Dr. Jeff, have you ever had to let somebody go (i.e. fire them) from your practice? If so, what was it like (what did they do that made you fire them, and how did you approach it, what was their reaction, etc...). I ask because this is a part of being a practice owner that nobody likes, but every dentist eventually has to endure and face.
I just want to hear how an experienced and successful dentist as yourself has handled such situations in the past.
I can't remember if it's been 5 or 6 people over the 10+ years that I've been at my practice that I've had to fire (some of the names and faces of some of my former staff just blend together after a bunch of years
😉 ).
As for the reasons why. That varied from staff interaction issues, to repeated failure to perform the defined tasks associated with that persons job, to the age old "it's just not working out for you here" reason. Its has also been for front desk staff, assistants, and even a hygienist. Some of them were long time employees (over 10 years in 1 case) some where employed at my practice for only a few months, and in 1 instance my business partner and I even fired 2 people in my front desk the same day.
I will say that I've never once enjoyed having to fire an employee, and it hasn't been easy for me to do (generally if my partner and I were going to fire someone, its been a process that had been building for months, and as such had been putting extra stress on the entire office, and when the decision to fire that employee had been reached by my partner and I, I have felt a great deal of anxiety in what is usually the few hours to maybe a day until we sat that person down and fired them.
Most of the time, their reaction was neutral, since they knew via repeated warnings of job performance issues that them being fired was a distinct possibility, so it wasn't really a shock to them. Once or twice there was a total emotional meltdown on the former employees part. And as crazy as it sounds, one time the person was actually HAPPY that they had just been fired
😕 (that reaction had me and my business partner kind of scratching our heads after wondering if both of us had just had the same feeling that the former employee was happy about being fired)
In the end though I can say with 100% certainty that once that initial emotion associated with the events that built up to the firing and then the actual firing itself, I haven't second guessed any of those descisions and the overall office environment has gotten better. And that's the most important part in my book, the best overall office environment that I can have!
