The dental industry is currently facing significant workforce challenges, with many practices experiencing difficulties in retaining staff for more than a year. This trend is influenced by several factors, including generational differences, workplace dynamics, and broader labor market conditions.
Recent industry reports highlight the following insights:
The American Dental Association (ADA) reports that staffing issues are a major concern for dental practices, with many experiencing difficulties in hiring and retaining qualified dental assistants and hygienists.
Studies published in the Journal of the American Dental Association emphasize that a lack of leadership training among dental professionals can lead to challenges in team communication and workplace satisfaction, potentially contributing to higher turnover rates.
Institutions like Harvard School of Dental Medicine have recognized the importance of integrating leadership training into dental education to better prepare graduates for the complexities of modern dental practice management.
Industry Highlight: I’m seeing some really great results with larger groups who have more mature mid-level management and regional management rolls filled by people not traditionally promoted as managers inside the typical dental or orthodontic practice. Ashley Goodall and I talk about this in his Burleson Box podcast interview. These groups have somewhere in the 8% turnover rate, which produces an average tenure of 12.5 years (average tenure = 1 ÷ turnover rate).
For reference, voluntary attrition accounted for about 13% of turnover across all industries in 2024 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so these larger DSOs and OSOs are beating the national averages across all industries, but how is dentistry doing, specifically?
DentalPost published a report in 2022 stating approximately 27.5% of dental assistants planned to seek new employment within a year, and nearly 20% of associate dentists and dental hygienists were in the same camp. So, we clearly have some work to do. I warned our members in 2020, that the dental industry laying off over 500,000 dental health care workers in the U.S. during the early days of the Covid19 pandemic had a very long tail. We might be living through that long tail in 2025 and beyond.
Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach, including enhancing leadership skills within dental teams, improving workplace culture, and implementing effective recruitment and retention strategies. I’ll be working hard in 2025 on all three of these areas with our members.
If you want to grab my complete thoughts and comprehensive writing from 2024 on industry standards, workforce, the economy and so much more, pre-order your copy of The Burleson Report printed edition here. It’s jam-packed with 470 pages of thought-provoking tips, tools, and free resource downloads for today’s leading dentists and orthodontists.
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