Located right in the heart of Erskineville is a family-owned dental practice run by a husband and wife duo. As an eco-friendly practice that believes in taking a conservative approach, Erko Dental is dedicated to taking care of its patients, staff, and the environment.
Their humble team of thirteen includes devoted dentists, receptionists, practice managers, dental assistants, and office managers who focus on accommodating the long-term needs of every patient that comes through their door.
The practice’s top priorities are ensuring they consistently have the right staffing levels to keep up with patient demand — while providing a happy working environment for their team. That’s no simple task during an unpredictable pandemic, but they’ve found the technology that makes it a whole lot easier.
Read on to see how Erko Dental is balancing the needs of all their patients while making sure their small but mighty team doesn’t burn out – and enjoy a healthy work-life balance.
Updating rosters on the go to keep up with patient demand
From managing the front desk and scheduling staff to assisting dentists with procedures and making sure every patient gets a goody bag, Jessica W. has her hands full as Erko Dental’s Receptionist and Dental Assistant.
Across all of her responsibilities, one of Jessica’s top priorities is making sure the practice has the right staff on hand to meet patient numbers. To help her team avoid being over or understaffed, Erko Dental uses Deputy's mobile app to get a bird’s-eye view of how their staffing matches up to appointments.
One of the most significant benefits Erko Dental finds in using the Deputy app is having visibility on staffing levels ahead of time – right at their fingertips. “Knowing staffing levels in advance helps with patient accommodation,” Jessica explains. Her team can instantly determine if they need more staff and who’s available to work, so they can deliver quality care and treat the maximum amount of patients per day.
If her team needs to move shifts around or add more staffing hours to take on additional appointments, they can easily do so with just a few clicks. “If we know we have staff available, we can then potentially see more patients,” Jessica says.
Erko Dental also loves the ease of use and how the app “gives them a lot more freedom.” Even when she’s on the go, Jessica can use her phone to adjust staff schedules as needed within minutes. She recalls, “I was on the train once and needed to change two people’s shifts. I was able to easily do that.”
Prioritizing and preventing staff burnout
The ability to keep up with patient demand while taking on new patients is not an easy task, especially for a smaller team. There’s a lot of juggling and multi-tasking to ensure things run as smoothly as possible. Erko Dental realizes this can create staff burnout, so they make sure to prioritize their staff’s well-being at all times.
“Keeping a good working environment is our top priority because, without a good working environment, things aren’t going to run smoothly, and people are going to be burnt out,” Jessica explains.
To ensure staff doesn’t get burned out, Erko Dental makes sure every staff member is satisfied with their schedules every week — and Deputy plays a helpful part in that. “We try to make staff happy by giving them the days and the hours they want. We have some staff members who prefer to start earlier, or some prefer the later shift,” Jessica says.
All their staff uses the Deputy app to let management know which days and hours they prefer to work. “The app gives staff the ability to submit the shifts that they want, so they don’t get burned out,” Jessica explains.
Staff can even swap shifts independently — instead of going through a manager for every trade. Jessica says this not only gives staff more autonomy and control over their schedules: it helps preserve their manager’s time and save them from excessive admin, which is really handy in healthcare.
Deputy’s mobile app also provides their management team with helpful alerts if staff are at risk of being overstressed, so they can actively prevent burnout. Jessica shares, “If staff work too many hours, or if they finish late, or start too early, or the time between shifts is not long enough, the warning buttons from Deputy’s app alerts management that they need to address this.”
Providing flexibility for staff to enjoy life outside of work
Erko Dental understands the importance of providing staff with a good work-life balance. They know it can help staff come back refreshed and re-energized to provide top-quality care for their patients.
“You’re going to get the best out of people when you make them happy and they have that work-life balance. There’s nothing worse than not wanting to come to work, so we try to accommodate where we can,” she explains.
There are times when staff want long weekends, or consecutive working days, or space in between to balance their personal lives. With Deputy’s mobile app, Jessica says staff can easily put their availability and unavailability in per week, which then makes it easy for the practice to “give them that flexibility with social life outside of work.”
“[The Deputy app] has made staff a lot happier because they can easily submit leave or swap shifts – it gives them the convenience to know when they’re on and helps them work out their own lives around that,” she says. Jessica shares an example of when one of their dentists wanted to swap a weekend shift to attend a wedding. He was easily able to use the app to request a shift swap with a qualified colleague and not miss the big day.
As the one who manages all the scheduling, Jessica explains how the app has saved her valuable time and been helpful for her own work-life balance. She says that the app “gives you the freedom to balance social life and family and keep up with other tasks.” She adds, “it allows me more time with my family, rather than sitting on my computer rostering for hours.”
Want to learn how Deputy can help your business thrive? Contact our team today.
