Staffing Solutions – Remote Workers

Keeping a dental office fully staffed now seems to be a full-time job. So many practice owners are struggling to run a full schedule because they are missing key team members. One creative strategy is to offload some of the administrative work in the practice to employees who work remotely or away from the office. By incorporating remote workers into the fold, practice owners no longer have to find and retain employees who live near the office. Instead, they are able to expand their options to other cities or even states. Dr. Kuba shares her practice journey to incorporating remote employees and offers advice on when and how to consider remote employees.

Show hosts Bethany Petty and Dr. Reena Kuba dive into the following topics: 

• Ways to ensure that the remote workers is advantageous to the practice and to the team
• When to consider a remote worker and why a practice owner might consider one
• Examples of times in Dr. Kuba’s practice that have required outside, remote support. 
• The importance of keeping the remote worker connected to the inner workings of the team and practice 

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Transcript

0:01 — are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real Dental drama if so then

0:09 — you've come to the right place join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr Reena Kuba as we dive into the solutions we've created

0:18 — and the mistakes we've made while managing Dental drama let's get started all right

0:24 — welcome back today we are going to kind of circle back to one of our initial podcast topics we uh spent our first

0:33 — couple topics talking about just kind of the difficult employee market and things that we're having to do to be a little bit more creative but I want to dive

0:41 — into the subject of creative employee retention strategies I feel like you and I have done some really outof the-box

0:49 — types of things with some of your employees um when they got to a point where they were thinking they either had to leave the practice or um needed to to

0:57 — move on to a different career or something like that um and this has come up not only with you lately but with a lot of clients just going how could I be

1:05 — creative and retain this employee so that I'm not down a person well and you had mentioned too that we've talked

1:12 — about um remote employees yes and that we needed to come back and talk more about that so that can tie into today as

1:19 — well absolutely because you again that's another area that you've really capitalize on remote employees and

1:25 — that's not a concept that most um dentist really think about so I want to definitely dive into that as well so I

1:33 — thought we could start with what are some examples that you can even think of in your practice where you had an employee that was either telling you

1:42 — they needed to leave or maybe they needed to move or you know just kind of give us some examples of when this popped up in your practice sure and I

1:49 — can think of um so not exactly in that vein but my first uh remote employee and why and how that came to fruition and

1:58 — then the next big one I think about is um one of my team leads that's that's been with me since I started the practice and so um that one might be one

2:07 — that there's a lot of considerations in that one and the way things could have gone um so I'll start with the first one the remote one

2:16 — um and it wasn't about retaining her she's somebody who I had worked with the first um associate position I took so

2:23 — she was their AR person in that office and um we all shared an office myself my boss dog and then this AR person we all

2:32 — shared this tiny little office so I got to know her um pretty well there and um then when we did some I think we all

2:39 — went to a TDA meeting or aapd maybe aapd was in San Antonio something like that so we she went and so I got to know her

2:47 — more just as a person and and humor and jokes and we are both very different in our religion and politics and life gold

2:56 — and all that right but we hit it off and so um we we got to be really good friends back when we both worked for the other office well the same year

3:05 — I left that practice to start my own she moved back to um Oklahoma she was from the Tulsa area and her family was there

3:15 — and she got land there and so she moved from Texas up to you know North Oklahoma

3:21 — and um so that was that well then when I was starting my practice and trying to figure out dentrix and figure out billing and you know I did my own

3:30 — billing I wasn't trained to do that um and so all of the nuances that come with that I would reach out to her and say hey can you help me with this or what

3:38 — are your thoughts on this and all that um fast forward a year or two or three into the practice um at one point I

3:47 — called her and I said um you know as the years went by I talked to her less and less because I was figuring out my way and she was doing I think she got out of

3:55 — dental for a little while and then she ended up back in Dental not in a pediatric office but whatever wherever she was and I had some random question

4:03 — and I thought you know what she might know this so I called her and we caught up and we hadn't talked in a while and um I said so as we're getting off the

4:12 — phone I was like you know I miss you I wish we could work together like damn you for moving to Tulsa he thoughts I'm moving to Irving like come on like do

4:19 — this with me and she laughed and she's like oh I wish I could but my family's here and whatever and I got off the phone with her and I thought you know

4:29 — why couldn't we do this remotely and mind you I know nothing about tech so I had no idea what that would entail or

4:37 — how we would go about it all I knew is I use log me in to log into my charts later now of course we've got weave and all these other things that I still

4:45 — don't know all the ins and outs of I still go by log me in because that's what I was changed to do and that's how I but I was like well couldn't she just

4:53 — have a log me an account and log in and and do this so I called her and I said you know you mentioned that you would

5:01 — love to work with us and you're not super happy in your position now and what do you think about this like is there any reason this couldn't work

5:09 — because you know if you had a phone you could call about billing you send statements so we could still make this work and she doesn't know a lot about

5:17 — technology either but we both were like you know we we weren't really seeing a lot of roadblocks in there and I think what really worked for me was I trusted

5:25 — her yes so even today like to you know if we all talk about we're like well we can give this person some remote work and we all pause and hesitate because

5:34 — we've got to really know the person to know that they're going to be ethical and they're not going to be sleeping when they should be talking on the to

5:41 — you know so it's like all those things um so that was one before her actually I

5:49 — had a kind of a marketing person that's that's a podcast for another day like again looking for talent outside of

5:56 — Dentistry so that's a good one I've got to come back to another time but she also was one that I rarely saw I gave

6:03 — her pretty much free reign to say Hey you know but I knew she was busy and working because I'd get all these emails I'd see things that she was working on

6:11 — I'd see things set on the calendar so I knew she was being ethical and a hard worker and all of that so anyway fast

6:18 — forward to this AR person so she um came aboard and we just kind of figured out you know called our it people and it

6:27 — took a little bit but then she took over all the AR stuff and it just worked beautifully yeah um it is one of the

6:35 — easiest positions on the team for it to be done remotely there really isn't a a

6:43 — super big advantage to that person being in the office I mean I have plenty of clients that have their AR person in the office that's the norm for sure and that

6:51 — person is always tucked into some little closet or some little room like even in the office we're trying to find a way to get them kind of away from every

7:00 — because it's one of those jobs that you really want to focus and it's hard once you get into the nitty-gritty of inputting payments you don't want to be

7:08 — 10 cents off and then you're digging for that later and so we tend to even when they're in the office we're like oh we need to find this little bitty quiet

7:15 — space for this person so why not it makes total sense for that to be remote especially with all the technology

7:22 — capabilities nowadays there's really not a need for that person to be in the office if they're specifically focusing

7:30 — on insurance AR Etc so I do feel like this is one of the few remote positions

7:37 — that's kind of a no-brainer that maybe a lot of people haven't considered it being remote anymore but I think with the environment

7:46 — that we're in I mean think about this conversation that you had with this employee you trusted her you knew her I mean fast forward to right now what if

7:53 — you had this gaping need in your practice where you're like I got to have somebody working on my finances and stuff it's even more of a valid idea

8:02 — right now because you could absolutely there's there's people that you've worked with or friends that have moved away that you're like the the United

8:09 — States is your you know your plate now like you can pick from anywhere as long as they have access to the system so I think it's just it's it's a strategy

8:17 — we've got to think about now well then so the other thing is because of technology and again I think it's weave

8:25 — um that she does for the most part she she does log in at normal hours yeah um and she can I mean she's right it's like

8:33 — we're talking to her it's like I'm talking to somebody who's physically in the front Des because I don't walk up to the front desk I'm weave messaged them and so she's weave messaged on it and I

8:42 — think she likes the interaction I mean I think she'd love some days face to face but I think she loves being you know she's not missing the jokes and the

8:51 — interactions that we have over weave she comes down three four five times a year for our team building stuff and um if we

8:58 — have meeting we FaceTime her in so it's actually just worked really well and I think she's super happy because she doesn't spend

9:06 — money on gas if she wants to clock in in the evening she's she's one of our salaried people not hourly um and her

9:15 — kids are older so I mean it just worked I can't think of one thing that I start I think the only thing I'm afraid of is when she decides to retire quit or

9:23 — whatever then like what am I going to do I'm so spoiled when you know that it's a good situation when that's your worst case scenario you're like she's going to

9:30 — leave eventually or retire eventually I think one of the things that I wanted to point out that you just said is that she's still involved with the team

9:38 — culture so I think that's important with a remote worker we want them we don't want them to feel so isolated on an island on their own that they're

9:45 — disconnected from the inner workings of the practice and because like our last podcast showed that we're really

9:53 — passionate about team building events we want her to be included on those and that keeps her connected with the team not to mention meetings she's very

10:01 — involved in all of those because there are things that from her perspective the team needs to know about from a billing or claim perspective and so she her

10:08 — voice is heard in those so still very much connected but not necessarily physically present so to piggy bag off the team building part yes I do when she

10:17 — comes to town yes I get her a hotel room I pay for that and then she comes to team building and a lot of times she'll

10:25 — pop in the office just to meet and greet and see if she can see if there any work issues that may be contributing to why the team hasn't given her the

10:33 — information she needs to submit the claim Etc so she kind of touches space then but I don't again I don't cheap out on that I want to make sure that she has

10:40 — an opportunity to come down um a lot of times she stays with me in my home my girls love her so not that you have to get to that I'm that's probably a topic

10:48 — how far do you get involved in your team um but I already knew her she was already you know she'd already stay at my house before she worked for me so

10:57 — it's a different relationship um but we are careful about making sure that both of our needs are met and that

11:03 — we're not Crossing those boundaries and um but I I value her and it's also one less person I've got to on a day-to-day

11:11 — you okay or how's this or so and so said this to you or you made this face and so so so I don't I don't have to deal with all that one less person in the office

11:18 — um and it's one less like physical space in the office that's exactly what I was about to say even in your office I feel like we've really tried to maximize the

11:27 — amount of space as as best we can but even though there is technically a computer that she could be at it would

11:35 — be cumbersome for her to be there in the office it's almost better for the office that she's not in the office just due to

11:43 — space itself well the conversations that AR has to have on the phone with billing and all of that so we got her a phone

11:51 — and again I think through weave or whatever technology we have that it's just another phone it's not another line I I don't know how all that works but

11:59 — basically she's got a phone on her and the phone rings like when the phone rings in the office it's ringing at her home so she knows that if the phone goes

12:08 — I think on the fourth ring it hasn't been answered then she answers it so it's just it's almost like magic like somebody's there just taking care of it it's wonderful it's wonderful one of the

12:17 — things I will say on remote positions when I have brought this to as an option to practice owners I think there's this

12:26 — General fear to your point earlier that this person is not going to be as productive as effective there's this trust factor I

12:35 — think that comes into play and so I I want to caution anybody who's listening to this that first and foremost you need to have you know I wouldn't do a job

12:44 — post for a remote position worker I that's too much risk in my opinion you had a relationship with this lady really all of our remote people that we'll get

12:53 — to we we have a relationship with them before they're remote but also if we have a relationship so we've selected

13:01 — that person because they are trustworthy they're Dependable loyal all of that when they shift remote I don't want there to be this perception that all of

13:09 — a sudden now they're going to have all this excess time so one of the the um conversations that I can think about

13:17 — with one of my clients is they were like oh okay great she's going to be remote now so now she's going to have all this additional time because she's not being

13:27 — I get the concept she's not being interrupted and and all of that and she's not driving she's not driving you know etc etc I think we've got to be

13:35 — really careful on that because where we might make up for efficiency she really is she's kind of in the zone especially your person with ar she she can be in

13:43 — her Zone she can be very efficient with what she's getting done at the same time there's internet issues there's times

13:50 — where you know we're having Tech issues on her you know being able to log in or maybe it's just running slowly for whatever reason so where we make we we

13:59 — might carve out you know 10% more efficiency there is going to be maybe 10% less efficiency just because of that

14:06 — remote um situation not to mention there is a little bit more effort that she has to make on her part to stay connected so

14:14 — maybe if she's in the office she's not reading every single in her office message that comes through because she's hearing about it and she doesn't necessarily have to well she's needing

14:22 — to be connected to the practice so she's reading all of those she's getting on the phone when something's confusing to her um you know with members so there's

14:31 — while it's a very effective and efficient position it's not that they're going to have this plethora of time now that's all miraculously available to

14:40 — them so just because they go remote doesn't mean that we need to add so much more to their plate to make it make sense to the practice owners I remember

14:48 — having to try to figure out and finesse that too it's the same as if they were in the office honestly so um I think

14:55 — that's one thing the other thing you just said um oh I'm gonna have to come back to it

15:02 — okay can I while you're thinking on it one other thought that I would throw in too just to make it clear on what this remote person does for you so somebody

15:10 — listening is like what would a a remote accounts receivable person do just to give some nuts and bolts here your particular accounts receivable person

15:18 — files the claims and so so yes to add to that we open the mail obviously comes to

15:25 — us then we scan it into a shared folder on the server she accesses it yep that's exactly where I was going

15:33 — okay the nuts and bolts of it so she she has we're not having to one of the questions well do we just bag up all the

15:41 — the eobs and and send them to no it you can still do that all electronically now I do have one client that has a remote

15:50 — um worker a similar situation to one that we'll talk about this lady had been in the office man she was a Workhorse

15:57 — she understood the insurance AR she was on top of it but she was a front desk person that needed to move to East Texas

16:06 — like you know two two and a half hours away or so and so we were like oh we hate to lose this person we had that

16:13 — same conversation she can do this remote yes we're down a person at the front so this was a twers front desk team and now

16:20 — we're losing a body um but the practice had grown to a point where it made sense that she could take this this a on and

16:29 — would she be gaining substantially more time because she's not running the check-in seat absolutely so then we added verification to her plate and put

16:37 — a few little extra things on her because she physically wasn't going to be really answering the phone checking patients in ETC now she we she actually comes into

16:47 — the office once a week CU she's only two two and a half hours away she drives in every Friday she spends some time at the office she mails statements from the

16:56 — office uh she collects the checks at that time so that she processes them through the week so hers is an actual

17:03 — physical she takes the checks with her um or the EOB is not the checks um she takes those with her but if your

17:11 — person's in New York and you're in Texas that's obviously not an option this is Oklahoma in Texas like your example that we're talking about so we've come up

17:20 — with more of an immediate option where those things are scanned in she's able to immediately um access those and then

17:27 — of course apply the payments the the thing I was going to say and we we talked about this in one of the other podcasts about the um audit yeah so when

17:35 — you're saying she's got to work to stay connected so yeah you've got to have somebody with good work ethic to do this because they almost have to be a

17:43 — self-starter um and so she because she's not in the office to hear the conversations or to hear what the

17:50 — parents said when they walked in she had you have to leave good notes for her and from a clinical team side when she

17:58 — sending off the billing normally in an in an office if she was in the building she could walk around to the assistant and say blah blah blah blah blah she

18:06 — can't do that here so the assistant better give her the crumbs she needs to put it together and so that's what we were talking about an inadvertent audit

18:14 — because she's physically not in the building it needs everything needs to line up such that she feels like she was in the building which is a side benefit

18:23 — to the remote position because it forces that level of documentation where we're not depending upon a verbal conversation

18:31 — about this she's literally bound to whatever is documented in the system is what she has to go off of so it is

18:38 — advantageous from that angle to know that the only information she has is what's documented in the system and that

18:44 — creates that inadvertent audit so um so yeah I wanted to just make sure that listeners know Dr Cuba's remote person

18:53 — uh handles all of the incoming eobs puts that in anything that got denied that's pending from insurance she follows up

19:01 — with those things she also physically if I'm not mistaken physically sends the claims at the end of each day adding all

19:10 — necessary attachments she also does our insurance verification so those are and then of course managing account

19:17 — statements sending you know statements and and following up on you know and that's what I thought about you do I need to buy her a stamp machine do I send her envelopes like what do I need

19:25 — to do but most of ours I think we use the maybe through entric I don't even remember anymore but some service electronic yeah that yeah that that so

19:33 — it's it's worked out very well for us yeah yeah so that's I think that's a perfect example to start with and to me it's one of the easiest for a practice

19:41 — owner to imagine a remote person doing that obviously they are dealing with financials um but if they're not

19:49 — physically taking the check with them or we're not physically sending them the check there it's relatively low risk to be perfectly honest from a you know

19:58 — protect the assets and all of that uh so I think this is a great opening position to start with but that's not where we ended our we've got several more to talk

20:06 — about on your team so that's the first one you thought of what's the second remote position that you the second one that we've already talked about in another one and it's a quicker one so

20:14 — I'll I'll kind of recap that here she um had moved from South Carolina worked with us for about a year we all loved

20:22 — her then she wanted to move back to South Carolina to be back with family again and this is the classic oh man we

20:29 — love her and then it was well could she stay in a remote capacity and because we already had the other AR person we'd

20:37 — already kind of figured out the nuances of what this would entail and so yes we were losing a body at the front desk so then we had to figure out who we were

20:44 — plugging into that spot but as far as what she could do remotely did we have enough to give her the hour she needs

20:53 — and the answer was yes and so at that time when we took Medicaid and it was this whole like all the

20:59 — o um PRS and all the scheduling I mean it was a whole we literally had two

21:06 — extra people to have to handle all of the Medicaid stuff and so she did all of that remotely um because it was all

21:14 — paperwork type stuff send this you know email this to the hospital email this back to the office um and then the other beauty that I love love loved was that

21:22 — she was the first one on phones and so all the phone ringing in the office pretty much went away because she was the one handling it and so it really

21:31 — became I think she was first on phones then AR was next on phones and then the people in the office so that we could

21:38 — really focus on the check-in person could really focus on all the check-in stuff and making those patient interactions and relationships and the

21:46 — checkout person could do the same so they still had to answer phones but it wasn't their primary thing and the noise level went down and the chaos went down

21:55 — because we had farmed that out so you know like you hear the call centers around the world like we had our own call center in South Carolina it was

22:02 — just a one person thing but um so it was it was really lovely and we were really sad when she opted to I think she just

22:09 — missed being in an office yeah and so um earlier this year when we were kind of looking at we need some help um and

22:19 — Fridays tend to be our busiest days and I was like let me just ask her and so hey if you ever and she was like yes cuz more income for her and so on Fridays I

22:28 — think she for her we start we want our phone started starting to be answered at 7 a.m. well she's on the East Coast so it's 88: a.m. for her her kids in school

22:37 — yeah so she's got this Friday where she wasn't working and now it's easy she's in her pajamas she logs in and she does

22:45 — an 8 to one um and I think for her then we kind of worked out a uh daily rate

22:52 — for her um for those hours and so she's happy we're happy and yet again another inadvertent audit because she's

22:59 — answering the phones and people are trying to schedule and trying to figure out why did the doctor recommend this etc etc so she's having to read through

23:08 — all the notes and if the story doesn't add up so it's really enhanced documentation yes um and it's really

23:15 — again taken the noise and Chaos out of the office on Fridays uh so I again there I I can't think of something that's it's not a I mean it's such a

23:24 — win-win I can't think of anything that I'm going oh man this was a dumb decision not all it's been a beautiful decision and then we had um and we've

23:32 — alluded to this in one of the earlier podcasts as well um another uh employee that I worked with very closely at my

23:39 — first office and she's now in another office but they also don't work I think they work one Friday a month or whatever

23:47 — it is and her kids are out of the house and so I said you know if you ever wanted to work remote let us know because and she's one that's done front

23:56 — she's done back so I would actually put her first on phones because she can answer all of those questions and then I could put her on verifying insurance and

24:05 — let the AR person have more time to fight Insurance well this one verifies so the the sky was the limit we in the

24:13 — end we didn't end up procuring her because of issues on our end where we did have team members are like no she needs to be in the office for this this

24:21 — this and I didn't I kind of took that I wish I had pushed more and said no no and so this is why I love the

24:29 — remote employee because to me it's one less person and not the more people you have in the office that's more

24:36 — characters having to interact and get along so if you can decrease that then it's fewer people that have to fewer

24:45 — personalities and few you know it's less interactions in that regard the other thing I love about it is I think people

24:53 — love the idea of working from home yes pre pandemic especially especially afterwards so for me I'm trying to

25:01 — figure out if every employee could have a day at home you know some of the assistants or hygienists were more proficient on the phone or more

25:08 — proficient with detailed entering and and we've talked about our assistants our assistants in particular are very

25:16 — thrive on and Excel at the personal interactions none of our assistant team

25:22 — is detailed and they really get bogged down in these kind of more boring tasks being on the ph and the documentation

25:30 — and all of that but if I had one that was really good I might even say on slow days you go home and you work from home and you catch up on all your overdue

25:38 — hygiene calls overdue treatment calls catch up on whatever there's always something to be done um and so I think

25:46 — people just love the idea of being able to work from home an added perk for them and it cost us nothing I think that's what's beautiful about it is it's one of

25:55 — these I mean you know people coming back back after the P pandemic it was oh I miss being home I didn't realize but I

26:03 — really enjoy being home and so even if they had never thought about a work from home day or something like that it's

26:10 — much more common now because for 6 weeks 8 weeks however long um people were closed they figured out what to do with themselves at home and kind of enjoyed

26:18 — that so it is an added perk they make their same hourly rate so that may be something that we need to kind of Aster

26:25 — here is they're not making less from home they're making their same hourly rate there's that trust Factor there that they're going to be efficient and

26:32 — to your point they get to stay in their pajamas get caught up so they're mentally recharged the next day that they're back in the office and it's

26:41 — really cost you nothing it's cost you the same it just means that we have to ensure that the schedule can run without

26:47 — them in in the office that day yeah so I I love and I think that if I I'm sure there was more to it than that but from

26:54 — what I can remember the one that we didn't procure that was maybe the sticking point where I was kind of hands off I let the team leads work with it

27:03 — and they decided that we didn't have a computer for her to log into and that was going to be a problem therefore she needed to be in the office and so of

27:12 — course they you know I was hands off I didn't realize what was being communicated to her why I I didn't I didn't get into the details of all of

27:19 — that and suddenly she wasn't joining us and suddenly and I was like what what happened well we need her in the office and we told her this is not a remote

27:27 — position and I was like the whole premise was the remot I don't want her in the building and she drives from far but I don't even need her in the building the task that I'm asking her to

27:36 — do would talk to this parent talk to that those are all done better if she was here where would we put her to have some these conversations um and I said

27:44 — so why did she have to be in the building again what what am I missing wait on the computer for her to remote into I just about lost my mind I was

27:51 — like are you crazy like I would have spent money on that computer a thous thousand bucks on a computer less than that honestly and so I was really

28:00 — annoyed at myself for not catching that before it was too late yeah um so now to

28:08 — the other one that I think is really um kind of what you wanted me to talk about the the creativity or whatever the right

28:14 — word is for the our our last um hourly or remote employee excuse me so she has

28:23 — been with me pretty much since the beginning of the office and so we've had kind of our ups and downs where there's probably probably times where I'm like

28:30 — she doesn't seem to line up with what I'm wanting anymore and maybe we need a part ways although more often than not I

28:36 — think it was her yeah kind of going uh this may not be what I want and so for me you know that hurts my feelings like

28:44 — she must hate me I must have done something to her and she wants to get out of here and it took me a long time I mean I'm sure that that probably still could be part of it um but but it's

28:53 — probably too I forget that you know they're young when she started with me she was probably 23 years old something like that and so you know already in her

29:02 — own life I think she probably did see herself at one point going to college and doing all she's one of the smartest people I know but then ended up getting

29:11 — married and had a baby but then went through a divorce and single mom and so life just hit and so I think for me going

29:19 — okay I might be part of the problem but I'm not the soulle problem right so really it's kind of what do you want so

29:26 — I want to say at year 3 4 something like that initially she said I want to be an office manager and I Envision us having

29:34 — three four practices and I'm running all of the practices and I'm like okay I don't know who would want that job but apparently you do well okay then you're

29:42 — going to have to lead me there because I've never had this vision of having multiple practices um I'm very overwhelmed in this one practice so um

29:50 — but if I have somebody who who I can follow then I'll follow you tell me where we're going yeah and she's very capable of making that happen but then

29:59 — suddenly she didn't want to be the manager and so and we've had that happen a couple of times so the first time that I can really remember it happening she

30:06 — said something about how she was wanting to go to paralal school and I said paralal school what like why where did

30:15 — that come from and I think for her she was like you know I just is this it for me and at this point she's probably

30:21 — 25ish 26 maybe and she's like this is it this is where I'm going to spend my life in a dental office like that's just not

30:28 — what she had on her vision for her and so I heard her and everything and I said you know I I hear where you're going with this and I'm certainly not trying

30:36 — to dissuade you if like that's what you need to do but I after you know I'm about 10ish years older than you and I

30:44 — do have a degree and I do have you know things that I have accomplished and every damn day I'm going is this it for

30:52 — me even now even 10 years later now since that conversation is this it I just have to keep going back to this office every day like what else am I

31:01 — doing here where's this going I'm yesterday I was in my full day accounting meeting um shout out to MOS Lu wble love love love them beautiful

31:10 — new building Chris you are a godsend we love you um anyway so that's that's you

31:18 — know we were talking about at minimum retirement age for me you know if I got lucky could I retire in 12 to 15 years and I just let pets sink in and I was

31:27 — like where's 's your vomit button because I'm going to throw up I've got to keep doing this every day and not that I don't love doing what I'm doing

31:34 — but just when you think about it in long term in years yes and I'm like oh my God I I've I've been doing my own practice

31:42 — thing for what 11 to 12 years I feel like I've aged so much and I'm this dried out prune like my brain has not

31:50 — left I got to do this for 12 more I'm only halfway there I need a minute the bile is rising right so I could totally relate to where

31:59 — she was coming from and I said so you're at a point now where you're going I don't have a degree and I thought I would have a degree and you know and I

32:07 — said but I do have a degree and we're in the exact same boat yeah like both of us are going is this all life has to offer like this is and I said you know what's

32:15 — going to happen with paralal is similar to what's going to happen here you're going to go learn a new trade and you're going to get really good at it and you'll probably have two three four 5

32:23 — years but then what yeah you're a 30 and you're in the same place yeah you've reached the peak of what you

32:30 — can do with paralal that's it nowhere else to go so kind of like here I mean once you get to office manager status I

32:38 — really kind of nowhere else to go here and you already know this field so really up to you but I I guess I don't see it like to me it's par it's a

32:46 — parallel move it's not a different move so um but I left it alone because I was like well I don't want to project my

32:54 — thoughts onto her like you're a smart lady you'll figure out what you need to do well then per legal went out the door and I don't know when and why that moved on I don't know what her Epiphany was at

33:02 — that moment um but she stayed and then I think right before the pandemic right um

33:12 — so then so the year before the pandemic or you know about a year leading up to um she hit me with well can I talk to

33:19 — you and whatever she was saying and she's like well you know really for my lifestyle with my kid at home and can I you know really want to work four days

33:28 — in the office and one day out and I was like I think that's totally fine you know again we've done this remote thing a few times now so I was like that'd be really good and she's a very intense

33:36 — person and she's a very intelligent person um so it's hard for her to continually clean up the mess of the

33:45 — others that aren't maybe so focused on planning and the details and so she was kind of cranky in the office like I

33:53 — would hide from her too because you know she was kind of intimidating she's a cheric right like she's mad at me I'm

34:00 — going to go hi in myice go tuck her over there in that corner um so I like yes yes great idea go let's do one day

34:07 — remote so that worked for that was probably two years before the pandemic and then the year before the well and also we kind of saw this writing on the

34:15 — wall happening which was when we transitioned into the team lead model to kind of minimize some of the stress on

34:22 — we felt like I think you and I both had this worry that she was burning out due to some of these conversations so that

34:29 — was even a few years before this yeah so this was probably five years ago maybe yeah so at this point she's you know two

34:37 — years prior to pandemic she's sharing some of the management responsibilities but still is wanting a change uh so

34:45 — anyway just to make sure the listeners know there's lots of little transitions that have happened to retain this

34:54 — employee and all of those transitions happened at various points on the scale but the whole

35:02 — time it's I think it's beautiful for me to sit here and think about it because I know all that went into retention of this employee and the retention wasn't

35:10 — just to Advantage you the practice owner it also advantaged her as well it was it was very advantageous for her and I

35:18 — think what we'll get to now I mean now is very benef official for her she loves the position that she's in and and we've finally F found that spot that is

35:28 — win-win but there's been a lot of transitions that have happened up to that and so to say did we achieve this remote position for her and now we've re

35:36 — I mean I'm sure a lot of Life happened her kid's older now he's a teen and so over the years as she's thinking I want

35:42 — to be a manager and then having to deal with all the issues that a manager has to deal with and then getting burnt out by that and going uh-uh I don't know

35:50 — what I was thinking with wanting three or four practices like I don't even want to manage this one so we had that transition which is then when we came to the team

35:58 — Captain idea that we had implemented and we still have um that we had talked about in a previous podcast so so we had

36:06 — that transition and then you know she'd do okay for a little while and then suddenly I'm like she's extra intense

36:13 — like what is going on and again for me to talk to her was always intimidating for me because two reasons one it's that

36:20 — cheric intensity of hers uh from my viewpoint I'm a people pleaser so I was

36:28 — afraid that I would walk into something that either my own feelings would get hurt or I'd promise her the moon and I wouldn't be able to deliver or that it

36:36 — wouldn't be fair or that I'd get tucked into you know going oh yeah do whatever you want to and like would would she have me by my balls again like is that

36:44 — that was always what I was afraid of was I don't want to be in that position of you hold all the cards and so I was very

36:51 — reluctant to go into those conversations you and I finally had a moment where I think I revealed to you where I was just like I just I'm petrified of her walking

36:59 — away but I want to be in a position where if she chooses to walk away that I still need to be okay right and that's when you said to me you're like Kuba

37:07 — you'll be okay I'm like what do you mean what's all the back work you had been doing for me with other team members and things like that that I wasn't really

37:14 — paying attention to and you said no if she were to walk away tomorrow this is what we would be doing these people have been trained to do this these people

37:22 — have stepped up to do that so we have a backup model that I was even unaware of and that's that's where I was like every penny was well worth spent and then some

37:31 — like all this behind the work stuff behind the scenes work had been going on and unbeknownst to me um because I just wasn't you know maybe at that point my

37:38 — kids were young and I was distracted anyway so so we you know we we crutched along and she was okay and then Here We

37:47 — Go Again suddenly she wasn't okay um Mom issues family issues I don't know yeah and so at that point too I was like she's going to walk she doesn't want to

37:55 — be here like she may be moving who knows um and then so P legal stuff went away and then now suddenly she was like oh

38:03 — well I need this I will eventually need to be just four days a week because I'm going to massage therapy I'm getting and

38:11 — I said okay so what does that mean are you doing massages in the evening but you still want your day job and she goes

38:18 — well I think I'm going to stay for a little bit get get my I think this was like January or February of whatever year it was and she was by

38:27 — the end of that year is when she would finish her getting her license and then into the next year by that summer she'd

38:35 — probably leave the office so I mean again that was a blow to my stomach but I said you know what like I shouldn't I shouldn't hold you

38:43 — back if this is not what you wanted for yourself I need to not take that personally and we need to move on and that to me just means that you're going to move on to other things and the right

38:51 — person will come in or will shift and adapt and it'll all be okay right just kept telling myself that so fast forward then she got her massage

39:00 — stuff at the end of that year and then the beginning of the next year which I believe was 2020 I think so yes so it's

39:07 — the pandemic year yeah and I knew this was coming and she hadn't said anything so this was in January of 2020 and I

39:14 — said hey what are your plans like what are you what are you wanting to do and she said well I was going to plan on

39:21 — resigning in June and then probably pick up a job at a front desk in a dental

39:27 — office 2 days a week close to my house and then do my massages and I thought okay

39:35 — well you know again kind of hurt my feelings a little bit that but then I thought about it and I said okay could I make this a win-win for both and so what

39:43 — I need to figure out is a are you done with dental alog together because she would you know she she can do just about

39:50 — anything in the office but maybe you're burnt out on that and you're starting to maybe you just want to be the person that kind of just answers the phone and schedules and really don't want to do

39:58 — anything more than that that's your transition out um or are you just done with me you understand then or are you

40:05 — done with Kuba have you you know you've been here almost 10 years you're done with all of working with me in particular and so you're going to go

40:13 — pick up in another office and and do that or is this just really a stepping stone to launch you into your massage world so it really has nothing to do

40:21 — with D or Kuba so what do you want and so I just kind of had a very direct conversation with her and I I said you know this is this is what I'm thinking

40:29 — right by the way she's a very private person I know very for having worked with her for over 10 years I know very little about her private life and I've

40:36 — always appreciated her professionalism in that regard so I just had to be very direct though because I knew if I put it

40:43 — any other way I wasn't going to get much and I said so from my viewpoint I could see this this or maybe you're leaving D all get I I don't know what your what

40:51 — your plans are however if you want to stay in some cap if you want hours in some capacity um let me know because there's a ton she

41:00 — could do with marketing there's a ton she could do with um you know again answer phone some if you don't want to be involved in patient care at all maybe

41:08 — you verify the insurance maybe we train you on how to post payments like there's plus she was a great person that you punted ideas to a lot and then she would

41:16 — kind of take that and go okay great let me get you some details on that so she was often times the executor of your

41:23 — ideas which was I think part of what we that's to replace yes so the other things we can we find a marketing person

41:31 — can we find somebody that stores the HR documents and all that yeah we could supplement all of that but that 10 years of development where y'all have kind of

41:39 — developed this communication that was so easy between the two of you I think that's where we we were going to miss her yeah and where she had the history

41:47 — of the office so I don't have a memory for anything so where I could say hey I think we've had this idea before but it didn't work do you remember why and she

41:56 — could say yes this this is why we did this and this and this so it's and I think we balance each other very well

42:03 — I'm a quick start you know in kby world that means that I yes let's go bam and I don't often think about all of the

42:11 — details and she's the opposite so it's like we need each other to keep moving and get something going successfully and we've done it very well so I was like

42:19 — I'm going to miss that part of my brain because she knows so much and she knows how I'm going to react to certain things I know how she's going to react so it was just this relation ship that I was

42:27 — like uh that's going to be very difficult to start over with a lot of those things um so I just said well

42:35 — think about what you want to do if you want five hours a week I will give you five hours a week assuming you're not done with Kuba in this office you want

42:44 — whatever so I just said really I need you to tell me if you want to stay in any capacity which may help you not have to pick up

42:51 — another job um you could do it from the Leisure of your home and I trust that you you're capable of doing all of these

42:59 — tasks so you would basically just give me a list of tasks that you would anticipate taking over and what time

43:06 — you're willing to give and then I'll come back with you you know counter offer and see if we can get in the same place and so I didn't hear from her for

43:14 — a couple days to week and I kind of was like what what does this mean a plan but she was she was working on it and going you know I think I want and and I did

43:22 — tell her um I said let me just remind you if you drop down to part time you don't qualify for 401k you don't qualify

43:30 — for this bonus you don't qualify for this I'm not trying to sway you one way or the other you know I mean I'm sure I'm sure you've thought of all of that

43:38 — if you were going to go work for another office she's so smart she hadn't thought of all of that yeah now if I wanted to be a jerk I could say well you're going

43:46 — to clock in no more than 30 hours right stay part yeah stay part-time so that way I'm getting everything I need but

43:54 — then she doesn't qualify for all these other things m and I know that as a human that would make me bitter yeah you know I'm so close yet so that doesn't

44:03 — show that you value her right it seems like I'm trying to take advantage of her um so I left out I said if you want to be

44:11 — full-time but tell me what you're going to do that's going to help the office going to keep you happy with tasks you're doing and then help me with

44:19 — things that we need done that I know whatever you're going to do you're going to do it to to Perfection as far as my definition of Perfection goes so far

44:28 — well and we went so far as to say build your job description like if if you want full-time remote you know build your job description put it on paper and tell us

44:36 — what you want to do and I think there was that trust factor with her to know that she was going to put together a stellar job description and even though

44:44 — we couldn't think of what all she would do you know 32 hours a week we knew that if she could she would put together a

44:52 — job description that made sense for us right and and that's the thing I think for her she was also not doing it to benefit herself she knew at the front

44:59 — desk they're going to struggle with this this this so I would take this but I would leave this cuz that makes more sense for bodies in the office to do this so I mean it worked beautifully and

45:09 — so she ended up staying full-time you know 4 30 64 hours uh pay

45:15 — period and um lo and behold so we did all of that prior to shutdown mind you my mindset the year of the pandemic cuz

45:23 — wasn't at all starting at the end of 2019 and to me like that's a disease of overseas there's no way you know I was just in even when we were talks of being

45:32 — shut down I was like there's no way we're going to be shut down we're going to be shut down for two days and the economy is not going to be able to handle it we'll bounce back like there's no way this is going to so I you know

45:42 — ate Crow or whatever the the verbiage is there um but to me you know at that point this was probably in January we were having all these discussions and by

45:50 — February she was gone byebye like I was like why are we waiting till June go now yeah again she was a very intense person

45:58 — so from my viewpoint it was a win-win all around because a lot of the team was very intimidated by her and so to have

46:04 — her out of the office was a benefit yeah she was thrilled cuz she thought she was only going to get one day work from home

46:12 — well now she's at home full-time um all of these tasks have been farmed out and so it it just couldn't have worked out more

46:19 — beautifully and then 6 weeks later we were shut down and it's like we already had everything in place she didn't miss a Beat so she could stay on payroll and

46:28 — handle phone calls and handle everything I I fured everybody else I left one who came into the office to help manage

46:35 — things in the office um and that one too my one of my other team leads she doesn't have kids she wants to work um

46:45 — and so I pay her she's a hygienist when she's at home working from home she

46:52 — picks up um uh we had we agreed upon a uh admin rate for her so like Mo most Mondays we're not working but if she

47:01 — wants to work from home and she's very capable of knocking out this this this this this she does it from home yeah so even though she is an employee who's

47:09 — there four days a week she's still there the fifth day or in evenings handling things that she's got nothing else to do

47:17 — in the evening a lot of times according to her and again these are people that you trust because they have proven themselves to be very effective

47:26 — efficient they're not wasting time on the clock and so I can imagine somebody listening that's like oh i' would never trust somebody to just clock in whenever

47:34 — you want from home from you know administratively and turn things out but this has been developed over time that these people are very very trustworthy

47:43 — uh it also provides this flexibility that is so necessary now in the job market you've got a hygienist on your

47:52 — team this team lead that has her four days of a week of clinical she's seing patients but she really wants to work 5

48:00 — days a week sometimes if she's trying to save up for a trip or something like that she'll work six days a week and you've allowed some of that flexibility

48:08 — sure it's not at a hygiene rate but she's got that flexibility to earn additional income even when the office is closed so that in and of itself is a

48:17 — creative retention strategy for that employee and gives her a luxury that is very nice to have especially during the pandemic and the shutdown is kind of

48:26 — like before obviously not during the shutdown but um I mean for her to supplement her income she was going to go work at Costco yeah and so she was

48:34 — going to be making I think 11 bucks an hour at Costco and I paid her a higher admin rate so she loved it even more she didn't have to get out of her house and go to Costco she just logs in from home

48:42 — yeah and uh like you said I've got to have trust that she's not just going to ride the clock and say she did all these things but she's very dedicated to the

48:50 — office and has proven that long before we've had her but it was one of those things where yes somebody's leaving or now this person that you know wasn't a

48:59 — good fit on the team now we've got to hire another one and she's like why can't I do it I'm like I'm not paying hygiene fees for an admin job well I'll do it from home and negotiate a rate for

49:08 — me oh my gosh yeah love it yeah and then we've even offered that to the other two hygienists at times that um you know

49:16 — like you said at times where they want to earn more for a trip and they don't need a ton but Christmas is coming up and they want a little extra cash okay well then why don't you come in on this

49:24 — date we'll do half hygiene rate and you work the um on sched treatment list or recall list yeah there again the things

49:33 — that are being tasked with these elective extra hours are things that will absolutely benefit the practice they're they're help it should always be

49:40 — a win-win-win we don't want somebody you know working from home doing something that is a minimal impact to the practice

49:48 — but all of these all of these remote positions that we just talked about there were things that were absolutely impactful even if it was just the uh

49:55 — Friday person that we added just answering the phones which you're like how valuable is that exceedingly valuable especially on Fridays cuz our

50:04 — two front office people were stressed to the max they were delivering you know care to the patients that were directly

50:11 — in front of them but they're constantly distracted by this phone they were much more effective in their communication on top of things because of this one thing

50:20 — that we added to this remote person's place so even even that is super valuable so I think that's when we talk

50:27 — about all of these kind of retention or creative strategies to keep an employee on our team even if it doesn't feel

50:36 — super valuable or you're like yeah this task list looks good but how much is it actually impacting the practice even if it's just reducing the stress of your

50:45 — team in the practice and they're able to deliver more positive care to the patient and more clear communication and

50:52 — make less mistakes yeah it's totally worth it now for people going well then how do I prevent everybody coming to me

50:59 — and saying they want to work remote So my answer to that if somebody's saying well why can't I this or why can't I that my answer to them always is well

51:07 — tell me what you think you could do for me remote you build it you bring it to me then we talk about it because I want them that shoulder that burden yeah yeah

51:16 — you you're a chair side you're great at all things chair side but you can't leave any document even the chairs side

51:23 — treatment you worked on you still typed in the wrong tooth right um and I know you know we extracted B and not a I know

51:31 — you saw that and yet you marked a in the chart so I don't think those details are your strong point so you tell me what

51:38 — you would be successful with doing remotely and I will absolutely consider it and I will but we all know for a lot

51:45 — of these people that's not an option I mean that's not an option but I'm not going to say no I'm going to say you present it to me and tell me what you

51:53 — can do and show me your level of proficiency and if you understand all the nuances of what this means they come to the conclusion themselves that that

52:01 — may not be the right role for them and surprisingly as strong as we are with remote workers on your team we really

52:09 — haven't had people coming and ask asking for that and it's a it's a heavier than most offices remote team you've got your

52:18 — AR person remote you've got your your man or pre manager that then moved into a different role she's fully remote now

52:25 — we've got our Friday remote person so it's it's a lot of remote workers and then your other hygienist team lead that

52:32 — will periodically work remotely and yet nobody has really presented that as a desire of theirs so even in that if

52:40 — that's a worry that prevents a practice owner from considering this it's very much a part of the culture in your office and yet people aren't asking for

52:48 — that so I don't think that should prevent us from thinking about this option awesome thanks for diving in with me on this conversation I hope listen

52:56 — ERS that if you are considering um you know how to creatively staff your office that thinking outside the box in this

53:03 — way might be an area that is worth diving into a little bit further so thanks for joining us today thanks for

53:10 — joining the conversation today we hope that you are comforted in knowing that you are not alone but we also hope that you're walking away with some really

53:19 — great tips and tricks to try in your practice we value your feedback so please take a few moments to rate and

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53:44 — rooting for you today as you manage your dental drama