Dental Front Desk Mentoring Guest Post
Dental Front Desk Mentoring is a guest post this week. My guest, Adam Falkenberg, shares his experience and expertise with us. Let’s jump right in and read what he has to tell us.
New hires in a dental front desk position benefit greatly from a strong mentorship program. Why is a mentorship program important to your practice? How can you create a program that works?
What You Already Do
Here are some questions to ask yourself about what you already do:
- Do new hires learn what you want them to learn?
- Is the process efficient?
- Are inefficient skills taught?
- What about mentors? Are they feeling stress?
- Do you see conflict between coworkers because the front desk is improperly trained?
Is your answer “no” to questions 1 or 2?
Or “yes” to questions 3 through 5?
Then, let’s fix that!
Dental Front Desk Mentoring-Step 1
Put the Concept Together
Dedicate someone to create the program. Designate a point person or project manager. A professional consultant or coach is an excellent choice. This is a commitment that is well worth the cost. You might also choose someone within your organization. Just be sure they complete a training program as well!
Step 2: The eLearning
Utilize an eLearning that lays the foundation. And one that teaches new hires the basics. This includes things such as dental terminology, phones, schedule mastery, etc.
Here are three great advantages to an eLearning program:
- Knowledge. New hires learn what they need to know right away.
- Time. Online training begins before a new hire goes live at the front desk.
- Agreement. Everyone is on the same page and has the same training.
Dental Front Desk Mentoring – Step 3:
A Seminar or Other Event
A seminar for new hires to role play scenarios is a key step to practice new skills. Moreover, a seminar allows for questions to come up. This is a great opportunity to receive valuable feedback before going “live”.
Step 4: The Mentoring Program
Finally, structure your mentorship program. This is where learners do most of their actual learning. eLearning introduces students to specific topics. A job is where they put their learning to the test.
Ideally, there is one designated team member whose job it is to mentor new hires. Mentoring is a skill in itself. So, getting them some training on this is equally important. You can learn all of this in my book, Mastery Guide: Dental Front Desk Mentoring.
(Amazon Affiliate Link)
Dental Front Desk Mentoring Book
This book includes knowledge about the core mentoring skills that are needed with examples. As well as several helpful tools to help you design your own mentoring program.
Tools include:
- A checklist mentors can use for each week of the program to indicate whether or not the new hire has successfully completed important milestones. Milestones include providing patients with the proper forms, answering phones professionally and courteously, gathering all necessary information, and filling appointment gaps accurately and error-free. There are many more items included in the checklist and new hires must successfully complete each item five times to “pass”. There is also space for the mentor (or others) to leave comments.
- A sample training schedule you can use for each week of the program that lays out exactly how it should work and includes personal time between the mentor and mentee, going over what they will be doing each day, reviewing how the mentee did each day, and the specifics of what they’ll be doing. For example, week one is all about getting acquainted with co-workers, the office, the patient flow, technology, sister agencies, standards, and so forth. The second week involves shadowing for check-in, and the third week includes shadowing for check-out. By week five the mentee is expected to do both check-in and check-out very successfully with no supervision needed, although some ongoing learning is still expected of course.
- A job aid mentors can use to help them mentor their new colleague as well as sample questions they can use to prompt their mentee towards further learning.
In Conclusion
However you decide to structure your mentoring program, I wish you the best. And I hope this primer was useful to you. I appreciate your feedback if you have time to provide it (either as a review on Amazon for the book or simply as an email to adam.falkenberg22@gmail.com).
About the Author
Adam Falkenberg is a professional educator, trainer, and mentor. He previously taught accredited courses through the University of Alaska and has been a mentor to others in a professional capacity. He is the author of several books on dental front desk and has worked in academia, small business, and the corporate sectors. As a consultant he has years of experience developing training programs for businesses.
Dental Front Desk Mentorship Customized
Dental Front Desk Mentorship is a huge piece of training success and practice stability. Thank you, Adam, for bringing this valuable information to us. We appreciate you and the work you do in the field of dentistry.
Do you have a structured mentorship program in place? Today is your opportunity to do so. Put yourself or one person on your team in this role. Let’s get started! I’m just an email away.
