The Employee Costing Your Dental Practice Its Best People

Every dental practice has probably had one. They're great at their job. Patients love them. They've been there forever. Maybe they even make the doctor's life easier. But behind the scenes, they gossip, intimidate coworkers, ignore rules, create drama, or make new employees feel like they'll never quite belong. In this episode of Dental Drill Bits, Dana Pardue and Sandy Pardue tackle a difficult question: What is that "indispensable" employee actually costing your practice? Dana and Sandy discuss why practice owners often tolerate bad behavior from high performers, how resentment spreads when rules aren't applied equally, and why your best employees may quietly leave rather than continue working in a toxic environment. **In this episode:** - When high performers become a liability - How toxic employees drive good people away - Favoritism, cliques, and broken trust - Handling complaints without creating gossip - When bad behavior crosses a legal line Practice owners often ask, "What happens if I lose this employee?" Maybe there's a better question: **Who am I going to lose if I keep tolerating this employee?** Because your best employees are watching what you address, what you ignore, and whether the same standards really apply to everyone.   ### In This Episode - How to recognize when your practice is truly understaffed - The hidden financial impact of not having enough of the right people - Sandy's collections-per-full-time-equivalent metric for evaluating staffing - Why attitude, intelligence, and coachability can matter more than dental experience - How poor hiring and retention decisions can ultimately cost you your best employees ## **Key Takeaways:** The goal isn't to have the smallest team possible. It's to have the right people, in the right roles, with enough capacity to execute the systems that make your practice successful. If you're focused only on the cost of adding another employee, ask a different question: What is it costing your practice not to have enough of the right people? ## **📲 Join the Conversation!**   Where is your biggest staffing challenge right now? Finding the right people? Having enough capacity? Keeping your best employees? Or knowing when it's time to let someone go? Join the conversation in the Dental Drill Bits Facebook Group. We'd love to hear what's happening in your practice and may feature your experience in a future episode. ### 🎟️ Front Desk Pro Live Front Desk Pro Live is coming to Dallas on September 18! Don't let the name fool you. This one-day, in-person training is designed for the entire team and dives into communication, patient objections, phone skills, collections, reactivation, unscheduled treatment, and the overall patient experience. Use promo code Secret Sauce when registering.