ODA: Distance can’t divide the Ontario Dental Association

After the pandemic, the Ontario Dental Association decided to maintain the flexible work policy it had adopted. To this day, employees of the professional association representing 12,000 dentists in Ontario have the choice of coming into the office five days a week, dividing their time between home and office, or working fully remotely.

“We view that as a competitive advantage, particularly now with many employers forcing their employees to go back to the office four or five days a week,” says CEO Frank Bevilacqua.

To nurture teamwork in the absence of a common workspace, ODA has taken pains to codify and instill a common set of values with a unified purpose of making a positive difference for dentistry, striving for excellence, acting with integrity and creating an inclusive work environment.

Every quarter, the organization hosts an Anchor Day event, where all 65 employees get together for training (recent ones have taken a deeper dive into each of the ODA’s values) and a fun social activity.

“When people don’t spend each and every day together, sometimes having that face-to-face interaction allows people to develop those relationships that are key to a highly effective, functioning team,” Bevilacqua says.

This past fall, ODA also adopted Kudos as a way for employees to publicly recognize other team members who go the extra mile. Kudos is an online platform where employees can send thanks, acknowledge great work and interact with each other.

Anchor Days and the Kudos program “really deepen those connections outside of the day-to-day work and strengthen our shared sense of purpose,” says Sara Cleland, senior manager, government relations and advocacy. Cleland, who joined ODA two years ago, is one of the employees who works remotely.

“I work primarily out of my home in Guelph, and then I go into the office in Toronto for committee meetings and opportunities to interact with members directly,” she says. “I just appreciate the work-life balance it provides. I can take a break at five o’clock and take the dog to the park, come back and respond to emails.”

The association combines this flexibility with a comprehensive benefits plan. In recent years, it has been enhanced with a range of mental health supports and a defined-benefit pension through the multi-employer CAAT Pension Plan.

“Obviously we have a very good dental plan,” adds Bevilacqua.

Cleland has made use of the flexible dental health spending account available to employees. “I got dental work done last summer that was really beneficial to me personally,” she says. “It means I’ll continue to have a healthy smile, which is great in this line of work.”

But for her, the most rewarding part of working for ODA is the sense of purpose in supporting dentists — and in turn ensuring as many Ontarians as possible get access to good oral health care. Part of her work involves interacting directly with member volunteers, helping provide a point of contact for provincial politicians in each constituency.

“For me, that really reinforces why we do what we do, and it’s constantly providing me with new information and new perspectives of what our members are contributing to Ontario’s health care system,” she says.

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