Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

25DCPsApril 15-21, 2013United Kingdom Edition Reading BoD Practice Managers’ Conference 2013 Les Jones Be creative How to market your practice on a tiny budget. Michael Bentley Act fast! 10 things to do today to be a better PM. Gemma Godman Good news travels fast Take advantage of media opportunities. Ian Langford My dog ate my alarm clock Managing a team and dealing with absence. Tony Jacobs Using the internet & social media An internet savvy practice. • Impress your customers, retain the ones you have and attract new ones. • Initiate an effective PR strategy. • Manage your personnel effectively to get the most out of your team. • Understand the merits of social media and digital marketing and how to introduce into your practice. • Generate new ideas for marketing and convert more leads into active patients. Following the success of the 2012 Practice Managers’ Conference, BoD is excited to announce that by popular demand, the conference is back; two locations, two spectacular venues. We guarantee that you’ll leave the conference with a note book full of hints, tips and ideas on how to make an immediate impact on your practice, your patients and your staff. Discover how to... Friday 14th June 2013 n De Vere Whites Hotel, Bolton Bolton Friday 28th June 2013 n De Vere Wokefield Park, Reading CPD 5.5 HRS Sponsored by £120.00* £160.00* An exclusive discount for BoD and Practice Plan members per delegate for non-members *All prices are inclusive of VAT. Visit the website to view a video of our last conference and find out what other practice managers thought... Includinglunch andrefreshments Book your place now, call 01691 684171or visit www.bodhub.co.uk/events G16084 PMC 2013 Advert - Private Dentistry.indd 1 20/03/2013 15:59 • Appoint a mentoring lead- someone with responsibility for managing and helping to sort out difficulties within the mentoring scheme and its re- lationships. This person will need to be able to measure and assess personality types and learning styles to find mentor-mentee matches. • Define mentoring activi- ties- Mentoring to introduce new employees to practice routines is the relatively brief, phase one of the mentoring process. On completion of this phase the more enduring phase two begins. This ongo- ing stage is where mentors help colleagues focus on their challenges, choices, cause and effect to help them to find creative solutions, learn from experience and decide how to apply learning to their work- ing practices. • Consider what factors will help and hinder mentoring in your team- do you have top management support, are people willing to partici- pate, do they have time? Once people start to see tangible benefits from mentoring it becomes easier and the rela- tionship built becomes endur- ing during challenging times. • Ensure you have support in place for mentors – Training and skills development are the mentor’s initial needs. But who mentors the mentor? It is important that every mentor has the chance to reflect on their mentoring practice with a mentoring supervisor, who will enable them to focus on their mentoring challenges, choices, cause and effect and help them to find creative so- lutions, learn from experience and decide how to apply learn- ing to their working practice. • Set the ground rules - Ground rules provide the working framework needed to develop a safe mentoring en- vironment. (Table 1) After the Initial stages As with all relationships, men- toring relationships grow and develop. New employees will inevitably look to established colleagues for practical infor- mation to help them find their way around in their new work- place. Once those pragmatic needs have been met, innate learning styles will take over and input of a particular men- tor may not be appreciated. In such cases this should not be viewed negatively, simply as recognition a progression of needs and the way forward to building the next level of mentoring relationship. DT About the author Glenys Bridges is an experienced m a n a g e m e n t trainer and asses- sor with 20 year experience of working with Gen- eral Dental Prac- titioners and their teams. In addition, she has expertise and qualifications in Counselling and Life Coaching. Her first book Dental Practice Manage- ment and Reception was published in 2006 her second book: Dental Man- agement in Practice was published during 2012. All team members need some level of support Table 1