Urgent and Important - The Jobs War

Last night I had a Zoom meeting with client who has lost 2/3rds of her team since the beginning of the year - and I’m noticing this across the dental landscape.

Earlier this week a client informed me that 4 of 7 had gone in one week.

It's easy to rush to the assumption that maybe each of these is a rubbish boss in a lousy practice but that's not even close to the truth.

Let's look at why the 4 people mentioned have decided to move on:

1. Deciding to travel Europe during the summer with a friend and has taken an agency job to earn more until she travels (also "sick of having to do other people's jobs for them");

2. Had enough of nursing after 12 years, going to take her A-levels again and retrain as a paramedic - taking agency work for higher pay whilst taking exams;

3. Upset because TCO job was offered to someone else, had enough of constantly firefighting;

4. Trainee who says she is not getting enough support work for her course (disputed by her colleagues) and has taken a higher paid position in a nearby practice.

There is a labour shortage in dentistry for both clinical and non-clinical jobs.

We know the reasons:

• Long Brexit;

• Covid;

• Burn out;

• Historically low wages ("I could get this for stacking shelves at Aldi");

• Lack of appreciation;

• Lack of career pathway;

• Lack of resilience.

Here's what I told my clients this week...

The simple law of supply and demand dictates:

• Be ready to pay significantly more to attract new team members and to keep the ones you have;

• Be ready to pass that straight through to the patients in fee per item price increases;

• Make sure that every team member is offered a Personal Progress Interview EVERY MONTH;

• LISTEN;

• Make sure you have added some extra benefits to the employed contracts - study days, bursaries for education, staff perks packages, pension and health cover.

It’s a simple employment war - impossible to avoid in the short term.

The battle goes on.