Organisational Structure
There are all sorts of ways of describing organizational structure and it’s a bit of a personal choice how flat/hierarchal your practice will look.
Having worked as a dentist in the navy, it was important for us to understand where we fit in our organisational structure and have a clear idea of what our role was withing the bigger picture. No matter how big or small your practice, it’s crucial to have an organisation chart that outlines every role required in your business and where they sit in relation to each other.
Consider the different departments, who leads which branches, levels of hierarchy, 2IC’s, 3IC’s, etc. This will give both you and your staff clarity on who they should report to, the key players they will work alongside, what promotion would look like within their role, and where they sit in the grand scheme of things.
Position Descriptions
Once you’ve identified the necessary roles, you then need to knuckle down on position descriptions. Obviously, this includes things like key responsibilities, daily duties, and I’d urge you to include KPI’s and scorecards too.
The position description should give the employee the ability to know what’s important and what success looks like within the role. I’ve never encountered anyone who goes to work willingly looking to do a bad job – it comes down to understanding what’s expected of them.
Ultimately, the position description should give you both clarity around what is going to move the business forward.
Scorecards and KPI’s
A really useful asset to have is a scorecard that allows both you and your team to track progress towards KPI’s. You can build one by first identifying what objectives you’d like your talent to achieve, and then thinking about the specific metrics or numbers that would show you those objectives are met – these figures become your KPI’s.
Once you have your KPI’s, you can work backwards and determine the activities that need to be carried out daily to meet these metrics. If they’re focused on those activities and execute those to a high standard, then they will achieve the KPIs, and the objective will be met.
If you want to give your team clarity, if you want to have a self-managing team, they’ve got to know what’s expected of them. They can’t do that if they don’t know where the goalposts are. It would be a bit like playing football with no goal posts – no-one would know when they’re winning.
A Training Plan
When it comes to retention and development of talent, it’s important to have a training system. This is especially important when you’re onboarding a new hire – you need to have a really methodical plan for how you train them in those crucial first weeks and months at the practice.
It’s even a really powerful tool for your existing team, so you can nurture them and their skill set for the benefit of the practice. Consider what skills you want them to learn, a reasonable time frame, and how you will measure when the benchmark is met?
This is a training journey meant to span several weeks or months, so don’t expect anyone to master every skill and process overnight. It’s really a nurturing tool that gets people up to speed with your needs and expectations, and gives you both clarity around when and what that will look like.
Your team and the assets that you give them are the two big leverage points that are going to allow you to cross the leverage line. That’s ultimately how you leverage your team to scale your practice – giving them the clarity, direction, training, and resources to do their job at the highest level.
Our Savvy Dentist Academy members have access to templates for all the above assets including organisation charts, onboarding and recruitment packages, scorecards, and much more. If you’re interested in joining the Savvy Dentist Academy, you can have a chat to us here.
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