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July 3, 2025 13 mins

Your new hire’s first day shouldn’t feel like a survival show. In this episode, Jen and Savanah break down what real onboarding looks like - SOPs, safety plans, learning styles, desk décor debates, and why a little drawer organizer goes a long way. If you think your onboarding is fine, this might be your wake-up call.

 

Tune in, laugh a little, and walk away with tips that actually work.

 

Special thanks to our recording partner, Chris "The Wizard" Stone, of Rock Solid Media!

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Stone (00:00):
All right.
You saucy Bostonians.
Here we go in three.
Two, one

Jen Steadman (00:10):
Back in 10 is a podcast for dental leaders who do it all
and need 10 minutes to themselves.

Savanah Carlson (00:15):
It's about real conversations, not curated ones, the
kind that happen off the clock behindclosed doors, and between the chaos of
running a practice and running life.

Jen Steadman (00:25):
Hosted by Savannah Carlson and Jen Steadman, two women who've led,
learned, and laughed through it all.

Savanah Carlson (00:32):
This show brings honest stories, leadership truths, and
the occasional sassy take on what itreally means to lead in dentistry today.

Jen Steadman (00:39):
Because sometimes the best leadership happens when
you step away for 10 minutes.

Savanah Carlson (00:44):
This is back in 10.

Jen Steadman (00:52):
Welcome everyone to back in 10.
I am Jen and I'm Savanah.
Your saucy Bostonians here to talkto you about onboarding excellence.

Savanah Carlson (01:06):
Onboarding!
Don't leave your team high and dry.

Jen Steadman (01:11):
Mm-hmm.
Don't throw them to the wolves either.
Oh yeah.
No.
Because we know that

Savanah Carlson (01:17):
they can be wolves, not necessarily the team,
but the patients can definitelybe wolves to an a new team member.
Yeah, because they don't know

Jen Steadman (01:24):
bloodsucking vampires.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I was thrown to the wolves.
I will say on my first permanent hygienejob, I did not know the software and I had
a first patient the first time of the day.
Uh, that office never didonboarding like that again, because
I said, not going to happen.
So then I made an onboarding plan.

(01:45):
Which everyone needs.

Savanah Carlson (01:49):
Everyone needs an onboarding plan.
But you know what is the precursor toan onboarding plan is to have all of
your practices, SOPs in order, becauseyour SOPs drive your onboarding plan.
So before you say, gosh, dang it, I'mgonna create my onboarding plan today.

(02:10):
Mm-hmm.
You have to say to yourself, mm-hmm.
Oh, Nelly, do I have SOPs completed?
If you don't

Speaker (02:21):
or better yet, say, whoa, Nelly.

Savanah Carlson (02:25):
Whoa, Nelly.
Oh my goodness.
That SOPs need to get acompleted, don't they?

Jen Steadman (02:34):
Wow.
Well clearly we are slaphappy, so welcome today.
You know, I think with that there'sactually a few AI tools that you
can use to help with your SOPs too.
I have used Scribe before, which is great.
So it actually.
Um, shows you every keystroke, every mouseclick, and then you can go in and edit it.

(02:56):
Super helpful.
You can export it to any typeof file format that you want.
Highly encourage you to keep thoselive so then you can change them so
you don't have to recreate them too.
It should never be a printed document
because things change, and thenyou have to do it all over again.

(03:18):
Ask me how I know

Speaker (03:21):
Jen.
How do you know that'sfor another episode?
Right?

Jen Steadman (03:27):
No, I'll just say quick.
Like I, I didn't know what I didn't know.
Yeah, I didn't know, so I said,you guys don't have an onboarding
plan and clearly you need one,because this was very difficult.
So I made one.
I was a. I was a hygienistand just made one.
I made an onboarding document andit changes everything changes all
the time, so just, it's better tokeep it electronic so you can make

(03:51):
updates and then go from there.
Yeah.
But absolutely.
S-O-P-S-O-P-S-O-P

Savanah Carlson (03:56):
and your team should always have access
to the onboarding documents.
All the time.
Not even if they're not onboarding,but they've been there for 10 years.
You can put that, you know, a lotof practices are on cloud-based.
Put it in a cloud.
Mm-hmm.
Make it a shared folder if you needto, or if you're super fancy, nerdy

(04:18):
it, like myself and Jen, you can havea landing page where your team logs in
every day and they look for importantmessages, and more importantly,
they have access to these documents.

Jen Steadman (04:32):
All the time.
I, I have to say, that was one of thebiggest things that I brought to, uh,
my current employer Inspired Hygiene.
We have an intranet that I madeand it is amazing, and I can just
say, here, this is where it is.
And you just have just aPDF clickable document, and
everything is linked behind us.
It's like a table of contents, and thenthey just go to where they need to go.

(04:53):
Super,

Savanah Carlson (04:53):
super easy.
And it's important to remember that noteveryone has the same learning style.
So when you're onboarding a newteam member, you really wanna find
out what is their learning style.
Are they somebody who likes to readinstructions, where Scribe would come in
and follow uh, numbers one through 10?

(05:13):
Is that how best they learn?
Or is your new team member more apt at.
Following instructionsbetter with a video.
That's where Loom comes in.
Or you know, hop on your Zoom and recorda video or use your cellular device and
record a video that way and upload it.
Mm-hmm.
In tandem with anywritten documentation too.

(05:36):
It's always very beneficialto have, have it both ways.

Jen Steadman (05:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And then once you have your SOPs,that's part of your onboarding plan.
Right.
And I think.
One of the big things, and a lot ofthe payroll companies can help you with
is all of your HR documents, right?
All the documentation andeverything that you need to collect.
But I think the two things thatpeople often forget are your medical

(06:01):
emergency protocol and evacuation plan.
What happens if there's a fire?
How do you know?
Everyone knows where the exits are, right?
Show everyone where the exitsare, but where do we meet?
Where do we go?
Think about it like a school fire drill.
Like where do we go, where do we meet?
If it's the tree across the streetand have it written and have it in

(06:21):
your break room, have it posted.
That's another thing too, for safetyissues for, uh, safety, everything, right?
Audits and all of that stuff.
But go over medical protocol.
Go over what happens.
Do you have a word that you say?
Do you.
Turn, do something differentwith the lights, like make sure
that you're communicating thatwith your new team members.

Savanah Carlson (06:43):
Mm-hmm.
And you really should have a yearly reviewof all of your medical protocols and
evacuation protocols with the entire team.
Mm-hmm.
During team meeting for sure.
You could have had, you know, theoutside landscaping could have changed.
So instead of taking a rightoutside of the door, you now have

(07:04):
to take a left and go down a hill.
Mm-hmm.
There were, and you'd be surprised howmany people in a state of emergency divert
back to plans from 10 years ago as opposedto the newest plan right in front of them.

Jen Steadman (07:20):
Yeah, it's so important.
So every time you have a new teammember, you review it and then
once a year always review it.
Or if something changesjust review it again.
It's better to be safe than sorry.
I think I. Some of the other thingsthat are really important is taking
the time to allow that team memberto get their bearings, like, to

(07:41):
get comfortable in their new space.
Understanding where the equipmentis, where the instruments are.
If it's a hygienist, like settingup their drawers, if it's a room
just specifically for them, like.
Go to the dollar store or go, you know,go to your favorite box store and buy
some little drawer organizers for them.

(08:01):
You would be really surprised athow much, like spending $5 for
little drawer organizers willmake them feel really welcome.

Savanah Carlson (08:09):
Give them a stipend or a gift card to make their space, their desk.
Mm-hmm.
Feel like theirs.
Mm-hmm.
That goes a long way too.

Jen Steadman (08:19):
Yeah.
Or get 'em a little notebook.
And some really nice pens.
'cause everyone loved pens, right?
Maybe it's a pen with your,with your office logo on it.
Like get 'em some nice pens.
Let them make their spacetheirs without drilling holes
or putting holes in the wall.

(08:40):
That I will say.
Yeah, no,

Savanah Carlson (08:42):
I guess that's where we differ in that, for me, it would
depend on what you were planning onputting on the wall, where on the
wall, and if your role in the practice.

Jen Steadman (08:54):
Yeah.
I've seen some very eclecticdisplays in my years and.
Yeah, but like man, some, I'veseen some operatories that
there's so much stuff in the wall.
There's more holes than in baby Swiss.
Keep

Savanah Carlson (09:13):
a professional.

Jen Steadman (09:14):
Yeah, it's just a conversation.

Savanah Carlson (09:16):
Clinical areas and treatment areas need
to have a unified decorum.
I agree with that for sure.
This came up as conversation many a timewhere we want, we, you know, we're in
this room eight hours a day, how canwe make it feel more like our space?
And one of the hygienists had abrilliant idea that I. When she

(09:38):
opened the cabinets, like you hadfree reign inside those cabinets.
So she was there for a very long time.
Every cabinet was just her throughthe decades with her family.
So anytime she opened hercabinet, she could just look
at her family and like, haha.
Yeah.
She had the cabinet.
It was great because it kept with theuniformity of the practice, but also
gave them the ability to have some space.

Jen Steadman (10:01):
Yeah.
I actually have a friend that.
Is a hygienist that I used to workwith and the office that she works
with, her boss had someone come in,a muralist, come in and painted a
mural on everyone's operatory wallof all of their favorite things.
So for her it was a whole ran.

(10:24):
It's actually near you where you live.
Actually, I'll tell you about it.
She loves skiing.
So it was all, it wasmountains and snow and ski.
Amazing.
And it was all of their favorite things.
And it's on the wall, so you don't haveto worry about dust, you don't have
to worry about any holes in the wall.

(10:44):
How amazing is that?
I think it could be really

Savanah Carlson (10:48):
amazing.
It makes me really nervous though, Jen.
What if someone was like, oh, I like me.
I'm wearing my True crime necklace.
I'll help you bury the body Morse code.
What if someone's like, oh,I really love True Crime.

Jen Steadman (11:05):
There's a mural with Tombstone.
Welcome to, she's beenthere for many years.
All of their team hasbeen there for many years.
It had to be approved though, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think like they had talkedabout certain things, like she
just didn't like decide on whatthe mural was gonna be, but.
How amazing is that though?
It's really, really cool.
You know,

Savanah Carlson: something different to do. (11:25):
undefined
It's a fun investment inyour team and hearing them.
Yeah.
And what they have to say.
Mm-hmm.
I, I can get behind that toa certain extent for sure.
I guess I'm just, oh, I'm very particular.

Jen Steadman (11:40):
Yeah.
No, you're good.
You're good.
But I think, look, if we're talkingabout investing in our team, one last
thing before we wrap is don't forget.
To thank that new teammember for joining your team.
So whether it's a handwritten thankyou note that everyone on your team has
signed, get them a little plant or a tokenof appreciation or just get them something

(12:02):
for their office, get them something fortheir window sill or anything like that.
Um, you could be really cheesy and geta little, uh, one of the little tooth.
Pots, put a plant in it.
You know, there's so many differentthings that you can do to make it fun.
Highlight your culture.
Show your culture.
Yeah.
It's through your first opportunityto show why they chose you.

Savanah Carlson (12:24):
And give them time to learn the practice.
Yes, absolutely.
Top tips.
Appreciate them for joining your teamand allow them the opportunity to
actually learn about how you do things.

Jen Steadman (12:37):
Yes, ma'am.
There you go.
On that note, clocking out.
Clocking out.
Have fantastic day.

Savanah Carlson (12:44):
Bye everyone.
We'll see you in 10.
Thanks for spending a fewminutes with us on back in 10.

Jen Steadman (12:52):
If something made you laugh, nod or feel a little more
human, share it with a friend andmake sure that you're subscribed.

Savanah Carlson (12:59):
You can also follow us on Instagram at Back in 10 Pod for more.
Behind the scenes updatesand probably a little chaos.

Jen Steadman (13:07):
We're not here to have it all figured out.
We are just here to tell you the thingsthat we wish someone had told us,

Savanah Carlson (13:13):
and remind you that leadership doesn't
have to be perfect, just real.
We'll be back in 10.
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