A lot of work goes into finding staff and getting them hired. And yes, you can always improve your hiring system. But the real key isn’t your hiring system. It’s what you do once someone is hired. It’s how you bring them into your office, get them integrated, and get them doing their job.
I’m not telling you to throw out your hiring process. You still need to hire qualified people. But I’ve hired my share of people I thought were qualified, only to find out they weren’t. And I’ve hired people I didn’t think would work out who turned into some of my best employees.
Here’s why that matters. When you have a strong onboarding system and a solid plan for the first 30 to 90 days, your hiring can actually move faster. You’ll have a clear way to see if someone is going to make it in your office or not. And you won’t have to look back and wonder if you started them off wrong or didn’t give them a fair shot.
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Two Ways Onboarding Goes Wrong
Before we get into the system that works, let’s look at the two mistakes I see most often.
The “sink or swim” approach. The new hire comes in, does an hour of paperwork, meets everyone, and then gets handed a manual. “Here you go. Read this and get going.” Maybe they get a quick tour of the computer system. Then they’re on their own. No real training. Just thrown into the deep end.
The “information overload” approach. This is the opposite problem. The new hire spends days reading manuals, watching training videos, and shadowing other employees. They never actually do any real work. It’s a flood of information with nowhere to put it. They can’t remember what they read because they’ve never seen it in action. And people don’t enjoy it.
Both of these set a new hire up to fail. Now let’s talk about what works.
An Onboarding Plan That Works
1. Orient them to the job
Start by sitting down with your new hire and getting clear on what you expect. Introduce them to the staff and give them a place to belong. Then go over exactly what you want them to do and why you hired them.
Say you hired a dental assistant. It’s easy to just say, “Clean the rooms and prep them for the next patient.” But every doctor is different. How fast do you want rooms turned over? How do you want the room set up? What matters to you while you’re with a patient? What signals do you want the assistant to give you when a patient is in the chair? These are the details to go over up front. Make sure they’re clear on the product they’re supposed to produce by the end of the day.
2. Orient them to the office.
Next, walk them through the space and show them how things flow. Where do patients go? How do patients move from the front to the back? Where is each office, who works there, and what do they produce?
The goal is simple. You want them to understand the machine and see how they fit into it. When someone understands the whole picture, they understand their own piece of the puzzle.
3. Give them a stable place to work.
Set them up with their own space. This sounds small, but it tells the new hire they belong here and this is where they’ll do their work.
4. Train with simple, step-by-step checklists.
Now start training them on the job. Do not hand someone a 100-page manual and tell them to read the whole thing. That’s overwhelming, and it doesn’t give you or them any real confidence that they can do the work.
Instead, take your manual and break it into short, simple checklists. Each one should teach a single task, step by step. For example, your phone system. Sit them in front of the phone with a checklist that walks them through it. Then do the same for the other core tasks:
- How to check out a patient
- How to schedule a patient
- How to open the office in the morning, etc.
Keep each one to a page or two. When they’ve read it and done the task enough times to feel confident, they sign off at the bottom. Then you let them do it.
One more checklist to build: a glossary of your terminology. Make a simple list of the dental terms they’ll hear in your office, along with clear definitions. Where you can, include pictures or real-life examples so the terms actually stick. Then have someone quiz them to make sure they understand. This is a small step that saves a lot of confusion later.
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5. Get them working quickly.
Here’s the flip side of the information-overload problem. Put people to work. Most people like to work. They applied for the job because they want to contribute and earn a paycheck.
The faster you can get someone doing real work that helps the office, the more likely you are to keep them. It makes them feel good. It makes them feel like part of the team. And it shows them, “I can do this,” which makes them want to stay.
6. Correct them right away.
When a new hire makes a mistake or handles something in a way that doesn’t work for your office, correct it right then. Don’t save it up.
I see practices run 30, 60, and 90-day reviews where the doctor sits down with a long list of everything the new hire did wrong. Don’t do that. If it’s important enough to correct, correct it in the moment, or at the end of the day, or first thing the next morning. This matters most when they’re learning something the wrong way and need to fix it before it becomes a habit.
7. Don’t hover or micromanage.
Here’s the balance. Yes, correct people when it counts. But be smart about it. There’s a big difference between teaching someone and nitpicking every little thing.
If they stack the books differently than you would, and it doesn’t change the result, let them stack the books their way. If they’ve proven they can do a task, let them do it. What matters is the product. If the schedule is full, it’s full. If the patients are confirmed, they’re confirmed. If the treatment is sold, it’s sold.
People also like to feel creative. They want to feel like they bring something to the table, not like a cog on an assembly line. If they wanted an assembly line, they’d go work in a factory. Give them room to add their own touch, and they’ll be happier to stay.
8. Keep communication open.
Give your new hire a buddy. Pick someone who can answer their questions when they’re unclear or hear something they don’t understand.
If you can’t assign a buddy, have them keep a running list of questions to ask when the time is right. And make it clear that asking questions is a good thing. Tell them not to feel shy. The more they ask, the faster they learn.
Staying quiet is actually the risky move, for two reasons. First, they’ll be confused and frustrated, which leads to mistakes. Second, if they don’t ask, they may invent their own way of doing things, and it may not be the way you want it done in your practice.
9. Don’t get stuck on the ones who don’t work out.
Even with a great onboarding system, not everyone will make it. Some people will leave within the first 90 days. Others won’t be the right fit, or won’t catch on the way you hoped, and you’ll have to let them go.
When that happens, don’t dwell on it. If you’ve put a real system in place, with clear orientation and simple checklists, and you’ve trained your team to bring new people in the right way, then you did your part. You don’t have to wonder if you were the reason it didn’t work out.
Not everyone is going to work out. And that’s okay.
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The Bottom Line
Your hiring system gets people in the door. Your onboarding system decides whether they stay. Spend the time to orient them well, train them one step at a time, get them producing quickly, and support them along the way. Do that, and you’ll keep more of your good people and spend far less time starting over.
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