Retain Your Dental Team by Fostering a Culture of Health and Wellness

Before we jump into today's dental topic, let's just take a second to talk about what's going on outside our windows. This massive winter storm is still causing chaos across the country. As of early Monday, thousands of flights are disrupted and more than 800,000 people. from West Texas all the way up to Maine, are still without power for a third straight day. And unfortunately, it's not over yet. Forecasters are warning that these brutal sub-zero temperatures are sticking around, with nearly 200 million Americans under some kind of weather alert, everything from ice storms to extreme cold advisories. So if you're listening to this while bundled up and stuck at home, you're definitely not alone. Enjoy the podcast, stay warm, and stay safe. People go to work for money and they stay for culture. And so if you have a wellness-centered culture, we feel better together because we've stretched and huddled, for example. Providing ergonomic education, that's something that will keep people in your office. Welcome to Austin, Texas for the Phil Klein Dental Podcast. Thank you for joining us. So there's no question we have somewhat of a staff crisis right now, a hiring crisis. We've all experienced it. It's difficult finding a really good employee, and what's more important is holding on to that employee. And sometimes the key to long-term employer retention may not just be in pay raises or bonuses, but in creating a health-centered practice culture. Imagine an office where your team feels energized, supported, and truly valued, not just as employees, but as people. Today, we're going to explore this. We're going to talk about building a workplace that prioritizes health, wellness, and appreciation, which can lead to a happier, more dedicated staff, while also making a positive impression on your patients. Our guest, Katrina Klein, will recommend a few simple things we can do that can transform our practices into a place where our employees want to work and have no interest in looking elsewhere. Katrina is a registered dental hygienist for 16 years, national speaker, author, competitive bodybuilder, and certified personal trainer. She's the founder of ErgoFit Life, where ergonomics and fitness are a lifestyle to prevent, reduce, or eliminate pain. Katrina will be joining us in a moment, but first, for the optimal bond between zirconia and your resin cement, check out Bisco's Z' Plus. Rated best in class by thousands of top clinicians, Z-Prime Plus, featuring MDP, creates a strong, reliable bond to zirconia, metal, and alumina substrates. And nothing could be simpler. It comes in a single bottle, and it's 100% compatible with both light-cured and dual-cured resin-luting cements. It's time you get the most out of your zirconia restorations. To learn more about Z-Prime Plus and the entire Bisco adhesive product line, visit bisco.com. Katrina, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks again for having me. Yeah, our pleasure. And for those of you who don't know Katrina Klein, she's a bodybuilder, a certified personal trainer, as I mentioned in my introduction. And she has a website, ergofitlife.com, where there's a lot of information that will help you through your career, maintaining your strength, your... ergonomic positioning and everything else that will extend your career and also make it a lot more enjoyable because nobody likes to work if they're injured or nursing a nagging muscle pull and and it comes and goes and there's ways of actually preventing that and there's ways of uh strengthening it so that it it actually is not a problem going forward so in this episode it's a timely discussion here because there is a staff crisis right now in the dental industry. And finding a hygienist is not an easy thing to do. Finding an assistant is also difficult. Part of that reason was COVID that did change people's minds about pursuing the dental career and being on the team. Obviously, the aerosols and all the stuff that was in the news about that, having the hygienist and assistants on the front line of all this certainly did not encourage individuals to pursue a career. in dentistry. But the good news is that if you have good people, the idea is to hold on to them. And one of the ways to hold on to this team that you have that you cherish is through a wellness-centered culture and their strategies to support this. So how would you describe a dental office that has a wellness-centered culture? Oh, goodness. I love this one. So, you know, I will... oftentimes be quoted saying people go to work for money and they stay for culture and so if you have a wellness centered culture that's not just hearts and flowers it means that we focus on things that are important it doesn't mean that our entire focus is on wellness it means that there is an element of wellness meaning that if you stretch together you stay together you know the teams that do these things they really do stay together because we enjoy each other. We're laughing with each other, doing these funny-looking stretches during huddle. We feel better together because we've stretched in huddle, for example. You know, providing ergonomic education or ergonomic equipment. is a huge benefit package additive and that's something that will keep people in your office you know if you say to them hey listen i've got saddle stools or i've got a cordless polisher or i've got These things that are ergonomic that are going to make your life easier and more enjoyable here at work. And you're not going to be fatigued after work. So you still have the energy to go home and deal with your children or your animals or go to the gym or do whatever it is that you do. That's going to lend to that retention because it's not just getting people here. It's getting them to stay here. Well, that's it. And so if we have that, we're in the green, right? Yeah, and that's a very good point, Katrina. And again, the crisis that we're having in dentistry right now with the hiring of hygienists and assistants and staff members, one way to alleviate that or ameliorate that crisis is to hold on to the employees you have. So what kind of conversation would you have with your team in a huddle? Now, a daily huddle, how long is a typical daily huddle in a practice? You know, every practice does it differently. I personally think that a five to 10 minute huddle is the absolutely most that anybody should ever need. You know, you shouldn't be reading the schedule. It should be where is an opportunity for an emergency? Do we have all of our lab cases? Let's do a stretch. Let's talk about, you know, things like don't let this patient and this patient cross paths because they're recently divorced, whatever the thing is. Um, that's, that's what your huddle should be about. And then taking 60 seconds to stretch together is a fantastic way to like start the day right. Cause you feel good. You know, you get those, everybody's breathing, you know, we've moved our bodies a smidge, you know, even just 60 seconds. So what's a good 60 second stretch? Oh my goodness. So I actually have a six, I have a daily. workplace stretch card. And there's like 10 different stretches on there that you can do. I mean, you can simply start by, you know, bringing your elbows down and pushing your hands towards the back with your palms facing forward. So you're really just opening up the chest muscles. You can push from the hips forward. You can do that. You can take the one arm and put it over your head and stretch it to the side. There's many, many stretches. Pick one. Pick one a day. Do something different every day and practice them together. They can find that stretch card on my website. Download it for free. I don't charge. I don't even ask who you are. It's just there as a resource. But there's all sorts of different stretches that people can do as a group. And sometimes you laugh together because you feel funny. But, you know, laughing is good, right? Laughing is good medicine. Yeah. Sounds like you've been through this when you were a hygienist. Are you still practicing in an office? I am practicing still. I am still three to four days a week when I'm not helping dental offices or speaking on a stage. I am in an office. I'm trying to help out my community as much as I can because there's too many. dental offices that can't find a hygienist. And so I'm trying to do my part. Yeah. So it's interesting because, you know, when dentists market their practice to the community, some dentists focus on wellness. And this is for the patients. You know, you don't normally hear the dental practice owner focusing on a wellness-centered culture for the employee as much. And that's something that should not be ignored. And that's why we're doing this episode. So what are some of the challenges that a dental practice owner who wants to pursue this culture may run into? And what are some of the things the practice can do to overcome those challenges to get everybody on the same page and participating in these health focused activities? Well, I would say it may be difficult to get everybody on board. Say if you wanted to do a water. A water challenge as a team, like we're going to try to strive every day as a team to drink, you know, two or three liters of water or whatever it is that your goal is or who can drink the most water. You know, not everybody might be on board with that. But if you do say a team challenge, you know, like, hey, we're going to we're going to be consistent every day doing our stretches or, you know, we're going to all take the month of May and walk on our lunch. showers for 15 or 20 minutes, you know, that could be a team challenge that you could do. Some offices, I've seen them do challenges where, you know, the office that provides, say, medical insurance, it's connected to some sort of, you know, if your blood work, if you get blood work done and it comes back, you know, good or better than it was before, then you get a discount or you get a bonus or something. If you go to if you check into the gym X amount of days, you know, in a row, you there are some perk to that. There's all sorts of different ways that you can challenge the team to do wellness type activities, both in and out of the office that encourage that wellness culture. And not all of them cost money. I mean, getting, encouraging people to drink water throughout the day, you know, just encouraging like, okay, you know, make sure that there's healthy snacks, you know, or maybe on your potlucks for if you're doing things like that, encourage healthy foods. I mean, talking about just wellness, do we take our blood pressure as a staff? Do we, do we check on things like that? It's not just are we exercising. It's wellness as an office and as a team. And if we give just a smidge, five minutes of time a week or maybe a monthly check, what are we going to do this month to keep ourselves well? And let's challenge ourselves to that. Now, not everybody is going to be on board with that, and that's their prerogative. But I think that wellness and happiness that comes from wellness spreads, and they might jump on board. What do you think, Katrina, about a dental office providing a gym membership for their employees? We talked about in a different podcast how important muscle strengthening is to prevent injuries and so forth. And that all revolves around the wellness culture of the office. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. There are gyms out there that are literally $11.99 a month. You know, you can get these very, very inexpensive memberships. you know, provide that as a perk. I mean, if you could spend $20, we'll say, we'll just say on the outskirts, it's $20 for say, you know, your ABC generic gym membership and they're all over. What would an employee see that as like, wow, you know, my, my employer really feels that us being well is important and that's a priority and they want to. help us maintain that. And then, you know, if you want to maintain that perk, you have to have a certain number of check-ins maybe, or, you know, as a team, we go do, say, a walk for fundraise. And nutrition is a big part of this too, Katrina. I mean, eating well and eating healthfully is a very big part of a health-centered culture. I mean, could you imagine the staff eating junk food during the day and the patient seeing that? That would not be good. When our patients walk in at 1 o'clock and they smell French fries or pizza, what message does that send to our patients as we provide them with nutritional wellness, by the way, in their dental cleanings? You shouldn't eat poorly because it affects your oral condition, but never mind the pizza smell you're getting, right? I mean, what are we sending to our patients? Right, but then the employee is going to say, but the pizza makes me so happy. It's good for my soul, and when I'm happy, I work better. uh that chocolate cake that i had for dessert for lunch just you know is is so good for my my psyche so anyway but there's two sides to that but i hear what you're saying listen i'm you're talking to someone who eats i eat very little sugar now like almost none and i don't miss it but it took a long time to get off of that addiction but again um it depends on what's there and what you want to incorporate not every dental office has the capacity to do these things but If we have this as a kind of a cultural mindset that we eat well, we live well, we don't pretend that we're part camel, you know, we get enough water, and we challenge each other to encourage wellness-type behavior, that might keep people around. Yeah. And, you know, one way to do that would be to bring in somebody to the office occasionally now, you know, to speak. Is it typical in the practice that you work where everybody takes lunch at the same time? Because if that's the case, it would be a good opportunity at that time to have a speaker come in and talk about some of these things. A local person that would come in that would talk about nutrition or talk about ergonomics or talk about just psychological health to avoid burnout. And these things. support a wellness-centered culture in the practice. And I think that's really good for employer retention. Absolutely. When I go and do ergonomics team training in an office, I always include a lunch hour lecture where I talk about things like longevity in the way that we eat. And we actually practice stretches. And we talk about muscle development. And we talk about ergonomic strategies. So absolutely. Would it be a benefit? For sure. But that would be up to the provider as to whether or not they... Again, want to encourage that wellness-centered mentality. And ultimately, again, that's what people stay for. We stay because we feel cared about and we feel appreciated. And what a better way to make someone feel appreciated than care about their wellness. Let's circle back to what we talked about earlier, Katrina, before the podcast started offline. You mentioned that it's important for a dental office to make sure that the dental team members have a break. They have a period of time where they're relieved from that operatory, where they can do their thing. They can get some water. They can get a light snack. They could use the restroom. They can make a phone call. That all contributes to a healthy environment in the workplace. Tell us about that. Before we continue, I've got to give a shout out to our sponsor, NSK. These folks are the real deal. Their air and electric handpieces are not only top tier, they're the highest rated in the industry, peer-reviewed by Dental Product Shopper. Their Timex Z99L electric handpiece actually scored the first ever perfect rating. And the Timex Z990L is the most powerful handpiece on the market. So do yourself a favor, check out everything they offer at NSK Dental. and take advantage of their free trial by reaching out to your local NSK rep. I've heard this many times from many dentists. Once you start using NSK handpieces, you'll never look back. Well, one thing we know is that we are oftentimes run to the max. Our schedule is completely full because we have a production goal. We're trying to meet it. We're trying to jam pack our appointments full of value. And when we do that, we oftentimes... stop doing the things that we need to do in our basic human needs, whether it be to get a drink of water, eat a couple of almonds, take a moment to exhale. I mean, the idea that we have break periods, we're supposed to have break periods, but 99% of the time we don't acknowledge those and we don't do it. And so we are completely run ragged by the time we get to a lunch period or at the end of the day. And so if we could somehow incorporate... allowing someone to go through maybe for 30 minutes and say, okay, I'm going to turn this hygienist room over while she or he goes to the restroom and deposits some of the water that we all drink together and at all. Or I'm going to go relieve other people for just five minutes. I mean, one person for 30 minutes can relieve six people. for five minutes each. And imagine how that would feel if you have just five minutes during the morning to exhale, get a bite to eat, go to the restroom, do all the things that shows that someone really cares. And so that 30 minutes is, is an incredibly valuable. wellness centered thing to do. Now I recognize that giving up an assistant for 30 minutes might feel like a lot of costs, but what is the cost of your employee that is exhausted and now needs to go down to two or three days a week because they just can't do it anymore? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. Where do you get that person to be available? Who's an assistant who's trained to do the changeover in the room to be walking around for 30 minutes, but you just got to build it into the employee schedule. So let me ask you about, Let me ask you about getting back to the wellness-centered culture in the office to have ergonomic training in the practice. There's in-person versus virtual. Everything is done online these days. This podcast is obviously online. Our webinars, we do 70,000 webinar views per month on VivaLearning.com. It's an incredible amount of activity. We have over 440,000 subscribers. All this is done online. But when it comes to ergonomic training in the office, you know, it'd be nice to have a person come in, observe, make recommendations and do some training. So tell us about in-person versus virtual. And then we'll talk about the different levels, the quality of training that is available. Well, I mean, one benefit that we got from the pandemic is that we learned how to do things virtually more than ever before. And for an office, for example. that is super, super remote or is a solo doc with maybe 12 or 15 employees that simply does not have the budget room, there is options to do on-demand type education, such as through Viva Learning, or if they wanted ergonomic education, they can get that. But it is very basic. It's going to be a standard, generalized type of philosophy. You're going to get... some nuggets there that are certainly applicable, but not specificity. You're not going to get things that are specific to you and your particular problem or your operatory necessarily, but there are going to be some good nuggets there that you can pick up. And if that's what you can do, that's what you can do. And what do we say? Something is better than nothing. And so in an in-person situation, what you will get is someone physically standing in the room with you, with your real patient doing a real procedure, because that's where the problem is. It's not when you have the assistant jump in the chair and pretend to be a patient, because they know how to open up their mouth all the way and put their chin up. And when you say turn, they turn. It's a golden patient, right? But that's not where our problems lie. Our problems lie. in that patient that you can't get to number two easily or they can't lie back all the way supposedly or or whatever or we don't know what we're doing with this particular piece of equipment and so having somebody next to you and putting their hand on your arm and saying move your arm like this and physically manipulating your arm in a way or your hand or your body or holding your shoulder in a position as you transition into a more neutral posture That is worth its weight in gold because you know now that you've got that muscle memory. You can go, oh, okay, that's what I need to do. As opposed to hearing it, you're not just hearing it, you're seeing it, you're feeling it, you're doing it. The impact of that learning is significantly higher. And how many offices do you think percentage-wise are actually employing somebody to come in, an expert like you to come in and observe and make these recommendations and really train the staff? so that they can catch their problems that they're cultivating, improve them, and extend their careers? Well, the answer would be not enough. But I do them quite frequently. I do them all over the country. I am in offices every month doing some sort of team training, be it where I just come out maybe and do my lecture. Sometimes I come out and I work individually with the people one-on-one. Sometimes I'm doing individual assessments where perhaps the hygienist on her own is having enough problems that they've hired me to come and just work with them for a whole morning. Or the dentist is an associate dentist and says, well, listen, I don't own the practice. And I can't pay for the entire practice, but I can pay for me. So they'll have me come out and just work with them. And so it really is so individualized that I wish I could say all of them or even a majority of them. But I fear, unfortunately, it's not enough because we've accepted that pain is part of the profession. So what would you define as really high quality training? If an office is looking to get somebody to come in to do the things that you do, it would be great if they hired you. We're not here to sell you to our audience, but I know your reputation is unparalleled. But what should a dentist look for in someone who, you know, it's their business to come into an office and do this kind of thing? So what I would say is when you're looking for ergonomics training, you know, if they're pushing a virtual, like say a video chat with you, you know, we tried doing that a lot during COVID and there are things that you cannot see. While someone else is holding a phone, it's not, you're not sharing the space. You're not looking directly into the mouse. If you're going to do something virtual, make it a class. Don't make it a one-on-one virtual training because you're simply not getting what you're paying for. So that would be the first thing is make sure if you're doing in person, it's truly in person and they're working with you and they're giving you that one-on-one time with your real patients in the chair. And then next after that, I would say. Making sure that you're getting a full written report of everything that they found, of all of the coaching they did on site, all of the things that need to be done or recommendations to be made. And then lastly, that you're getting a follow-up call in a month to say, okay, you've done the thing. You know, maybe action item number one was put your chicken wing down. for example. And after a month, I give you a call and say, how's it going? What's going on? How are you feeling? Are we doing the thing? And then it's... no, yeah, I worked on the chicken wing or no, I haven't worked on the chicken wing. I've got my list here. I'm ready to tackle the next item. And then there's opportunity to ask more questions. Okay, I tried doing this thing, but I don't think I remember it correctly. Can you explain it to me again? And that's what you're looking for in quality. You're not looking for someone who's just going to come out, give you an assistant version of a patient training with a camera. from their couch you know you really want to get what you're paying for and i know that it does cost a little more money but that's really where it's at the learning and the experience is so much better when you have someone in your space moving your body into those neutral positions and having the patient do things that they ordinarily would not do without somebody else they're telling them to So when you do take advantage of dentists, you know? Yeah, for sure. So when you do this, when you come out to an office, do you spend a few, depending on the size of the office, I guess, but let's say there's like eight employees running around doing their thing. And there's, let's say there's two dentists. Is that a fair proportion? Two dentists, eight staff members, including hygienists and assistants. Does that make sense? I would say if there's two doctors, there's generally eight to 12 staff members total. Okay, so eight to 12 staff members, two doctors, very busy practice. How long would you spend in that practice if that practice owner said, hey, Katrina, we want you to come out here, do everything you can to help us with ergonomics. And that's all part of that wellness-centered culture that we're talking about. I would spend all day. I do a full day. And then on the lunch hour, I do the lecture. where they're getting the ergonomic information that we may or may not have covered during their one-on-one time with me. And I also spend time with the business team too, because it's not just back office that has trouble. It's front office too. Being chained to a desk is really hard on the body as well, despite many people might not believe that, but it really is hard. And so if they're getting one-on-one time with me, And I am working on the lunch hour to deliver the education, do the stretches and practice the stretches with them. That way everybody's done them. We all know how to do it. We can practice it tomorrow in huddle. And then they walk away with a stretch card so they can put it in their operatory or put it in the break room and they can practice it later. That's going to impact them in a much bigger way. after spending a whole day with me. And then at the end of the day, they ask more questions so that they thoroughly get all their questions answered. Yeah. But so in one day, are you addressing individual problems from each of these employees or is this a general observance? You make some oral recommendations at the time or after the patient leaves, you'll talk to that employee for a few minutes and move on to the next employee. You're not really doing a full assessment in one day of 10 to 12 people, are you? Oh, absolutely. I work one on one with each person. Because while one operator, say I'm working with a hygienist, while they are working with their particular patient, I'm coaching them through that patient. And then when they go to dismiss that patient and they're wrapping up, I can move on to the next person and start working with them. And then in between them, I can go back and talk to that other hygienist after they've come back to their room and they're wiping up their room and sterilizing it. I can say, okay, here's what we found. Let's talk about it, whatever. um and then you know vice versa so i can kind of tag team and maximize the time with doctors same thing as the assistant is doing things i might shadow a doctor for you know through different patients and work with them in different scenarios but yep we work with i work with everybody one-on-one with patients and then ask questions and talk to them afterwards and when you're doing that one-on-one assessment do you actually physically adjust their arms while they're working and say something to them or you do not get involved with that while they're actually treating the patient? No, no, 100% get involved because that's when it happens. That's where the magic happens is with the patient in the chair, in the procedure, the chicken wing goes up and then immediately when that happens, we're addressing it. Because how is a dentist supposed to learn how to pivot their arm down unless they do it? So I'm just thinking that from the standpoint of the patient, they're there to get their teeth done, let's say in a hygiene appointment. And then you have someone like you who's standing behind the hygienist moving their arms around. And I guess you talk to the patient in advance or the hygienist does saying, hey, we're going to have Katrina here. She's an ergonomic expert. She's evaluating me today. So just don't pay any attention to her. She's going to be moving my arms around and adjusting my shoulders. telling me when to stand and sit. Is that the kind of conversation you might have? Absolutely. We always prepare the patient ahead of time. We always ask the patient first, is it okay if Katrina comes in? She's going to help me with my posture today. Um, I've literally never had a patient say no. Um, they're, they're actually always excited about it and they say, Oh, can she come to my house too? Um, and so, yeah, you know, I've never had an encounter where a patient said no, but if they did, then I would move on to the next person. And maybe when that hygienist or the dentist worked on a different patient, we would ask them and then we would just work through it. But, um, Most patients, you know, when you're asking, hey, listen, I've got Katrina here. She's an ergonomic specialist. She's going to help me with my posture so I can keep working with you and I don't have to retire with pain and I can keep working with you and serving you. The patients are for it. Yeah, no, that that is phenomenal. I mean, I think that's a great interaction with the patient having you. the dental professional there and the patient at the same time the patient appreciates the practice that they're going to understanding how the practice culture is is to take care of the employee and if they love their hygienist they're going to be very happy about that um and it makes everybody look good for sure yeah i think this is incredible that what you do and um again the best way to reach Katrina Klein, if you want to, is through her website, ergofitlife.com. That's E-R-G-O-F-I-T-L-I-F-E.com. And also, if anyone that is listening is on social media, I am regularly posting all sorts of ergonomic tips, fitness tips. You know, stretching and all sorts of different things about different equipment, maybe meetings that I might be at where I'm speaking and someone can talk to me in person. There's no charge for any of this stuff. I don't have like a paid anything. And you can get a lot of good information for free right there on social media via Facebook or Instagram. And that's another resource. You know, I just want to get this information out there because there's not enough of us that are working without pain. And we deserve better. Right. Absolutely. Well said. And I think it's really important to keep this in mind as a dental practice owner that, you know, employer retention is very important because looking for someone new is an extraordinarily taxing and stressful. It could be stressful and expensive. to get somebody to be comfortable with your practice and understand how you operate there. So you want to keep your employees. Employee retention is just so important, especially the good ones, obviously. And this is a very, very effective way to do that. Katrina, any final thoughts? This is a joint effort. You know, we got to do this as a profession. We got to keep each other around. And remember, it's not just pizza parties. We don't want pizza parties. Bring a massage therapist in for 15 minutes once every quarter or something, you know, do chair massages or do a yoga class together. Or I don't know, there's tons of things we can do together, but we got to keep. working for our patients and for us and just to be well. Katrina, thank you very much for your time and I appreciate it. Thank you so much.