Performance management is what we usually call it when organisations take measures to deal with employee capability issues. By capability issues, I mean an employee’s (or manager’s) failure to perform all aspects of their job satisfactorily. This could mean working too slowly, making errors, misjudgements, having insufficient skill, not knowing essential stuff… you get the…

I’ve led many training sessions on giving negative feedback to employees (or are we supposed to call it constructive feedback?), and I usually start by asking who on the course already feels confident about doing this. Not a single person has ever raised their hand. In truth, I wouldn’t raise mine either because whilst I…

Yesterday, whilst browsing online, I saw a cartoon that made me smile. It showed two birds looking down on a scarecrow that was guarding a field. One bird had a speech bubble saying, “Don’t worry – it’s not a real human.” “How do you know?” asked the other bird. “Easy,” replied the first bird. “It’s…

Throughout 2023, employee wellbeing has been a regular source of discussion and debate in GP practices and beyond. The idea of writing about it at Christmas as well seems like such a stereotypically ‘HR’ thing to do – sorry! But, in my experience, this time of year can have wildly different effects on how individuals…

As an HR professional, my natural inclination when people raise questions about pensions is to hide under the table and hope that no one notices me. Pensions are complicated and not really my area of expertise! However, sometimes pension issues bump into areas of HR practice and employment law that I’m much more confident about.…

How is it September already? Goodness knows where summer went. Frankly, the question has to be asked; did we even have summer this year? I might have missed it with all the rain! Once holidays are over, schools go back, and supermarkets start selling off their remaining bags of barbeque supplies at half-price, it’s common…

GP practices usually have standard processes to follow when an employee phones in sick. However, in my HR experience, managers can be a bit less certain about managing absence when it’s caused by childcare or other family emergencies. Such uncertainty is reasonable, as these are tricky absences to handle if they become prolonged or regular.…