As DSOs and dental groups scale, many still turn to the external labor market to fill talent gaps, but the next source of growth may already be on staff.
Hiring from outside can mean recruiting experienced dentists, bringing in outside leaders or backfilling open roles as they come up. But outside hires don’t always fit an organization’s culture or clinical model.
Some leaders are working from the other direction. They’re developing dentists in-house, spotting future managers among their hygienists and assistants, and building succession plans for key roles. Some are also reaching further upstream, into local high schools and dental residency programs.
Four dentists and dental executives discussed the importance of internal training and workforce pipelines at Becker’s 5th Annual Future of Dentistry Roundtable in Chicago.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: Where are DSOs and dental practices relying too heavily on the external labor market to solve gaps they should be developing internally?
Tarun Agarwal, DDS. Founder and Dentist of Raleigh (N.C.) Dental Arts: I’ll focus on the dentist. For most of our organizations, the dentist is the No. 1 growth opportunity and also the No. 1 challenge. Our best dentists don’t come to us as the best dentists. They develop into them, and that takes time. Maybe I’m a control freak, but when you guide dentists into learning what works best for the organization, both sides win along the way. If you let people go out and do whatever they want, don’t be surprised when they come back wanting to do something that doesn’t fit your practice model. It can make sense to outsource some of it by bringing people in to teach what fits your culture and model. Over time, though, you have to build training programs that benefit dentists internally so that it is a solution that scales.
Jaime Burks. CEO of Burks Dental Consulting (Forsyth, Ga.): We should be building a bench internally. There are not many times that I feel like dental hygienists or dental assistants are put in a position where they can grow. If we build a bench internally, it shows team members that we have a pipeline where they can continue to grow, and then we can backfill that pipeline externally.
Cyrus Lee, DMD. CEO and Executive Dental Director of Permanente Dental Associates (Portland, Ore.): Building internally is important, but from where I sit it needs to happen at both ends. Way upstream, there’s a lot of work to do in getting into high schools and generating interest in dentistry. We have a dentist who’s regularly in the classroom at one of the local high schools. The school has a health careers track and a dedicated dental class, and juniors and seniors earn their radiology certificate through it. Some go on to dental assisting, some might become hygienists, and every couple of years there is one student who gets so interested that they want to be a dentist. It’s about getting out into the communities.
At the other end, at the mouth of the river, our newer dentists don’t seem to get the volume of procedures in dental school that they did 20 years ago. We’ve done a lot of work internally to build that skill set and supplement what they learned in school. This year we started partnering with the University of Washington on a residency program, where UW dental residents train in our clinics.
Curtis Swogger. CEO of North Pittsburgh Oral Surgery (Pittsburgh): Bringing somebody in from outside may support the organization temporarily, but culture is what people do when no one’s watching. You have to be sensitive to the team that you are bringing someone into. A few years ago we had a need in revenue cycle management, and we needed someone from the outside with experience building that function. I now have a team internally that we can develop through succession planning. When this person retires someday, we have a succession plan in place and don’t need to go external. For me, that’s also a legacy piece as a leader: developing our future leaders and mapping out a career for them.
At the Becker's 5th Annual Future of Dentistry Roundtable, taking place September 14-15 in Chicago, dental leaders and executives will gain insights into emerging technologies, practice growth strategies and the evolving landscape of dental care delivery, with a focus on innovation, patient experience and operational excellence. Apply for complimentary registration now.
