September is Office Manager Appreciation Month (OMAM). Angela Martinez, Vice President, Strategic Associations and Dental Health Policy at CareCredit, and Heather Colicchio, Founder and President of AADOM, share why recognizing and celebrating #AwesomeOMs is important and how to join in the festivities. It's never too late!
Related reading:
- Do you have what it takes for a career in dental practice management?
- For overworked OMs, help is out there
- The results of our dental front office staff survey are in!
Angela: Dictonary.com defines the word "resilience" as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness. Over the past two years, the vast majority of us have gone through unique challenges, personally and professionally, which have tested our patience, strength, and resilience. Even now it seems new challenges are put in our paths. When I think of all the office managers I know, from the time I worked in a practice to my current role at CareCredit, I see an emerging theme: resilience.
Heather: I agree. Resilience is really the ability to meet difficult challenges with flexibility and grace. The stories I have heard over the past months coming from office managers across the country showed me just how powerful the dental team is in taking care of patients, their teams, their communities, and themselves. What’s somewhat surprising is how often we don’t take the time to recognize the strength and resiliency we see in others and in ourselves. We need to celebrate each other, but we also need to do a little self-care and self-celebrate!
Angela: We also tend to celebrate the big successes, but all of those big successes are really made up of a series of small successes. Small wins may be having no cancellations, no holes in the schedule, and finding a great candidate to add to the team. All of these are individually important and culminate in a successful practice. One easy way to take a moment to celebrate the small wins is during the morning huddle. Take a few minutes to have everyone share one small thing they did that helped someone else or made them happy. Sharing the “small stuff” inspires others and gives them ideas they can do themselves and often can give a new perspective when things don’t go exactly as planned. Or, at the end of the day before everyone transitions to home life, take a moment to talk about the good things that happened and, whenever possible, recognize people who contributed to the day’s success.
Heather: September is Office Manager Appreciation Month (OMAM) and a great excuse to recognize OMs. Celebrating the office manager doesn’t mean that all members on the team don’t contribute to the practice success, because they certainly do. I know CareCredit and AADOM have some big plans for OMAM 2022. We’re celebrating by offering all #AwesomeOMs a very special offer for both new members and those who want to renew! Looking forward to seeing all the great things doctors and teams do to recognize their office managers.
Angela: Yes! In past years, thousands of office managers were celebrated by their teams with flowers, cakes, parties, and more, and hundreds of office managers and administrators joined AADOM. The word has gotten out and we’re expecting big things again this September as additional organizations want to align with and participate in this event. CareCredit has created a website where teams can get free resources and ideas to help them celebrate their #AwesomeOM. On the same site, office managers can access an amazing experience created just for them that includes daily affirmations and a virtual experience with fun and games.
Heather: You mentioned cakes, parties and flowers, and those are all good ideas. I’d like to share a few more. The team could write “love notes” to their office manager/administrator that share what they love about them, like their sense of humor or ability to handle stress. Or everyone could get together after hours for an “Our office manager makes patients and us happy hour.” How about getting a “We have an #AwesomeOM” banner or sign in the reception area so patients can get in on the fun, too.
Angela: I think we both agree there are many ways—big and small—to show office managers that they're appreciated. We would love to see your practice celebrations, so make sure to add the hashtags #OMAM and #AwesomeOM. And go to the OMAM site to get the free resources to use throughout the month of September.
