Spring Staff Retreat

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Courtyard by Marriott                                


Dr. Schell hosted an informative & fun 7 hour staff retreat just up the road from the dental practice. All team members were in attendance for the day long event. The retreat began with a warm breakfast & conversation. The sole purpose for the retreat was to focus on team building outside of the fast pace dental office environment.

The first guest speaker of the day was Karen Fernekes. She is our personal payroll, benefit and human resource representative from Paychex. Her presentation focused on key sections of our newly revised Employee Handbook that was custom designed just for our needs & distributed by her firm. Team members were also presented informational material on work related harassment awareness issues.

Our second presentation of the morning was presented by Positive Directions consultant, Michelle DesMarais. This seminar entitled, “Optimizing Your Schedule & Team Strengths”, was designed specifically for our dental practice & individual team members. Ms. DesMarais came to our office on two separate occasions to gather personal information from our clinical care providers and to observe a typical day at our practice with 20 employees. After reviewing the feedback & her observations with the team, she offered numerous suggestions on ways to become more efficient with our clinical scheduling. She also offered ideas on how to maximize individualized patient care by optimizing team strengths in all department areas. Most importantly, she gave the staff an opportunity to communicate opinions and ideas on how to make our office run more efficiently in a round table discussion within each of the specific department areas. Great ideas evolved. Everyone was amazed at how well the office actually functioned in the high pace, stressful and at times chaotic atmosphere. Ms. DesMarais commented that she was very impressed with the overall office. She definitely got the impression that patient care was the top priority of the entire staff.

After a delicious buffet luncheon the staff resumed with “Bridging Differences-Serious Fun with Personality Types”. This unique and very interesting presentation was taught by Stephanie Lahar. The entire team had to physically participate in interactive activities.

This seminar was designed to better understand how and why everyone has a different personality. Within this understanding it also demonstrated the various ways that individuals gather & retain information, communicate frustrations & excitement and how interactions with others are so critical in everything we do. It helped us to understand and realize that it is difficult to work together when there are so many different personalities. It was a very interesting and fun afternoon. We discovered a lot about each other as individuals and also as intracal team members. Realizing ways to better work with one another and to provide the best dental care possible to our patients was key!

All in all, the staff agreed that the retreat was rejuvenating & rewarding. A suggestion box will be placed in the staff lounge to collect topic suggestions for the next retreat.