In dentistry, we don’t have the luxury of a big HR or recruiting department, but hiring the right people is still an incredibly important part of running a dental practice and there are a lot of nitty-gritty details. So this week, we bring in our own hiring expert, Ashley Fuegel, to simplify things and ensure you find hire the best talent.
Links:
Sample Application & Offer Letter - https://mgeonline.com/sample-application-and-offer-letter
Background checks - https://s2verify.com
Learn more about MGE - https://mgeonline.com
Free Consultation - https://www.mgeonline.com/free-practice-analysis
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Questions From This Episode
Where should a practice advertise open positions?
Ashley says Indeed is the strongest across the country for MGE's clients, but you should also post on local business boards and grocery store bulletin boards, ask staff for referrals, and put a sign at the front desk. She recommends skipping Indeed's paid boost and removing license filters for provider roles, since both reduced the number of qualified applicants her clients saw.
What has changed in hiring since 2020?
Pay is now listed on job ads, and Indeed requires it. Job hopping is less of a red flag because people move jobs more often when a few dollars more an hour matters. Employers are also offering signing bonuses, and Ashley says you often have to pay more up front, around 20% or more, rather than asking people to prove themselves for 60 to 90 days first.
How quickly should you respond to applicants, and should you interview in person?
Ashley calls applicants within 24 hours and aims to interview within 48. She prefers in-person interviews because she can judge whether the person dresses professionally and arrives on time, and the applicant gets to see the office. MGE now often does the first and second interviews on the same day because good candidates move quickly.
How do you check references, backgrounds, and credit?
Ashley asks for permission to call prior employers rather than relying only on personal references, and treats a refusal as a warning sign. MGE uses S2Verify for background checks, which usually take one to three days. Credit checks are used only for people handling money, and Jeff and Ashley both recommend checking state rules with an employment attorney or HR company first.
What should you look for in a new hire's first week?
Whether the person can contribute to the group by doing something correctly. Ashley suggests simple tasks such as birthday postcards or reactivation calls, which can be taught in about 20 minutes. If a new hire cannot or will not do them, they probably will not work out in the practice.
Episode Transcript
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Jeff: How well established is the hiring process in your practice? An easy way to answer that question is to look at how difficult it is for you to add new personnel, whether they're lost due to quitting or having been let go. If it's easy to find somebody new, then you probably have a well-established process. If it's not, you probably don't. From an organizational perspective, things run best when you have a well-established process. To clarify what I mean by that, it's a process that's written down, ideally known by the people involved with it, practiced, and one that actually works. It gets you the expected or desired result.
If you want an example, imagine I called your practice as a patient of record, and you had diagnosed, let's say, two crowns on me, and I called to get on your schedule. Chances are you have that pretty well figured out: where to schedule me, how to schedule me, obviously how to do the procedure, how the tray should be set up, what lab you're using. This is all figured out because it's something you do on a regular basis, and because of that you had to establish a process. But if you look at your organization and at where things are troublesome, you'll find you don't have processes like that established. Maybe you're having scheduling problems, and there's no organization to your schedule. Maybe you're having case acceptance problems, which could be due to sales skills or to lack of organization. Or we come to hiring. Maybe you're having trouble finding people. Chances are there's no process. So if you're having difficulty bringing on new people, or you'd like to sharpen your skills in this area, this episode is for you.
My name is Jeff Blumberg, and I'm your host. My guest for this episode is MGE's Vice President of Administration, Ashley Fuegel. Together we'll go through the entire hiring process, how we do it, as well as what we teach our clients to do, from ads to interview to hire. Ashley has been a guest before, though it's been a little while. She's been with the company since 2006, and she originally came in as our HR director. She's worked her way up to Vice President of Administration, which is due to her being extraordinarily competent, she is awesome. You've interviewed, I know, how many prospective personnel?
Ashley: Hundreds, I'd say, for sure.
Jeff: This has been your area for a long time, which thankfully is no longer mine.
Ashley: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Jeff: Before we get into this, I want to make a disclaimer: neither of us is an employment attorney. Employment law, if you're in the United States, varies state to state. Canada is a whole other thing, and if you're listening from outside the US or Canada, it's probably something different again. For example, we have a job application that we use here in Florida, and there's a separate one we use in California, and we only employ people in those two states. I don't even know all the other laws. For example, I don't know if you know this, but Louisiana still has some Napoleonic code in it from when the French owned Louisiana. Laws vary state to state, so you want to make sure you have some type of employment lawyer, or an HR company, as you mentioned earlier,
Ashley: Even an HR company can review your materials.
Jeff: We're going to give you some handouts, but by all means, get those checked out first before you use them. We are making no claims in that regard whatsoever.
Ashley: Yep.
Jeff: Let's talk about this from the beginning, where you need to hire somebody new. Where are you finding them?
Ashley: It depends on the position we're looking for and how much experience I need, but Indeed is great. We use Indeed consistently. Just like promoting for patients, we've got to promote in a bunch of places. We'll put ads up on Indeed, on local business boards, and on grocery store bulletin boards. We're always asking our existing staff for referrals, and we have a sign at the front desk. You always want to have it out there. When I'm hiring for our clients, I tell them to talk to other doctors and talk to their patients. A bigger thing for them is also to put that sign at the front desk. A lot of our clients will say to me, "Oh, really? I don't want to do that. It looks bad that we're hiring," which I never really understand. I tell them, you're a business just like any other business. Put a nice sign up at the front desk, and they're surprised how many of their patients say, "My friend, or my kid, or myself is looking." Have the front desk able to give them an application right away, or tell the office manager someone applied.
Jeff: We've referred clients to things like DentalPost. How has that been?
Ashley: Since 2020, it's not as lucrative as it used to be. You can find people there, but Indeed is the strongest across the board, across the country, for our clients. It really is. There are some tweaks on that. Indeed is probably not going to be happy with me, but don't do the paid option, where you pay to boost the ad.
Jeff: You see no impact from that?
Ashley: It's actually less impact. We tell our clients to take that off. Just do the free one and you'll get more resumes than if you do the paid.
Jeff: That's bizarre. I don't know if Indeed listens to this, but we like you.
Ashley: Exactly.
Jeff: I was talking to Chris, our Power Client Manager Director, the senior person over all of our Power Client Managers, Chris Menkhaus. He was saying that with provider positions like hygienists, we initially thought we should use Indeed's filters, like "must have a license." You'd think that would make sense. But he found that the number of applications coming in was just a dribble. Once he had our clients take all the filters off, all of a sudden they got a bunch. These were licensed hygienists who weren't appearing when they put the license filter on.
Ashley: There are some tweaks with Indeed, and if the person doesn't know how to click them, qualified people will get filtered out. So we take the filters off and we don't do the paid option, and they get more qualified applicants. They might get more resumes to go through, but it's super easy with Indeed's tools: you click "want," "don't want," click, click, and it's really easy.
Jeff: One thing I wanted to ask you, and we didn't prep for this, but I found it interesting: you were mentioning a lot of things that have changed since 2020 on the personnel side. I usually just see "we want to hire so-and-so," and it sounds great. What are the major changes?
Ashley: We used to not put how much we were paying on our ads, and we do that now.
Jeff: On Indeed it's a requirement, but even on other places, people are really looking for that. Also, because of the change in the economy, people move jobs more often than they used to, and it's not as negative as it used to be.
Jeff: This is why I brought it up. You just mentioned this to me before we started. One of the red flags we would always look for in a resume was a job hopper. My favorite was when somebody put that they had worked somewhere for three weeks. I figured they were just looking for a job for those three weeks, and I just wouldn't list it. You'd never be the wiser, but that was always a red flag for us. It didn't mean we would exclude the person altogether, but we would want to find out why this person was only at this job three months, that job four months. Maybe they were moving, maybe there was a good explanation. But if it was just because they wanted to look for another job, that was a bit of a red flag. You're saying that's not as much of a red flag anymore.
Ashley: Not as much. I would go through resumes and maybe call those people on the phone, or get the story beforehand. Now I just call them all in, because people change jobs. The economy has really affected that. People say, "I was making this, and I could do the same job over there for $3 more, $4 more," and that's a big impact for people on an hourly wage.
Jeff: When you say the economy, you're thinking more inflation?
Ashley: Yes. If you've got kids, $4 more an hour is
Jeff: It’s a big deal, it's almost $200 a week.
Ashley: It’s a big deal. I've sat down in front of many people who say, "I've got two kids, and the guy down the street was paying more, and I needed to change jobs." I can understand that.
Jeff: I'm suppressing going off on a rant about raising your fees and getting out of PPOs to keep up with inflation, but this makes my point.
Ashley: Employers are also a lot more competitive with it now, offering signing bonuses and things like that to entice people. It's a much more competitive market, and you have to be sharper and honed in on it.
Jeff: So the major changes are that we list pay on our ads, and job hopping isn't as big of a red flag.
Ashley: The other thing that's really key is that you do have to pay a bit higher now. You really do. This is something we go over with clients. They can't be mediocre if they want to get the top people. Our clients say, "I don't have the money for that. How am I going to pay this?" The key is to get them on the job quickly and have them be a productive member of the team quickly, and make the decision about whether they're the right fit or not. And have the tools to make them productive, which we offer lots of.
Jeff: Shameless plug. Part of the issue I've always had with that is that if you bring in somebody you're paying more than normal, and I did this a lot early in my career and then became a bit averse to it, let's say the job is supposed to pay $50,000 a year and you're paying $75,000 or $80,000 because that's what they need and you really think they'll do well. They're walking in with a bit of a gun to their head, because they have to perform quickly. You could apply this to any industry. If you're paying an associate $150,000 or $180,000 to start, that person has to be productive quickly, or it just isn't going to work. Let me go back to one thing you said. They have to be willing to pay more. We've had about 20% inflation since March of 2020, which was when all the COVID stuff started. Are we looking at more than a 20% raise for, say, an average administrative assistant?
Ashley: For some it's definitely more. That's a big change since 2020: you have to pay more to get the higher-end people. I've been doing the hiring for a long time, and our MO used to be, "Come in, prove your worth, and I'll pay you that in three months, 90 days, whatever." Now they'll just go somewhere else, because somebody else will offer it to them walking in. You're going to lose the good employees if you tell them that, because they can't buy their groceries. It's not that they don't want to come in and prove themselves. They used to be able to figure it out for 60 or 90 days because they knew they could make it at the company and prove their worth. They can't anymore.
Jeff: So someone who was making $20 an hour in 2019 or 2020, if we just tracked with inflation, you'd have to offer them $25.
Ashley: $24.
Jeff: $24.
Ashley: In some cases we're offering that, or we may have to offer a little more. But then their runway is severely shortened, so they've got to show us something quick. I tell them that. I'm never secretive up front when we hire people. They know they're under the spotlight. You've got to come in, you've got to get going, and you've got to show us you can do what you say you can do.
Jeff: Let's say I'm applying this with a client and I need a good dental assistant. Maybe they're not an EFDA, but they're a good dental assistant, and the going rate for an assistant in my area is $25. This person says, "I can get $28 down the street." So I say, okay, I'll pay you $28, but you've got to show me something. To be clear to everybody listening, if I would never pay $28, then it's "good, go to the other office." But if I would pay $28 for someone who was killer, I'll pay you $28 now, but I've got to see something quick, and if I don't, you've got to move on.
Ashley: And you have to have your procedures set up. You bring that person in and say, "Great. In that first day, here's how you set up my rooms. Go set up my rooms." They'd better get it quickly. If they tell you they don't know how to sterilize the equipment, or they don't know how to run the autoclave, you've got a problem.
Jeff: Got it. That was illuminating, and it's what you were starting to tell me before we walked up here. Back to the process. That's where we find people: Indeed and everywhere else. Let's say we're advertising for an administrative assistant, not a specialized position, because we have some of those here just as our clients do. We get some resumes in. How quickly are we contacting these people?
Ashley: Within 24 hours. We work Saturdays, so a lot of times we pause our ads at the end of the day Saturday and pick them back up Monday. People are still moving fast. It has slowed down some, but the other employers are going to get people fast. So within 24 hours we're calling them, and ideally scheduling an interview within 48 hours.
Jeff: Is this an in-person interview or a Zoom interview?
Ashley: Usually in person. That's my preference. Obviously, if the person's in Michigan, I would assume it's Zoom. I did go heavy on video interviews in 2021, and I wasn't a fan. Part of the application process for me is: can you show up, can you dress professionally, can you be on time? With Zoom interviews, or using Indeed's video app, I couldn't judge that as well. In 2021 I let my HR person do them that way, and then I moved back to "just bring people in." They also get to see us. When you interview somebody, they're interviewing you to a degree. You want them to be happy here. I like it when they come in and see the office and the other people who work here, and think, "Oh yeah, I think I'd like to work here." On Zoom, they just see me or my HR person.
Jeff: And your background. So we do the interview, and this is our first interview, because we do two. Sometimes it's in the same trip now.
Ashley: Same day, sometimes, because you've got to move fast.
Jeff: I remember the process was interview one, then we did some stuff and brought them back for interview two. But now, because employees are a rarer commodity, we're doing the first and second interview on the same day. I know we can't get into the whole interview process, and we can do that in a later episode, but what are some of the things you're looking for on their application and resume?
Ashley: When I sit down with them, there are obviously a lot of things I'm looking for. Specifically, I go through our application first, not their resume.
Jeff: That’s a good point. The resume is for them. They wrote it.
Ashley: Right.
Jeff:. By the way, I'll put a sample of the application we use on the episode webpage, and I'll clarify again: this is a sample with big disclaimers on it. You can't just use it. As I mentioned, we use a different application for California, and we're putting up our non-California application. You still have to have it all checked by your attorney. I'll put the application we use as a download on the episode webpage.
Ashley: I use our application first. If they were short term at a prior job, or at several jobs, I'm going to find out why. It's not as much of a red flag, but I'm still going to ask why they moved jobs.
Jeff: What would be a good answer and a bad answer, just so I know if I ever end up being interviewed?
Ashley: A good answer?
Jeff: Like "My spouse got a better job in another state, so we moved."
Ashley: There you go.
Jeff: How about, "I just felt like I needed to change careers"?
Ashley: That's probably not a good answer.
Jeff: "I woke up in the morning and I hated my job, so I left."
Ashley: That's usually a red flag, especially if it's multiple times, or they were there for like three months. People generally don't sit in front of me and say, "Well, I sucked at the job, so they fired me."
Jeff: I'd respect that.
Ashley: If somebody said that to me, I'd say, great, what do you feel you weren't good at in that job?
Jeff: When I was just out of school looking for jobs, I had one job that just wasn't my thing. It was very short term.
Ashley: I would have said that. I'd respect that, because then I maybe wouldn't place the person in that kind of job, but maybe I've got another job they'd be good at. Sales is a common one. Some people try it out and it's not for them, and that doesn't mean I couldn't do something else with them.
Jeff: Maybe they're a good administrator. Do you ask them about their past employers?
Ashley: Yes. I'll ask how they got along with their coworkers and how it went with the manager at the job. I'm looking at how they respond, and whether they fit in at that company.
Jeff: Let's say I tell you, "I didn't think it was a really good fit. Nothing against those folks, they're good folks, we just didn't seem to click." Is that a problem?
Ashley: No.
Jeff: How about if I go off on a rant about how my boss is terrible, what a scumbag criminal, blah, blah, blah?
Ashley: That could be very true, but it's not something I'd say in an interview, and it would be another point of red flag. You have to look at interviewing as a whole package, though. It's not like one thing means I wouldn't hire them. If they checked eight boxes perfectly and two negative, that's not so bad. But I'm certainly going to call that prior employer and talk to them when I do references. In Florida, when I do reference checks, we can ask if I can call the prior place of employment. If they won't let me call, that's another place where I think, okay, what happened there? If they were very critical of that position, I'll probably call, and I might find that the employee was terrible and stole from them.
Jeff: Wow. We'll get into references in a bit.
Ashley: So I go through their application first, then the resume, and ask any questions about the resume.
Jeff: Do you look for performance-related issues? Say I tell you I was a salesperson at ABC company. How are you going to gauge my performance?
Ashley: I'll ask how they compare to the other salespeople in that position. If you were closing five deals a day, great. What were your coworkers closing? Three, one, seven? I want to see where you rank.
Jeff: Obviously we can establish that someone performed elsewhere. It's like stocks: past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. But at least the person has performed somewhere
Ashley: And that they know that. That's a positive, that they think in terms of "I did something for that company," as opposed to "I showed up and got a paycheck."
Jeff: If I said I was a sales guy, and you asked how many deals I was closing a day, and I said, "I don't know,"
Ashley: That would not be a salesperson I'd hire. I have never met a salesperson who didn't know what they were closing if they were a good salesperson.
Jeff: That's hilarious. Let's say I've made it through the first interview with your HR department. What happens to me next?
Ashley: Then we do placement testing. There's all kinds of placement testing out there. We have a specific one we use, so they do the initial interview and then they do placement testing. It's part of the whole package, but it helps make sure that if we're going to put them in an accounting position, they can do math, and if they're going to be in a customer service position, they have good communication skills.
Jeff: There are various forms of psychometric testing. You obviously want to use one that's employment compliant, which is why, again, you need an employment attorney or an HR company. You want to determine whether the person has the general aptitude to do that job. If we're hiring somebody for finance, whether in our accounting department or elsewhere, we check their ability to do math. That seems like a no-brainer, but a lot of people don't do that, do they?
Ashley: I've spoken to only two clients who did testing.
Jeff: If I have someone handling my collections, I probably want to see if they can do basic subtraction, addition, and multiplication. They don't have to do algebra. I don't know if I ever told this story on the podcast. Sabri was there, everybody knows Sabri. My wife was at Hobby Lobby buying some yarn, because she was crocheting something. The people in front of them were paying cash, and the cashier rang it up for a certain amount, and the customer said, "Oh no, let me give you an extra quarter, and then you can give me a solid dollar rather than a bunch of change." The cashier didn't know what to do. They couldn't do math, and neither could the customer, so Sabri had to interject and do the math on a piece of paper so they got the correct change. That's our education system. Never mind, I'm going to stop.
Ashley: Anyway, definitely do some placement testing, especially for someone who's going to be handling money.
Jeff: And we're not doing it to exclude people. We're doing it to find out where the person fits best within the company. Got it. So we figure out this person is a good fit for a position. You talked about the second interview.
Ashley: I have somebody who does the hiring now. I did it myself for a long time.
Jeff: So our HR person does the first interview, and you do the second one. I've noticed we've done this in the past too: if you're hiring somebody who's going to be in the MGE course room, or work with me, or work in the sales department, you'll also have the senior executive over that area.
Ashley: Most times it's me. Sometimes it's the senior executive over those areas. In the sales department there are really only three people. We don't go too far down in the organization, not because they aren't qualified, but because they aren't trained on all the things you can and can't ask when you're interviewing somebody.
Jeff: If I'm hiring somebody for sales, they go through HR, and then for the second interview they meet with Jeff Santone, and possibly you with Jeff Santone, so he can get his take and say, "I think this person's a good fit for my area." For a client, the office manager might do the initial interview, and if it's going to be a dental assistant, they have them meet the lead assistant.
Ashley: It also gives the person the opportunity to ask more in-depth questions about the job, and for the job to be explained more in depth. If we're all the way at a second interview, I'm very interested in hiring this person, so I'm going to make sure they know what I'm going to expect of them.
Jeff: Now we've gotten to the point where we're ready to hire this person, but there are still a couple of points to cover. You mentioned references earlier. I've had a lot of clients ask me about references, background checks, and credit checks.
Ashley: We always check references. My preference is checking not just the names they give me, but prior employment.
Jeff: What do you mean?
Ashley: They'll give me a list of personal references, like Bill Jones, their best friend, who's not going to say anything negative about them. But like I said, in Florida we can ask for prior employment, if I can call their prior employer. That's my preference.
Jeff: Just to clarify, and I know you're not an attorney and neither am I: in certain states, if a person lists that they worked for ABC company, you have to ask if you can call them?
Ashley: Yes. They can say no, even in Florida.
Jeff: If a person lists three prior jobs and says I can't call any of them, that to me would be a major turnoff, because what don't you want me to know?
Ashley: Exactly.
Jeff: All we're looking for is a good person who's going to be productive and a good fit for our organization. In certain cases they'll list the names of references, or even list the reference as their prior boss with a cell number, and it may just be their buddy. I've heard of this: you call, and they say, "Oh yeah, John was the best guy who ever worked for us," but it's really just some random person, not the actual company. So when we call the company, we look online to see what the actual phone number is.
Ashley: Yes. I'll look at the number they gave, but then I'll check it.
Jeff: So now you're calling for a reference. I'm the former employer. What are you asking?
Ashley: First I'll ask whether the person worked there, and verify the dates they told me and the pay they told me, which is fine. We can do that. Then I'll ask them to explain whether they would rehire the person and whether they performed well. If it was a salesperson, like you were saying, and they said they were doing five deals a day, I'll ask whether they can verify that and how that compares to the other salespeople. Most people won't answer a lot of those questions.
Jeff: I think everybody has become petrified of saying the wrong thing, and I'll invite the people listening to call their own HR companies about this. There are things you could be saying, like "Joe closed five deals a day, he was awesome." With a positive reference, they usually will, won't they?
Ashley: Right, or "We're sorry to lose him, he was a great employee." Sometimes I'll ask why he left. But people are very cagey and won't say a lot,
Jeff: Because they're trying to stay out of trouble.
Ashley: Right. Even on the positive side, they don't want to be responsible for me hiring somebody it doesn't work out with.
Jeff: Is that only if they know you? So I could be some employer in Michigan and I don’t want to be responsible for you hiring them and it doesn’t work out.
Ashley: I've had it happen twice. They literally said, "They were really good, but for our company, I don't know if they're going to be good for you." I wasn't going to be mad at them if it didn't work out.
Jeff: It's a sad statement on the state of society that you can't take responsibility for making a good recommendation, because you might not like the result.
Ashley: Anyway, that's what I'll ask the reference at the prior employment.
Jeff: About six or seven years ago we instituted full background checks, and in certain cases credit checks. I wanted to talk about that for a minute. First off, because people always ask this, what company do we use? We use S2Verify right?
Ashley: Right. We use S2Verify. Usually your payroll company has an option too.
Jeff: I know ADP does. We'll put the link to S2Verify on the episode webpage if you want to check them out. The reason I bring this up is that I was giving a personnel seminar once, and somebody said, "Oh yeah, I do a background check on BeenVerified." That site specifically says you're attesting that you're not using it for a housing or employment decision. You're not allowed to do that. It's not like you're dating this person. You have to use a reputable company. The person acknowledges and signs paperwork from S2Verify that we're doing the background check.
Ashley: Right, and we give them copies of it. Again, they need to talk to an HR company, because there are lots of rules here. They sign that they know they're getting a background check, they give me an email address, the email address goes in, and they get a copy of what I get. If we decide not to hire them because of something on the background check, then there are further steps we have to take.
Jeff: S2Verify goes through this with you?
Ashley: They provide a lot of the forms. Our HR attorney had to provide one that they didn't, because it's state specific.
Jeff: And the background check is usually pretty quick, isn't it?
Ashley: It’s usually pretty quick. If they’ve lived in other states it’s not as fast.
Jeff: What’s the average?
Ashley: The average is one day, but it's common that I'll get two to three days. The thing I like with S2Verify is that if one is taking a long time, I can call them, and they'll contact wherever they're getting the data from and ask them to expedite it.
Jeff: I like that. We also do credit checks on anybody we're putting into the financial area. There's a whole process for that.
Ashley: Correct, here's a whole different process for that. You actually have to get an inspection of how you store the information before they'll give you the ability to do credit checks.
Jeff: I've had clients ask me about this, because I know we instituted that together. My whole thing on credit checks with a financial person is this: if I'm putting somebody on financial lines, whether it's collecting money from clients or doing company accounting, there are a couple of reasons. If they've somehow wrecked themselves credit- wise or financially, and again I use judgment (say their credit's pristine other than a bankruptcy because some company they were part of got wrecked), I can usually forgive that, because it doesn't show a pattern. Whereas if there's a continuous pattern of paying their bills late for the last 15 years, and I'm going to have this person paying my bills, there's no guarantee they won't take that same condition and bring it into my business.
Ashley: What I tell clients is to think of a dental hygienist who doesn't have good hygiene in their own mouth. It's the same concept. If they're sitting there with your patient and they don't care about their teeth and don't take care of them, do you think they're going to care about your money? If they have a similar thing with their own money...
Jeff: For me, credit is mainly applicable to financial positions. If it's a dental assistant, I wouldn't do a credit check.
Ashley: Clients ask me, "Do I do it for an office manager?"
Jeff: I would.
Ashley: I tell them, if your office manager is going to be dealing with your money, yes.
Jeff: We could spend hours on this one. I'm not condemning anyone for this, and the cool part is you could have someone who has trouble with money, train them, and help them clean it up, and then they're able to make more money and things go better. But you don't want somebody in the throes of that condition all over your money. It doesn't tend to work out too well. So now we've done our background check and credit check as applicable, the first interview and the second interview, and I know you have this condensed into about a day now. Let's say here's Susan, and we want to hire Susan. What do we do with Susan next?
Ashley: We send her an offer letter that details the position she's going to be holding and some of the key things about being employed here: that we're production oriented, what their job is based on, and things like that. I think it even tells the vacation policy in the offer letter nowadays, to make it clear.
Jeff: We think we made a sample for our clients, and we'll put a copy of this offer letter on the episode webpage too.
Ashley: It doesn't have all the policies in it. We have a kind of unique vacation policy. But it gives them an outline of the basics, what they need to know, and what we're going to expect.
Jeff: Do they have to sign this?
Ashley: Yes. We send it to them, they sign it and send it back, and then we set a start date.
Jeff: Once they've accepted the offer, pay has been set. It's a pretty comprehensive process. What we tell clients is that you can eliminate some of the potential for error, but there's always potential for error when you're hiring somebody new. This chops down a lot of it.
Ashley: It’s very comprehensive but at the same time, I don't want it to be so laborious that we don't hire people. I've seen clients do this. They go through hoops and steps, and I think, the guy's going to get a job somewhere else
Jeff: He doesn't want to deal with this junk.
Ashley: Or, to use my analogy, you have 10 boxes you're trying to check, and if they don't check two of them, you don't want them. You're looking for a needle in a haystack. You have to be able to hire people with or without experience and train them.
Jeff: We're a pretty open workplace in the sense that we'll hire anybody as long as they can perform, and if they continue to perform, they've got a job. I don't care where they went to school, where they're from, or what walk of life they've come from. I don't really care.
Ashley: I think I talked about this in one of MGE's tips: with 2020, we started telling clients a lot more to hire people without experience,
Jeff: Well, because the job market regurgitated all these professional people into the market when their companies went under.
Ashley: Absolutely.
Jeff: Which brings me to my last question. We'll do a whole separate episode on onboarding, but what are we looking for in that first week? You've just hired this person. I know they spend a day or two figuring out where everything is and having a place to go, which we'll get into with onboarding. But if you just had to say, what's the main thing you're looking for that first week?
Ashley: That they can contribute to the group. That they can do something, do it correctly, and that it contributes to what we're doing as a group. I tell clients to have them sit up at the front desk and do the birthday postcards, for example.
Jeff: You could teach somebody to do reactivation calls in about 20 minutes. You could even write most of it down and do a video, and see if they can make some appointments. If they can't do that, they're probably not going to cut it in the practice.
Ashley: Or if they won’t do it, they're probably not going to cut it either.
Jeff: There you go. "I don't like being on the phone." I still don't know why that sticks in my craw. Sabri told me about a client who was hiring a scheduler who just didn't like being on the phone. I just don't know what to say about that.
Ashley: I wouldn't have hired them as a scheduler.
Jeff: Well, no kidding.
Jeff: For our example, say we've hired somebody new to sales. Obviously they don't know the software yet. They know nothing. But we put them on the phone to at least help make appointments for the salesperson, because they can do that easily. In a practice it might be making reactivation calls or sending the birthday cards out, something they can do.
Ashley: Anybody I hire, even for the sales area, I'll give to my receptionist for a day
Jeff: See if they can answer the phone,
Ashley: Or even just help her with the outgoing mail. We do lots of mailers and stuff like that. My receptionist has been with me for a really long time. She's awesome.
Ashley: She is awesome.
Jeff: I'll say her name, Amanda, she is awesome.
Ashley: She gives me feedback. She's my little spy, you know. She'll tell me, "Yeah, they really got it," or "They didn't get it." Unfortunately, I've had clients bring me envelopes from people I hired, and they don't know how to address an envelope. I don't know how that got out.
Jeff: It's something I talked about a year ago, and it's generational. I'm a Gen Xer, and you're an early millennial. You learned how to write a business letter in grade school, right?
Ashley: Absolutely.
Jeff: You still got that. I learned how to write a business letter in third grade. I remember my teacher saying, "We're going to learn to write a business letter today and a personal letter." That was something we learned early on. But my kids, who were later millennials, did not learn it. My son doesn't have a checkbook. He would never use a checkbook.
Ashley: "What's a check?" My kids asked me that.
Jeff: Everything's online. And as you get younger, the younger crowd isn't familiar with business etiquette because they were never taught it in school. We were taught it in school, so I don't hold that against them. The middle Gen Z is now called a Zillennial, I think.
Ashley: I like that.
Jeff: Zillennial. Someone who's a younger person in their early twenties is a Gen Z. Gen Z doesn't necessarily know, for example, if a customer walks in, Dr. James Smith, and you're meeting him for the first time, how would you refer to him?
Ashley: Dr. Smith. Even our doctors who introduce themselves by first name, I still call them doctor.
Jeff: That's just considered business etiquette. It's polite. With a patient, it's Mr. Smith.
Jeff: Whereas someone in Gen Z may say, "Hey, bruh." They don't know. If you train them on that, especially if they're willing to be trained, it's almost like you need a supplementary training course on business etiquette. I've been talking about this for a year, and a client's office manager came up to me. Her husband works for some big corporation, and they're doing that there, because the younger generation does not know these things. I don't hold it against them, because they also know a lot of cool stuff that we don't know. I won't include TikTok in that.
Ashley: The point of the letter example isn't that I hold it against them. The point is: can they do something?
Jeff: Especially if you've shown them how to do it. If you don't show them how to do it, it's a whole different story. That was my last question. I'd definitely like to have you back on to do something on onboarding.
Ashley: Absolutely.
Jeff: Thank you so much for being here, Ashley.
Ashley: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
Jeff: Don't forget, folks, we have downloads on the episode webpage: the sample application and the employee offer letter. Is that what we called it?
Ashley: Yes.
Jeff: You can download those on the episode webpage. Otherwise, if you have any questions about MGE or would like to know more about us, you can find us online at mgeonline.com or call us at (800) 640-1140. Folks, have a great week, and we will see you at the next episode.