#855: Office Manager Guru Says, “Add Video to Onboarding!”

The Dental A Team Podcast

Tiff and Dana talk about why videos are such effective additions to your practice’s operations manual. Their guidance includes the software to use, what topics to start with, who records them, and more.

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Transcript:

Tiffanie (00:02.174)

Hello Dental A Team, I'm so excited to bring you Dana back in the house with some operations manual excitement. I don't know if you've heard her or not, but she is my ops manual guru. Dana, thank you for allowing me to lean on you for these pieces constantly. You do more with our operations manual and our clients operations manuals than I think any of us do. And it's just super helpful for me. So thank you for being here today, Dana. How are you?

Dana (00:27.72)

I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. You know I always love podcasting with Sif.

Tiffanie (00:33.214)

I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Today's been a weird day for us. I think it's like, is it gloomy where you are? I know you're an hour and a half south, but my weather usually comes from you or California. So yeah, yeah, it's like intermittently gloomy, super hubby looking. We'll see. We'll see if we get it. You'll go you'll go down before me. So just let me know. Yeah, keep me posted. So I promised some operations manual stuff today.

Dana (00:53.544)

I'll let you know.

Tiffanie (01:02.174)

There are just so you guys know, I mean 200 probably I have no idea. We've done so many podcasts on operations manuals. So go back through and listen to them. If you're on the website or on your iTunes or whatever, you can use the search and within dental A team and just search for those podcasts. If you say operations manual, I'm sure a slew of them will pull up. So go listen to some of those if you need help building them out. If you're our clients already, you're an active client with dental A team.

There's been courses that you can watch. You have access to an operations manual. And if you're practice momentum client, bring it to your Ask Consultants everything hours every Thursday. And that's something that the consultants are there to help with as well if you guys have questions. So we're kind of layering. I say all of that because we're layering onto an operations manual today. So I don't want you to feel like this is like.

ground zero start and you're getting just a little bit of information. This is a layering on top of. So listen to it now. If you don't have an operations manual yet, start wherever you want. Listen to this, take your notes away and then go listen to the other ones as well or work with us directly to make sure that we get that done with you. That's my plug for today. Like don't feel overwhelmed by this. Today I wanted to talk with Dana and I'm gonna have Dana do most of the information today because...

You truly do more dental, a team operations manuals than anybody on our team. And I really wanted to talk about layering on top of that with videos. And it's something that we've done in our company that I think has made our onboarding, our transitions, our education a lot better and easier for the team that's currently here, a team that's come on team that's been here, all of those pieces. So just.

So you guys have it, the companies that we really like to use that are just super simple, Loom. L -O -O is literally the easiest. It puts it into a library, you download it, you upload it into Google Drive or wherever. So we use Loom a lot, but then also Zoom. So not to be confusing, Loom and Zoom. Zoom, you can record and screen share, do all those pieces, download it if you have an account with them already, and then save those as well. So.

Tiffanie (03:20.382)

Those are my company plugs. Those are my company recommendations. You can do it with your iPhone. You can do literally whatever you want. Don't over complicate it. Don't pay a lot of money for something just simple free as always best. So whatever is free unless you're already paying for something that has it use that but Dana you had some awesome suggestions that I wrote down that I want you to go through for how you're recommending to your clients and to generally teams whole world here.

of what to use those videos for. Because I have to be honest, when you said this, I was like, duh, that makes sense. But for me, I was thinking the how tos, right, which I think I hone in on how tos and like, making this we both do making systems more efficient and easier. So like, that's where my brain went as videoing taking these taking these screen shares and things to show how to do a big deposit or whatever. But I really like your piece of it for simplifying.

some onboarding pieces. So Dana, I'm gonna just like be over here silent while you walk us through how you have teams do that for some onboarding pieces, because I think that's huge.

Dana (04:27.24)

Yeah.

I love video as far as operations menu. And really the reason I like it is people have different learning styles and in dentistry, there are a lot of visual learners, right? Like we, we have to watch setups be done. We have to watch handoffs in procedures. We have to watch those things. And so video allows you to do those pieces so that a person can ideally, right? With any great onboarding system, you want to have pieces that a team member can do without somebody standing there beside them during the training, especially right now.

today's hiring climate where we don't always have a person to train a new person. So we need those parts and pieces that allow training to continue, even when someone can't be directly beside them walking them through it. And video is just a way of taking it to the next level. Can a team member read through a how to Yes, can a team member read your core values? Absolutely. But video helps them connect to it on a different level and probably spend less time to because I feel like if you can read it and you can watch a video and you

you can do all of those button clicks, right? Or you can see the person on the screen talking about the mission, vision, core value. You connect with it a whole lot differently. And I would say probably better when you have both of those parts and pieces. And so I say, look at your onboarding as a whole and anywhere that you can add video to streamline things and to make things easier and to make it to be that.

that person can pretty much do that thing unassisted or learn that thing unassisted. It buys us valuable training time.

Dana (05:59.624)

within a practice. So the first place I start is mission, vision, core value, right? We hopefully you're hiring for core value, you're looking for those team members who match that. But in that onboarding period, having those things that a person can watch and really connect with and hear the owner or the visionary of the practice say, Hey, this is really where we want to go. This is why these are the pillars of our team, right? It helps them align with that. And again, it doesn't have to be delivered one on one.

It still gets that personal piece though, because again, it's on video and I think...

I can have a phone call with someone and those are great, right? I can read something and that's great, but that visual really attaches some meaningful things to that. So I think mission, vision, and core values are a great space to elevate operations manual with video. I think too, all your HR pieces, right? When you're onboarding a new team member, yes, we want the how -tos, we want the written protocols, but anything that you can turn into video as far as...

Hey, this is how you log into payroll. This is how you get your pace up at the end of the week. This is how you clock in. This is how you set up your password for things. All of those HR pieces that happen in the beginning, usually there has to be a dedicated person to walk them through the takes up time, right? The trainee that has to say, okay, this is how you I know in Arizona, you have to verify employment, right? If we could just have a video that shows that then the office manager or the front.

Tiffanie (07:01.438)

Mm -hmm.

Tiffanie (07:16.926)

Yeah.

Dana (07:27.688)

office person that is training them to do that can be hands off with it and buy valuable time back. So all of your HR pieces I think are fantastic areas to add in video again to streamline processes and to free up training time with a trainee and trainer too.

Tiffanie (07:45.054)

Yeah. Yeah, I love that you said like, the payroll, right. And I'm thinking like the clock in clock out, like you said, how many times as an office manager was I asked, how do I clock in and clock out again? Where do I find this? How do I do this? And it's like, it was always a can you show me and I'm willing to show you but what if I could show you infinite amount of times because you can just press play on this video or and whatever it is. So I almost feel like Dana.

making sure that those HR pieces and that onboarding from the get -go is your first space, like that's your baseline of videos. And then moving into the how -to's is almost more important because it offloads so much stuff from the doctor or the manager or whomever is onboarding these team members and really allows even the current team, like current team forgets things, right? Where do I find my pay stubs? Where do I, how do I put in PTO requests? Like,

What do I do for this? How do I find coverage? All of those pieces are stagnant. Like they're not super changing where your systems sometimes are changing, right? So you're having to go back in and re -record or re -update your systems. These ones are not typically changing very often. So you can do this video and it's almost a forever space and peace because it's not changing. It's not moving. It's stagnant and consistent. So I would start there.

Dana, you talked about the mission vision core values. Who do you suggest when you're doing these, who do you suggest records those videos? Because I know we're in the business of delegating. I know we delegate a lot. We train a lot of doctors to delegate. Is that something that you delegate, or who do you have recording those ones?

Dana (09:33.64)

actually have the owner doctor record that and that's one of the reasons why I have it recorded, right? The owner doctor may be hands off, right? You may be a practice that, hey, I've got my associates in there, they're running the day to day, my office manager is really running my onboarding, but I do think mission, vision, and core values should come from the owner and I think recording it is a space where the owner doesn't have to be there to deliver it, but it's still delivered in a personal message via video, so the office manager can certainly play it for the person or give them the link to the video to watch, but I think the message coming from the owner,

just makes it more meaningful and that really should be who sets the mission and vision for the practice too.

Tiffanie (10:10.366)

Yeah, I agree. And as you're thinking, I'm like, gosh, this is something we need to do for dental a team. Because I'm thinking, that's something to as you hire someone that your manager when they send, you know, you hire someone, you send the offer letter, they accept it. And then the office manager sends all the paperwork to get started, right. And that's the I nine and the W twos and the eight fours and the

All the paperwork that needs to be done, that usually gets sent off earlier, done that first day, but it would be really cool to have like a welcome email to new employees, to new hires, that you send this beautiful welcome email that has these videos attached that's like, hey, we wanna introduce you truly to who we are. This is us. And there's these three videos, super simple loom or zoom or whatever, your iPhone, doesn't have to be hard, videos from the owner.

And you could even do like an intro, like I know for new clients, for dental A team, we always try to send a little welcome from the consultant that you'll be working one -on -one with if you're a one -on -one client. And what if your office manager sent a little like, can't wait to onboard you when you come in, I'm excited to meet you because I mean, the climate right now, like you said, the hiring climate, it kind of, it's a little rough right now. And I have had, Dana, I don't know if you've experienced this, I have had practices that have,

fully quote unquote hired someone, offer letters and whatever is accepted and then they don't show up or they're like, hey, actually I accepted a different offer. But what if they were already tethered and tied and bought into who you are as a practice with these simple videos? I think that could help retention. It could help, what am I trying to say? Team members on board, actually on board, right? And then those stagnant pieces. So then I think the question,

The doctors then are saying because you know, I can see doctors going like, yeah, sure. But then what I have to record all of them. Mission vision core values. But then Dana, I don't think it matters. If like if your office manager records or your, your HR director or your billing representative records how to clock in and then six months from now your billing representative decides to have a baby and not return to work but recorded the video.

Tiffanie (12:33.47)

I don't think it matters that forevermore she's the person who's on the video on how to clock in because Dana, do you think that's something if you are a team member, you're going to be like, wait, who's this? And why isn't she here anymore? What's going on? Are you already bought in? You're going to be fine.

Dana (12:47.208)

I think you're going to be fine. And that's usually what I say when we do this is the great thing about this is oftentimes when you are training a new team member, right, you might want an assistant to walk you through OSHA pieces. You may want the assistant to walk you through medical emergencies, like where we keep those things, right? Because they stock it. They know where those things are inside and out versus the front office person. But typically if you're coming in as a biller, right, it's going to be a front office person that trains you. Well, the great thing about videos is...

The person who does it best can create the video, which then makes it full team training versus just one person doing all of the training for the new person, which kind of divides and conquers, which is great. And so, no, I don't think it matters if it was a billing person or if it was the OM. Really the core piece that I feel like does matter is that mission vision core values coming from ownership. I think the rest of the pieces, the team member will just be so thankful to have a video to walk them through it, regardless of who created it.

Tiffanie (13:44.622)

Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. Totally agree. I love that. I was like, I know exactly what's gonna come next. So I love this. So I think Loom or Zoom, those are fantastic options. Again, we use Loom. We have used Zoom too, though. And again, just don't pay a lot of money for something because it's just not necessary. So save your pennies, add it to your overhead. We don't want to see that overhead increasing. Take your operations manual and I'll probably start it sounds like with your

employee manual. So what are the HR pieces? Start recording there. So I think action item wise, like you're going to take HR inventory, take your employee handbook, take HR inventory of all of the pieces that someone has to show direct train on and look at what can be automated. So what could there be a video for? And then I would just delegate delegate out to people at action dates, actionable dates for return and have

Those people, like Dana said, who's the best at this, have them do the recording so that they're quote unquote doing the training as well. And then doctors listening, doctors and practice owners, record your mission, vision and core values. You don't have those built out. Like I said, go back, listen to more podcasts because Dana breaks them down really beautifully on how to create those. So record your mission, vision, core values, give them to your team. I think your team probably.

could use a listen on it and then also get them ready for those onboarding team members who are yet to come and consider some sort of welcome email, a welcome packet to really solidify people in. Gosh, what else? HR inventory, delegate, action items is the biggest piece. Give yourself an action item for recording your mission, vision and core values and then go back and listen through.

some of our podcasts to ensure that the operations manual is where you want it to be so that you can then now tack on extra with those videos. Dana, what kind of timeline would you give a practice if you were delegating this to them to take their employee manual and automate it like this?

Dana (15:57.672)

I think to get it fully automated where we're doing how to's or we're kind of taking a protocol inventory, I'd say give yourself three months, map it out, right? Do a section a week until you get through each piece. And I think I don't want you to spend time doing something that's not going to be beneficial. So really map out before you do it, what would be more beneficial to have the video, right? Because the video is not going to elevate necessarily everything. But there are definitely things that would be easier if we had a video.

in place. And so I'd say map it out over three months. That gives you 12 weeks. Tackle it each week at a time. Use your whole team. Onboarding, even if it is for a front office position, can be done by lots of people in the team who do the things day in and day out.

Tiffanie (16:44.67)

Yeah. Okay. Next follow -up question. I'm, I'm being the doctor, the devil's advocate. How are we having the, the team members doing this? Are we building it into their schedule? Are we asking them to do it after hours? Are we requiring what's that look like for these practice owners?

Dana (17:02.536)

think it can look like however you want it to look like and wherever you have the space. I think just we need to set the expectations from the beginning. So just figure out is it something that needs to be done after hours? Do we need to come in on a Friday when we're closed and bust out as many videos as we can? Or can we set aside an hour each week or an hour each day for team members? Honestly, it doesn't matter to me where you map it out just that it's mapped out and the expectations are really clear when team members should be spending their time working on it.

Tiffanie (17:31.518)

I love that. Thank you. Okay, so we're gonna map it out. You guys take HR inventory, start there first with your with your employee handbook, take that HR inventory, delegate, figure out who's gonna be best to do certain pieces. Dana, I loved the three months. That's 12 weeks. I love that. So map that out over 12 weeks and then give those deadlines and make it realistic with your team, get the get the buy in from the people get the agreement from the people who are going to be doing these on the actual date.

that you've set so that they can figure out too, how to work it into their schedule. Give them some flexibility and some opportunities to expand upon their schedule if needed to get this done because it is worth it. And then doctors practice owners go record your mission, vision and core values today. Listen to more of our podcasts from before if you haven't heard them yet and just go bust this out. We can't wait to hear send some of them in. We would love to see these videos you guys. I'm not even joking. Hello at thedentalyteam .com.

And I hope like someone random checks the email and didn't listen to this podcast. And they're like, why are we getting all of these in here? It'll be so great. I really hope you guys can make that happen for me, please, because on my side, it would be really funny to watch this happen. But I really do want to see these videos. I think it's a really great idea. Dana, thank you so much for having so much valuable information, for bringing it to the table and for walking us through.

that recording. It was brilliant and I love it. Thank you for being here. You are valuable and so appreciative. Everyone, leave us a five star review because we like hearing from you. Hello at thedenalieteam .com. Send us your videos. We're excited to see you and questions you guys if you're confused. You're not sure how to use the products. You're not sure what you need or you're like, gosh, I really need help with this. Can Denali Team help me? Please reach out.

go to our website. There's a scheduling link there for a call link. You can chat with Shelby or our sales team at any time. And then hello at the dentalatm .com. Those really do come to the consultants as well. So you'll get a ton of help there too. Thank you, everyone. We'll talk to you next time.