and she loved it. And I would say that was one of the best hires I ever made, and she was very complimentary and different, she was a differentiator.

0:15:02.5 KD: And I loved her style. So teaches, Paul, how do we find these people? 'cause you whet my appetite, you've got everybody else excited about this, how do we find these type of employees?

0:15:13.0 PE: Well, we made a very simple tool for people to use, it's a form, we certainly make it available to everybody, but it's a great exercise to go through where if you think in terms of... Let's just think in terms of you're going to replace someone, and maybe the person that you replaced was not great at their job, or maybe they were pretty good at their job, but they've left for whatever reason, so what we wanna do is kind of list the skills and the attributes where they were good and where they were lacking, we wanna list the things that they were doing well, because when we go to interview and test and skills test and look for the person that we're looking for to replace them, we wanna make sure we hold onto as much of the good stuff that we possibly can, right? I mean, you just wanna make sure that their skills. And again, their demeanor and everything are there. On the bottom side of that, are the things that you wish that they had done, could have done better, the skills that they needed, or if you had someone who had... They were really good at their job, but when they had a bad day, they made everybody else have a bad day, then it was a huge impact on the team.

0:16:20.3 PE: It was a real negative attribute, and you're almost blessed when they leave, because you lose that, you get that out of the system. Nonetheless, you would wanna look for someone who is not that way when you're replacing. I can give you another one, and I've heard this example more than once. It's kind of funny, the person is really good on the phone, but done... So front desk is where they end up. And that's what they were hiring for. But what you didn't... What no one asked is, how do you feel about people? And they're like, "Oh, I can talk to him on the phone all day long, but I don't really like people in general. And it's like, "Okay, well, you're at the front desk and you're the first thing that patients see." [laughter]

0:17:02.3 KD: Yeah. A hundred percent.

0:17:05.5 PE: And they're like, "Well, I can pretend for six hours, but the last two hours... "

0:17:08.0 KD: No.

0:17:09.3 PE: And that I like these people anymore. So I know it's kind of a silly example, but in the difference maker tool, we would take that example and we would say, How can... First, let's ask how do you feel about people, do you like people? And there's more than one way to ask that question so that you can ascertain whether or not you're getting a good people person and someone who thrives on interacting with people, and then there are a whole list of attributes that you can go through, many of those, which should align with your core values, so that's kind of a whole another part of this animal, which is, what is your strategic HR planning or what is your strategic business? Or what is your... Wait, let me say it a different way, What is your strategic HR business plan going forward?

0:17:56.7 PE: What are you guys up to? Do you know that you're gonna grow from one practice to two locations? Do you know you're gonna go from six people to 14? What is your mission? What are your short-term big missions that you're gonna be up to? And who do you need in order to accomplish that? And then you look at your people. So now we're in a different context of the difference maker, right? We're not replacing someone, we're growing, we're expanding, we may need new roles, so now we use the difference maker tool to kinda identify the person that we're looking for to come in to help us accomplish those goals, and we start with, we're looking for someone who's done this before, been a part, of a key player on a team for another business, and we're putting pen to paper, and we're really thinking about it all the way down to... Kiera, and I'm just...

0:18:53.0 PE: I'll take a break, I'll take a breath here in a second, but now I gotta tell you, if you don't have a job description in place for everybody and it's not up-to-date, then you don't know what people do for you. And how can you hire someone and ask someone to do something for you when you haven't at least taken the hour, and that's all it takes, to realign the job description and understand that maybe what you thought that person did, they don't do that anymore the same way. Like the business changed, the business grew, there's some things we don't even do it anymore, and it's part of your job description. There's all these other things that we added to the job. It's not part of the job description. I think you have to align your mind around all these things before you can even write your job ad, and we're not even gonna get into writing job ads today. But, how can you look for someone who you haven't identified kind of in the ether, you know, before you hire 'em?

[music]

0:19:51.7 KD: Are you guys sick of trying to figure it out on your own? I know I am. When I'm trying to run a business, sometimes I just think, "there's got to be a better way to do this." And so for me, my answer has been to find someone who's done it and does it really, really, really well. Like, I'm talking the best of the best of the best. I want someone who's been in my shoes, somebody who understands what I'm going through. When I was looking for the consulting business, I found a coach who literally has run a consulting business. Well, that seems like the perfect fit. So you guys, right now, we have a few spaces open in our platinum consulting, that is in the consulting where we actually come to your practice. We help you get systems implemented, we don't just tell you what systems to implement, we actually implement them with you and for you. You guys, it is one of the best investments I've ever made is to hire a coach who understands the business I'm in, who's lived it, who's done it, and that's what we in the Dental A Team do. We literally physically fly to you.

0:20:51.5 KD: So if you're sick of trying to figure it out on your own, if you just want somebody who understands you, join our Platinum, I'd love to have you, I'd love to have our consulting team come out and see you, be in your office, be with your team, and truly help you get on to the easy path of dentistry. It doesn't have to be hard. So join us in the Platinum, we'd love to have you.

[music]

0:21:12.4 KD: For sure, and I think that that's something really insightful and also I would say very astute. I feel that this is how you hire those different team members. I remember I had a team member help me out and she's like, "Kiera, we need to attract people that work for us and not trying to create jobs for them." And I think when you really are clear, like you were mentioning of, What do I really need this person to do? And thinking further ahead, I can't tell you, Paul, how many offices I've walked into and they have, there's one poor person who does 10 different jobs, and if we could just actually set this person up for success, organize the job description, realize the practice has grown. Susie doesn't need to wear 25 hats anymore, let's have her wear 10 and bring someone on to wear 15, and that's okay. That really can help the practice grow. And I also love the... You were talking about, who do we really need to hire? There's a book that I have been introduced to that I really like called, Who Not How, by Dan Sullivan. And this has been a whole different mindset, and I think you really tapped into this of thinking of who do we need to hire? So like you're mentioning for these doctors, knowing where they're going, office managers really knowing where our practice is going. I know when I sit back like right now, I know I need to hire probably a COO. I don't... I actually don't know how to hire this person. I've never managed this person.

0:22:37.1 PE: I get it. Good luck with that, by the way.

0:22:40.3 KD: It feels scary. Thank you. It feels scary to bring these positions in, but at the same time, like you said, I know why I need to hire this. If I was just going to stay where Dental A Team is today, it would be absolutely ludicrous for me to bring in these bazooka hires, to bring in these C-suite positions, but knowing where my company needs to go, these are positions that need to be hired and like you said, really understanding the job description, figuring out what these people do, that way I can hire effectively and really be clear of what I'm hiring them for, to make sure I'm making smart hires, I feel saves a lot of time. We think it takes a lot of time of that one hour, like you said, but think of the hours of headache of mis-hiring, wrong hiring, double hiring. 'Cause they're all doing the same thing, 'cause we didn't ask the right questions. That's just a lot of time that I feel is wasted by not giving one hour of time today to figure out who you should hire, I thought that was a brilliant point.

0:23:32.9 PE: Yeah, you create a plan. So I wanna... I'd love to make this point. If you create the plan and the plan isn't quite right and you fail, you have a plan that is probably, if it's well thought out, 80%-90% correct, and you can adjust the 10%. And that way, if you fail and you will, we all do, you're gonna make wrong hires or you're gonna hire... Something's going to happen, but when you have this plan in place, you can make these subtle adjustments when you go right back to the drawing board, or go back to your second and third choice and ask them a few additional questions, and it just makes re-hiring better. It just makes the whole process better.

0:24:15.4 KD: Right.

0:24:18.4 PE: Past... Well, I asked a bunch of questions, I asked them the question about what would they do if I gave him an elephant and they couldn't get rid of it? And they answered it and I don't know what it meant, I don't know what their answer meant, I asked all the questions and stuff. But that's not a plan, that's not something that you can build on and adjust for.

0:24:35.1 KD: So I would say, Paul, like I was mentioning, I think some doctors don't even know what they need to hire. Like I know I need to get here, do you have any tips that you guys have found of, like I know what I'm needing now, and it's very easy once you've hired certain people, how do you kind of come up with that plan? Do you have any tips of how to write that plan? Is it reaching out to coaches? Is it asking advice? Is it Googling? What do you recommend for people? I really love that you mentioned like figure out where you wanna go the next one year, three years, five, figuring that out, but then for me, I don't know how to hire a COO, I don't even what that job description should even look like. And I think some newer doctors, of course, advanced doctors, they might know, they might not know a clinical director or an office manager or a regional, but how do people even know what they should put on a job description of a job they've never done before?

0:25:27.8 PE: You know, that it's... Wow, that's a really good question. Okay, so in a broader sense, this is where small businesses, and I think we've been, as a small business, we've all been done a disservice to not be taught this sooner, and I think even if you only have two or three employees, if you're listening, I really think everybody should understand what strategic business planning is and start to delve into it. And by the way, no matter what size you are when you start this process, it looks nothing like it did when you started it four years later, I gotta tell you, it's painful. It takes up a lot of time. You're gonna start it and stop it, and pretend like you didn't... Pretend like it never happened. And then you're gonna bring it back. But after you get through all of that, oh Kiera, you do get to a place where when you use good strategic planning and use the very simple components of it, it will help you to identify the need for these people. Now, when it comes to, "how do I get a job description for a COO?" You know, these are places where you are gonna go and you are gonna jump online and this is what online is made for, and you're gonna try and align what you think your needs are with what a COO does.

0:26:56.9 PE: And what you find out about 50% of the time is you hear of a title and you know you have these needs and you go to put the two together and you realize you don't have the right title. You don't have the right person. So look, part of the strategic planning process is to do something called an org chart analysis. I'm gonna give you the very simple version everybody, you take and you put a big white sheet of sticky paper on the wall, and you do your best to write down all the things that the practice does in a day, or in a week, or in a month. Then you put down marketing, if you do marketing. You put process insurance. You put hygiene, treatment, you just try to put everything down, and then you put the name of every single person associated with those things underneath each of those things. And what you're gonna find out somewhere along the way is, is you're gonna find one single name or two underneath way too many categories. And this goes back to identifying why it is that you think that you need a COO or you need a position. I can't draw you a direct non-dotted line from that org chart to you getting the answer, but I can tell you that it's part of the process.

0:28:19.1 PE: Getting a bigger, better, broader understanding of what it is that people are doing and in that you get to say, I see Mary's name underneath 12 different things. There's 22 things on the board, and now that I'm looking at it, if I really look at Mary, I think that she might not be as competent at three of these things as she is at nine of them. And if I were to talk to Mary, what I would discover is, as a difference maker, there's only two of those nine things she's doing that she's actually passionate about, that are kind of her unique ability, and the thing that get her out of bed every morning. These are the things that inform you when you are looking to add people to your team. It's... But boy, that was a lot, wasn't Kiera? Your question was simple. It's not a simple answer.

0:29:13.7 KD: Well, and I love that you really dove into that and thank you for that, because I feel like so many people don't realize how to do it. We understand I need this, I understand I need help. And I think that that's why often people hire and they'll just throw job titles out there and they feel that this is too hard. So Paul, yes, I agree that was a lot, but super grateful because, to be honest, that's how I figured out I needed to hire a COO. And I literally have gone to Google and been like, alright, these are the things I need, what is the position that would even involve this. I've called other business people, I've talked to friends, I've talked to colleagues, I've called people that are smarter than me and asked, and said, "This is what we're lacking. How do I find it?" But like you said, I feel like the piece that I took out of there the most is, while Mary, if we go back to your example. Mary's doing 12 of these things, nine of those, she's only really doing a great job at, the other three, she's just doing by default because we needed her to do it. But then of those, there's only two that really make her passionate.

0:30:15.4 KD: And I feel like as small businesses and dental practices get larger and larger, we need to remember that people when they're passionate and they're in their zone of genius, that's when they're fulfilled. That's when we start having turnover. That's when we're not overworking them, because it's easy to take on a lot of projects in our zone that we're really good at and that we fulfill. So, Paul, when do you know you should hire? 'Cause I think some people, they're always in this like, I feel especially with small businesses, they're in the wiggle room and it's a constant back and forth weighing of the scales. Can I afford this person? I need this person. So you bring 'em on, but then it's gonna drop my overhead. Like how, what have you found, I mean, you guys do so much hiring, you do so much employment, you do a lot of culture. What have you found? I mean, there's probably no simple formula for it, but when do people balance out that maybe I'm going to spend more to alleviate, or do I stack on more tasks and our team could take on more? What's kind of the balance you found in that and all your time working with practices?

0:31:16.9 PE: Okay, the easiest one to know when you need to hire is when you know you need to create a new position. I think the most common one is, is the doctor finally realizes that his or her time is not best spent managing a lot of the things that are going on in the practice around them, and that they would be...

0:31:36.1 KD: Paul, just like... Right there. You got it, like Amen. Hallelujah, please, thank you. Doctors listen to him.

[chuckle]

0:31:41.0 PE: Yep, thumbs sweat work, right? And I mean, that could be from fishing or from being in a massage parlor, just relaxing is your better purpose. So those are the easiest ones. As small businesses, we tend to pile on to everybody and add one more thing, and people tend to raise their hand and say, "Yeah, I'll take that." But I think it does come back to... Don't be afraid to hire. I've never over-hired. You know what I mean? If I was clear, and I had gone through some of this conversation that we've been talking, and I know what our mission is, and I know what our vision is, and I haven't even brought in KPIs or OKRs, however you want it. By the way, everybody, I like OKRs better than KPIs. Go google it, go down the OKR route. I don't know, Kiera how you feel about those but I haven't even brought in these metrics. That's what they are. They're metrics to show whether or not you're succeeding in certain areas. Once you bring in metrics and you start measuring and the team's measuring with you and the team and you are setting goals, it becomes really clear when you need a different kind of talent or you need more help on the team. Like why aren't we filling the hygiene schedule? And then the next thing you know, well, the reason why is because the hygienists are really darn busy and they can't really...

0:33:03.0 PE: We thought they were gonna help fill their own calendar and that's not working out for whatever reason, maybe they don't even have the talent to do it. And so we had a back-up for them and that person, we just added seven more things to their job and guess what? They un-prioritize keeping the hygiene schedule full. It is just measure, just measure the results against whatever your mission is for that year and all those little sub-goals, and it becomes super clear when you need to hire, super clear. And look, if you put a good amount of work in it, hire a difference maker, identify what they're gonna be doing before you bring them on, they will pay for themselves and your overhead will actually go down. Your income will go up, and your overhead will come down. And if you are measuring your KPIs against your mission and you insert this person into your system and six months later, what I said is not true, then you have hired the wrong person. You're not being clear, you are not leading properly, it's you that needs to improve and help your organization get to where it should be.

0:34:18.0 KD: Gosh, that was a beautiful wrap up, Paul. I'm usually the wrap up one. But I think my piece of all this is like, you've gotta hire that person who's just passionate. And I love what you just said, like you cannot, you cannot over-hire and hiring those difference makers, it's crazy. I'm a big fan of Patrick Luciani as well. And when he talks in the Five Dysfunctions of right person, right seat, and really when people are in the right seat and they are these different makers, things are easy and things flow. Like you said, so much happen so quickly that you're like, "Wow, how did I even survive without this person before?" So I feel like that was just a beautiful wrap up you had, and I love the... I guess it's just the confidence of, you can't over-hire, because I really have found when you hire these great, amazing hires, your business will grow because of them and fill the space faster than you ever could have imagined. People are always like, "No, no, no, let's be safe on hiring." And I'm like, "Just hire that person." I've done it so many times that I have confidence to know that when you really do hire really good difference makers, your practice is different, your life is different, your patient experience is different because of these amazing hires.

0:35:33.4 PE: I wanna add one other thing for managers and particularly for owners who are listening. Prioritize your own needs when you do these hires. If what you wanna do is truly take Fridays off and not really do anything in the business and go be with your family because you've been doing this for 20 years, prioritize your own needs. You take care of your team. We always tell it, "Take care of your team. Take care of your team." I need you to make sure your team's okay, but think about yourself, be a little selfish when you start thinking about hiring a difference maker. It'll have a huge impact on you.

0:36:04.4 KD: Gosh, Paul, I think you're speaking to me today. So thank you. Thank you for all the amazing value that you brought in. I think it's fun that you are an HR company bringing this much information to the table on just having different practices. I think right now, we're in a day and age of thinking differently because the world is very different than what it was, and I feel like if you don't start thinking differently, you will truly be left behind. So thanks for just spurring the conversation. I'm obsessed with CEDR. I like you even more, I'm so glad that you're able to be a part of the podcast. So if people are wanting help with HR, I recommend you guys like crazy, you are my go-to dental HR company. You work with hundreds of our practices, and I love to recommend you. So if people are just needing help with employment, you guys have that hiring guide, which we will attach to the show notes, so you guys can get access to that for CEDR. But Paul, if people wanna get connected with your company, that way they can have that peace of mind that all things like you said, you are the solution people. My office managers email you all day long. Like, Paul, can we do this? Can we do that? So how can they get in touch with you?

0:37:10.1 PE: I think there's two great ways. The one way is go to our Facebook group, HR base camp. Ask to join, we'll verify who you are real quickly and get you in. The other thing you can do is come to our websites, cedrsolutions.com, C-E-D-R, solutions with an S dot com. Go to the website, and as all websites are, you'll be prompted to eventually give your email and your name. You can do this safely, guys, it's not gonna spur a bunch of sales calls or anything to you. And get into our education system. So that's the other thing that we do. We provide a mountain of free education to people who we call our member non-members. So they're in our community, but they're just not all the way in. We haven't done their handbook form and aren't providing that support yet. Get into the community anyway that you can. I think the best thing we're doing right now, that we're getting, we're getting two big things right now, Kiera. We are sending out our round up of three of the toughest questions we've gotten during the week and an answer to 'em. So they're real live questions and they're happening like last week. The other thing is, is that I've started a podcast called What the Hell Just Happened in HR, and you'll be prompted to listen to the podcast. And so far people are... They're not hating it, they're not hating it so far, so...

0:38:31.8 KD: I've heard good things, Paul, I've heard really goods things.

0:38:33.8 PE: I'm kind of excited about it. Yeah.

0:38:35.3 KD: I think that's fun guys. Yeah. Get in touch with them for sure. Beautiful. Well, Paul, I appreciate you so much for today. I appreciate what you guys do. I appreciate you being a resource for our clients and on the podcast, all these thousands and thousands of listeners today. So thank you so much for being a part of this. I truly appreciate your time today.

0:38:53.0 PE: Okay. Thank you.

0:38:56.1 KD: Alright, guys, go check 'em out. CEDR, you guys heard how they came up with CEDR. Cedrsolutions.com, check out their Facebook group, and as always thank you for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

[music]

0:39:07.7 KD: And that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.