Hiring or Hustling Backwards?

Dental Drills Bits

A growing team sounds like success, but adding the wrong hire too soon can wreck morale, raise overhead, and increase chaos.

In this kickoff to the Hiring Series, Dana and Sandy break down how to assess whether your practice truly needs to hire or if it’s time to get serious about systems, training, and communication first. They walk through real-world scenarios (yes, including a team walking out!) and offer tools to help you make strategic hiring decisions instead of emotional ones.

You’ll learn how to:

✅ Recognize signs of burnout and bottlenecks ✅ Use patient flow (not just production) to assess staffing needs ✅ Perform a job analysis to refine roles before hiring ✅ Outsource strategically while maintaining quality ✅ Avoid hiring when your culture or patient satisfaction is already suffering

📓 Listener challenge: Revisit your job descriptions and KPIs before you write that job ad. Is your team really at capacity, or just undertrained?

Key takeaways:

• Burnout often stems from broken systems, not just headcount

• Patient flow—not production, is the best indicator for front desk staffing

• Don’t hire to “fix” a bad culture—address team satisfaction first

• Smart outsourcing (like billing or insurance verification) can bridge the gap

• A great team member might be hiding in plain sight—they just need training

🔊 Special thanks to our sponsors: 🦷 Plan Forward – Simplify and grow your dental membership plans with ease. Learn more at planforward.io

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📲 Join the conversation! What signs tell you it’s time to hire—or not? Post your thoughts in the Dental Drill Bits Facebook Group, and we just might cover them in our next episode!