Firing someone in an at-will state does not mean there won't be any negative consequences. That is the myth that Alan Twigg of Bent Ericksen & Associates wants every dental practice owner to stop believing.
In this sixth and final episode of The DrBicuspid.com Podcast series on the dental employee life cycle, Twigg lays out exactly what the at-will doctrine does and does not protect you from.
The core of the episode covers termination, but Twigg builds toward it carefully, starting with performance management. His position on annual reviews is direct: They have been dying a slow death for years, and for good reason. In small dental practices in which the team works shoulder to shoulder every day, reviews tend to get sugarcoated. That creates a specific and compounding problem: If a practice owner must fire someone for poor performance, glowing annual reviews can be used against them in discovery. Whatever form feedback takes, he says, the content has to be honest.
On toxic employees, Twigg says that most practice owners tolerate a bad team member because they are afraid of being short-staffed. But, Twigg says, good employees will willingly work short-staffed than continue alongside someone who drags the team down. The real risk is not the short-term gap, it's the steady erosion of your best people walking out the door.
Twigg emphasizes how critical documentation is, both for dental practices and practice owners. Twigg has heard directly from plaintiff attorneys that if the practice owner has comprehensive documentation -- a signed policy manual, job descriptions, documented warnings and performance notes that accurately reflect behavior or performance issues -- the attorneys do not take the case. What makes those scary settlement letters stick, Twigg says, is the absence of a paper trail, not the termination itself. Settlements can cost $5,000 to $100,000, and they are largely avoidable, he says.
The episode closes with a five-step productive feedback model and how to respond when terminating an employee if they deflect or cry.
To help clinicians ensure human resources (HR) compliance and manage their teams effectively, Bent Ericksen offers People Power, a two-day training seminar. Additionally, for harried practice owners and staff, Bent Erickson offers the HR Director package, an HR platform that offers convenient web tools and expert coaching.
Listen to the full conversation below.
