Firing a Member of Your Dental Office Staff

It’s likely that you’ll need to let an employee go at some point during your career as a dentist. Before firing an employee, it’s important that you go through the proper motions, which can include offering additional training, issuing 2-3 warnings, etc. But sometimes the employee is just not a good fit, no matter how much guidance is provided.

Things to Do & Avoid When Firing an Employee

Letting an employee go can be a difficult and delicate situation. You may encounter anger, hurt feelings, stress, and even panic from the employee being fired. Here at CTC Associates, we can offer a few things you can do and a few things that should be avoided during this difficult discussion.

Things to Do:

• Be civil – There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to shake your former employee’s hand and wish him or her well in future endeavors.
• Pay the employee – Provide your employee with his or her last paycheck. If this isn’t possible, make sure to let the employee know when the check is ready to pick up.
• Collect practice property – This is the time to collect any property that belongs to the practice including an office key or an ID badge.

Things to Avoid:

• Apologizing – You can be as sympathetic as you feel you need to be but avoid apologizing to your former employee. Remember that you’re doing what’s right for your dental practice.
• Involving other staff members – Under no circumstances should you let an employee go in front of any other staff members. Additionally, make sure the meeting is held when no patients are in the office.
• Misunderstandings – Make sure you’re clear and to the point. You don’t want your staff member to misunderstand the reason for the meeting.

At CTC Associates, we know that running your own dental business can be a difficult task. Not only are you in charge of patient care and running your practice, but you also have to manage staff. For more information on how we can help take off some of the burden, please contact our offices today.