The Dental Practice Heroes Podcast With Dr. Paul Etchison

Imagine losing a team member who's been with you for years. Beyond the obvious recruiting costs, you're facing a cascade of hidden consequences: the training burden on your remaining team, eroding morale as staff wonder if they should be looking elsewhere, and patients noticing unfamiliar faces at every visit. That's the reality of turnover, and it's far more costly than most dentists realize.Drawing from my own practice experience—nine years of remarkable stability followed by a challenging period of departures after COVID—I've discovered that reducing turnover doesn't require complex systems or extravagant perks. It comes down to three fundamental principles that are surprisingly easy to implement but transformative in their impact.Recognition sits at the heart of retention. When I committed to giving each team member two specific compliments weekly (what I call "filling buckets"), I was shocked to discover how many quiet contributors I'd been overlooking. Creati