Fostering employee involvement.

Every year, the ODA's Economics of Practice Committee, with the help of an independent consulting firm, carries out the Cost of Practice Monitor which tracks the various costs of running a dental practice in Ontario. This article is the result of a joint ODA-Arthur Andersen initiative to provide members with detailed information from the Monitor. Over the next year, there will be a series of articles published under the heading "Best practises for Ontario's Dental Practices." The article featured in this issue focuses on wage expenses in dental practices and how to foster employee involvement as a means of addressing cost-productivity issues. Furthermore, information relating to wage expenses may be used by practitioners to benchmark their practice against the average Ontario dental practice. Appendix C was developed for this purpose. Through benchmarking, the practitioner may gain insight into ways of evaluating their practice and in addressing issues that could improve the management of the practice. For a long time, concepts of best business practises were applied only to manufacturing organizations or large multi-national corporations but experience has demonstrated that these activities are universal to all organizations, including service companies, schools, government and not-for-profit organizations.