Are your top performers staying on board? Count your blessings.

If your long-standing senior team members haven't resigned this morning - count your blessings.

If your highest fee-earners haven't asked to reduce their days this morning - count your blessings.

It your clinicians aren't demanding excessive increases in remuneration for doing exactly the same amount of work this morning - count your blessings.

If your Operating Cost Per Surgery Per Day is still below £700 this morning - count your blessings.

We are 28 days in to the New Year and the landscape for Owners/Employers is becoming very challenging.

It's tough enough to embrace the 50% increase in operating costs for dental practice that we have seen since the ill-fated Trussenomic period (how on earth are NHS practices still open?).

Dealing with the demands of team members and clinicians is now part of my daily diet of emails and calls.

Solutions?

1. Accurate financial monitoring, so that you can challenge "demands" with "reality";

2. Transparency with clinicians on their contribution to profit (or lack of it);

3. Transparency with team members on the running costs of your business;

4. The ability to compare like for like when a team member is simply offered "more money" (look at the employee benefits, conditions of work, opportunity for progress);

5. Your willingness to walk away from a demand that doesn't make sense - calling bluffs;

6. PUT YOUR PRICES UP.