Rachels Round up: Team Training – Part Three – Competency

One way to identify any gaps and needs in team training is by implementing competency documents.

These are quite easy to produce and list all the essential elements required for each job role. They would be completed by each individual team member and state whether they feel competent to perform a specific task, do they still require supervision or are they competent enough to actually able to train others. So for example a dental nurses competency document may include

These documents help ensure that all of your nursing team can set up for the various procedures in your practice, state all the relevant areas of decontamination procedures and validation of equipment. Actually anything you want can go into them.

They are a useful tool if you have team members that are consistently under performing in a specific area, a period of supervision can applied until competent, and if a team member has signed to say they are competent and are under-performing you can then look at the necessary HR route., but more importantly a team member won’t sign an area if they realise this course of action can happen. This is where your training needs for each individual are then identified.

If all team members are wary of signing a specific section, then this indicates a general weakness in the team and a general team training session on the specific subject would pay dividends. Examples of team training sessions could be correct packaging, date stamping and storage of instruments, mixing a dental cement or a practice policy. They will also highlight any one-2-one training needs.

They can help make dental teams more harmonious as well when all team members are performing equally!

Rachel

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