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Author Archives | Susi O’Brien

Susi O’Brien

Personal phones in the workplace – by Susi O’Brien

mobile phone

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…

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Employee wellbeing this Christmas

employee wellbeing at Christmas

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…

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Employees accessing their pension early – what happens?

pensions

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.…

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Motivating teams (and ourselves!) during those post-summer blues

Reminder Back to Work in calendar with blue pen.

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…

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“I’m not sick, but I can’t come into work today” – Navigating family emergencies in practice

Family emergencies

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.…

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So, we’re talking about workplace and wellbeing now, are we?

Wellbeing at work

This year’s Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) from NHS England includes quality improvement requirements relating to ‘workplace and wellbeing’. What do these terms mean? OK, I think we all know what a workplace is, but the ‘wellbeing’ part is less easy to define. It might sound a bit touchy-feely to some. Does it refer to…

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Disability in the workplace

disability in the workplace

As an advisor on Practice Index’s HR Help service, I see a lot of questions that relate to disability in the workplace. These include how Practice Managers can best support disabled employees, and how to manage tricky situations involving absence or performance. In this blog, I’m going to quickly run through the most important aspects…

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