Team turnover. To put it into perspective the team is small with an average of 10-15 team members at any given time (maybe less now, given the turnover). I saw a minimum of 50 team members leave (and probably more), which is the entire team turning over about once every year throughout my time. To create a visual, think of a team photo and then think of the "America's Next Top Model" disappearing GIF where another team member is continuously eliminated. Most team members leave when they realize their worth not only financially but as a human. The sad part is that the root of the problem is never addressed. Leadership often holds emergency huddles to address turnover in which the ceo breaks down into crocodile tears, so everyone else feels bad and throws a pity party. It is always manipulated, covered up or blamed on team members who left or are no longer there.
Leadership. When the founder moved out of the ceo role and handed over his business to his new "ceo" and "coo" things shifted for the worse. Quite frankly it was the blind leading the blind and an embarrassment for the company. The business became disorganized, chaotic, unstable and toxic to the max. These individuals are not equipped with professionalism, experience in running a business, proven track record in sales, leading a team or a dental background for that matter. The coo would often get combative and flustered in meetings with internal team members and outside partners. I believe that most of this was due to the frustration created by the fact that he had zero clue what was going on and truly knew nothing about the ins and outs of the business. I witnessed the ceo laugh at her own mistakes in team meetings like it was a joke all while the company was suffering both financially and culturally. If anyone else on the team did this, they’d be placed on a chopping block. Realistically this will be the only company in which these individuals will hold these titles as no other company in their right mind would allow this to happen. I saw team members thrown under the bus and burned for leadership's inefficiencies several times. Team members would cry behind closed doors about how unhappy they were and threaten to quit but stay because at the end of the day everyone needs a paycheck.
Integrity. The company preaches integrity and coaches dentists and their teams on how to improve team culture, but the irony of this is that the entire company lacks integrity to the greatest degree. Several things that I witnessed were truly mind-boggling. A few examples that come to the top of my mind are 1. not honoring contractual agreements with clients in which items that were clearly outlined in clauses were not honored in hopes that the client would not notice or forget that it was originally included, 2. falsely claiming for years to be a member of Inc. 5000 across various platforms including email signatures and team member's LinkedIn accounts. This is disappointing to witness and unfair to companies who have worked hard to legitimately earn their ranking on the list. 3. incentivizing employees to write company reviews on Glassdoor and for clients to leave reviews on other platforms for an opportunity to win an Amazon gift card or a pizza party. It was interesting to see so many 5-star reviews and then I realized that the company began incentivizing heavily a few years ago when the rating was in the 2-star range. I was reached out to at least 6 times by leadership to write a review on Glassdoor and it was very uncomfortable. It is also a requirement as part of the onboarding checklist for new employees to leave a review of the founders book, Million Dollar Dentistry on Amazon.com. I can say that from my experience most of the reviews on here or any platform for that matter are not organic.
The bottom line. This is not a company you'd say you were proud to work for. I'm also surprised at how far behind the company trails in technology for claiming to be one of the first remote workplaces. They are simply not on the same playing field as other remote companies out there right now. I imagine this is due to budget cuts and not wanting to invest in their people or systems. Like I said, I learned some great things and experienced some career growth during the time period in which I worked with talented colleagues and managers who have since moved on from the company. Those days are gone and it appears that the company's days are numbered as well.
