Episode 736: Do Your Job Descriptions Have the Right Pieces?

Tiff and Dana touch on the difficulty of hiring across the country right now. To give your practice a leg up on hiring the right type of people, the consultants give hints on what type of information you should be including in the job advertisements you’re posting — and how these thorough descriptions go beyond just hiring the right person.

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Transcript:

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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, 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 teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast.

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0:00:50.6 Kiera Dent: Hello Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, you are in for the best treat of your life, consultant takeover. That's right. Get ready. They're dropping some dynamite. Our consulting team is incredible guys, and we are so blessed and so fortunate to have them sharing tips and tricks with you today. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

0:01:13.6 Tiffany: Good Morning, Dana. I am so excited to be recording with you today. I feel like it's weird. We usually record on Fridays and I've been throwing this for so many loops this month. I had us on a Wednesday and now it's a random Thursday we're recording and things were always rolling with it. I think that we say it a lot in our company and we truly, truly mean it. You are the person that we know we can count on to just GSD and any curve balls we throw, you're just willing to catch them and we truly appreciate that and love that. I know I do, especially when it comes to scheduling because Lord knows it's sometimes an impossibility to get those schedules combined. So thank you so much for giving me your time this morning. Truly appreciate it. How are you today, Dana? How's the farm outside going? And I just, I love it. I know you've had some summer storms coming through. How is the... What is it? The mouse, the rat? What is it actually called? The pack rat.

0:02:11.9 Dana: The pack rat.

0:02:13.0 Tiffany: Pack rat. How are things going?

0:02:14.3 Dana: The pack rat is... It's released onto Freedom.

0:02:18.2 Tiffany: Oh yeah.

0:02:19.3 Dana: So, it's not on my plate anymore. [laughter] So we like to think he is scurrying outside somewhere, all around us. So life is good. Lots of storms. I feel like farm life it's more like an Amazon jungle right now because of all the rain. [laughter]

0:02:35.3 Tiffany: Oh my gosh. I remember when I lived in southern Arizona, but it's not grass, it's surely like weeds would just get so high. It was like an Amazon jungle. And I remember as a kid just walking through it feeling like I was like... Well, I was itchy, right? It makes you so itchy. But I would do it every time and just feel like I was trudging through the jungle. So I can totally envision that. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you for being here. You are my go-to gal for all things operations manual. I think all of the consultants obviously know how to build it. We've got our templated version that we use for our clients and we have a lot of people who have purchased that outside of being a client. But with us and with you specifically Dana, you do the operations manual course pretty frequently and so you just know this like the back of your hand and you've created so much content for our clients and for our listeners, when it comes to the operations manual.

0:03:32.0 Tiffany: So I pulled you in on a lot of these things 'cause I just kind of want your expert advice and opinions on these pieces. And today I thought we... I know we've talked about avatar, building your avatar, building your job descriptions. You build out job descriptions with people constantly, and then you pull it into all the other pieces on your operations manual courses. And then we all do it with our clients as well. But something that's really relevant right now in the world that I don't see changing, I hope it does, I just don't see it changing anytime soon because we've not seen evidence of it. But hiring, hiring has been really, really big and it's been really difficult for a lot of clients across the country and a lot of business owners in general outside of dentistry even I'm hearing this.

0:04:19.1 Tiffany: So I think writing the perfect ad is an art form. And hoping that they read it, right? They still don't always read it, but writing the perfect ad and I think you've got some awesome tips and tricks on utilizing the information that they've already created and then recycling that into a hiring ad, which I love because it's just like, I hate reinventing the wheel. Number one. I am efficiency queen and if I've already done something and I can use it for something else, please by all means let me do it. You are like a recycling master because we have had you build so much content that you've gotten really stellar at taking something that you've already created or we've created as a company. You're like, why don't we just use this and recycling that into something else. So tell me how you're having your clients, and the people who are in your courses for the operations manual, how are they utilizing these pieces in hiring? How is it helping them to hire new employees?

0:05:19.3 Dana: Yeah, sure. And I think this is really truly like an efficiency hack and I love that you said like, use, find ways to recycle the things that you've already built. And so first and foremost, make sure though that your job description, oftentimes when we look at job descriptions, they're just kind of task list. And it's great to know what you want them to do, right? But we also want to know like, what type of person do you want in that seat? What personality traits do you want them to have? What organizational skills do you want them to have? Just beyond like, hey, what do I need you to do as far as tasks?

0:05:53.6 Dana: So I think making sure that we've created job descriptions like that then makes it super easy to use it in your hiring ads. And it really is, you want to know the type of person you're trying to attract. And if your job description is built that way, then you can utilize a lot of those personal pieces as someone that you know, if your job description says, I want someone that's reliable, I want someone that's organized, I want someone that is a team player, I want somebody that doesn't need to be micromanaged. If that's what you have on your job description, then utilizing that makes it really, really simple then to target those peoples in your ads.

0:06:33.5 Tiffany: I love that.

0:06:33.7 Dana: So I think that making sure that your job descriptions have those extra pieces and not just like, hey, I want you to verify insurance. Hey, I want you to submit claims. I want you... Like, this can be on your job descriptions, but making sure that your job descriptions are tailored in a way for what individual do you wanna sit in that seat.

0:06:48.3 Tiffany: I love that. I love that you pointed that out too because I think in my past, even my job descriptions have been like, this is the description of the job, and speaking to the duties rather than speaking to the person and that culture and core values fit that I want to sit in that job. And that's something I think that we at Dental A Team do a little bit differently than I have ever done in the past. So it might be, people hearing this for the first time or have never seen our operations manual may be like, wait a second, what are you talking about? This doesn't make any sense. So what we do, just like you just said Dana, is literally talking, you're speaking to the person and you're speaking to the personality traits that would make the position really great because you can do insurance verifications and not be a multitasker. You can do billing and not be detail oriented, right? You can accept that position and say, yes, I can do these things. I can totally do those things, a hundred percent, hands down, I can come in and do your billing.

0:07:52.4 Tiffany: And I can also at the end of the day tell you, I don't know where this 20 cents came from because I'm not detail oriented. And every time I enter checks from EOBs I miss something somewhere and I spend more time going back and finding the errors than it took me to enter the checks the first time. So you're paying me extra money, you're paying me double to go back and fix what I've done wrong because I can do it and I will accept that job for the right pay, but should I be doing it? Probably not because I'm not suited for it, but if that job description and that job ad say the type of person, I can say, no, that is not me. I am not detail oriented. I am the like, let's GSD, let's get this done in the most efficient way possible, getting to the end result. And those minor details in between usually are fine. That's me. So if you want the peppy personality that everybody wants to talk to her, she sells treatment really easily because she just engages easily and is inviting. That's a job description I can say yes to.

0:08:56.6 Tiffany: So when you're building that, like you said Dana, really honing in and focusing in on the job traits of the person. And then we take that and then we build a job flow and those are the duties. Those are the things that it's like these are the X, Y, and Z of the position and they should match that personality. If you are saying in your job description, I want a bubbly person who just attracts people and everyone wants to be around her, and then you put billing as one of my duties, that doesn't align, that's not the right personality. So I love that you said that because I also think not only can you use these job descriptions then for hiring, for creating a job ad, but now Dana, you've just helped everyone to really see the individual that they want to hire. So they're not just saying, can you do the billing? Can you do the insurance verifications? They're saying like, does this personality that I'm speaking to right now match the personality that I wrote on my job description?

0:10:01.2 Dana: Yeah. I love that you pointed that out and I think truly sit down and think about, and I love that you said like, can you do that? Yeah, you can. But who or what personality type does it take to excel at that?

0:10:15.4 Tiffany: Oh yeah. I love that. That was a good word. Excel. That was an awesome word. Yeah. I love that. Okay, so then we have the templated version, and you just kind of walked them through it, right? So it's like, this is the position, this is the position's title. So office manager and I know we love to use fun words in our company and just make it exciting to be there. And it may or may not fit your company. Everyone who's listening, make it your own. But we like to say things like our dream office manager, and this is in our job description, you guys, it says our dream office manager is, and then it lists out a detail section of what that person brings to the table. Traits that they will carry. And then it says like your office core values. So then if you just literally copy and paste that entire thing, copy it, paste it into Indeed, you've got everything you need because you wanna bullet point checklist of things that somebody, if I'm trying to hire Dana, she sees my ad, she can say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's me.

0:11:17.0 Tiffany: All the way down to the core values because the core values are incredibly important to the company and the individual. If your core values don't align with what I am trying to put out into the world, I know I can accept this position, but it might not be my forever home. And I don't know if you guys know this or not, but we are in the day and age of everything has to align and feel right. We're all in that space of we just want to build the happiest lives we possibly can. And those things play into it. Dana, is there... Like, what else are you having them do? You're having them... I know you do all of these courses, I think you're doing them like twice a year, on the quarters and it's fantastic. So you're having them go through it, you're having them write the job description, and then once they have that job description done, what do you think... Where do they put it to save it so that they can create an ad? What do you think they should do with it once it's done?

0:12:18.1 Dana: Yeah, Sure. I think you're going to... Right, save it in your folder with all of your job descriptions, that way then when it is time to hire, you can go pull them. And then two, sometimes, job descriptions change, right? Just making sure that we keep them updated, and that they're ready and easy to use. Yes, you might have to add a few pieces about location of the practice. You might have to add the hours that this person would work into your job ad, but really, really, it should allow you to copy and paste and have a job ad created in just a few minutes. And then two on top of that is, yes, it makes ad creation easy, but really, truly it should bring in candidates who align with what you're looking for.

0:12:58.6 Tiffany: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. So, I'm writing notes as always over here and I'm taking away, I'm thinking write a job description, write the job description based off of what we just told you. And I think not only as I was writing these notes and you were speaking about the alignment and attracting someone. I think when you build out these job descriptions and you truly get the essence of the person that you're trying to hire, now you also have an opportunity to not only copy and paste and create a job ad, but you can then compare right seat, right person for the people in the positions you already have. So is someone not excelling in their position and you're just like, oh my gosh, she's driving me crazy, I've gotta get rid of her.

0:13:39.6 Tiffany: Is it a gotta get rid of her situation? Or is it you put Tiffany in billing and Tiff is not... I am not gonna be happy there. I'm gonna be cranky, I will get the job done, but I am not gonna be the person that people are like, oh, let me go ask Tiff a question. You put me at TC or check-in or dental assistant, anywhere that I can just be with people all the time, you're gonna love me, but if you stick me in the wrong seat, right? And Dana, you're probably exactly the same. If I stick you in a corner where you're not getting any human interaction for the day, you're gonna be totally drained. Whereas the right person for that seat, if she or he is stuck with people all day, they're totally drained and cranky.

0:14:22.5 Tiffany: So I think write your job descriptions out, take what Dana said today, take all of those pieces, write your job description out, copy and paste into your job ads today. If you guys are hiring, go do these job descriptions now. Post these new ads, see what happens. And then compare and contrast for what you've already got in your practice and make sure that everything is aligned within your practice. If you are hiring and you don't have your practice aligned in the right seat, right people now, if there's shifting that needs to be happening, you may be hiring for the wrong position because you might have that position already in your practice with an individual, they might just be doing something else. And now you need to hire that position.

0:15:01.8 Tiffany: So if you hire somebody for the billing, but you've already got a biller in your practice, now you're in a position of this person's just not working out and you're gonna end up having to get rid of one of them. So go write your job descriptions, create your job ads for the positions you need, and compare and contrast for what you already have. Make sure you're hiring for the right positions. I love it. Dana, thank you so much. I knew you'd have such good knowledge. I didn't even... As I'm thinking about this, like trying to think of what we're gonna talk about today, I didn't even think about breaking it down to where our job descriptions are so much different than what I've ever used in the past. So that was brilliant. I knew you'd... I knew you were my right person. Thank you. [laughter]

0:15:39.6 Dana: Yes, of course. Always excited to be here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It doesn't matter the day.

0:15:44.9 Tiffany: I love it. Thank you. Thank you. All right guys, go do the thing. Let us know how it worked for you. We always wanna hear from you. So write into us. If you wanna see this template, if you're like, what the heck are you guys talking about? I'm more of a visual person. And you're listening in your car right now, just email us [email protected]. We are happy to share so many of our resources. I think we still probably have free resources on our website too. There are just things everywhere, you guys. Our stuff is everywhere. So reach out to us, let us know how we can help. And as always, drop a five star review below, you guys, if this works for you, if it helps you, if you found this valuable, let everybody know. We are in the business of making sure that we are reaching as many people as we possibly can. And that is one way that we do it, with your five star review, your information so people know that they can trust the information they're hearing. Thank you guys so much and we'll catch you next time.

0:16:35.7 Kiera Dent: 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.

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