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…

Survey points to Practice Manager earnings Practice Managers earn nearly £50,000 on average, but with significant variations from practice to practice, according to a new survey of the profession in Pulse magazine. The average earnings of a full-time Manager are £48,802. The survey found that salaries range from £20,000 to £100,000 – although this includes…

Most dog owners would probably agree that during these dank, dark and dreary days of January it’s hard to be motivated to walk your four-legged friend. Some canines would agree with that too, including mine who’s most definitely a fair-weather walker! However, once up and about, the benefits to you both can be huge. “But…

Many in general practice dread the first weeks in January because we just know things are going to be bad. But why is this? Is it really inevitable, and is there anything we can do to stop it being quite so tough? The starting point is to understand why so many people come through the…

Annual leave always presents some interesting challenges. From difficulties in finding cover, to staff who squirrel their leave away until the end of the year, there’s always something leave-related to cause havoc. As employers, we tend to think of the cost of annual leave, both in terms of money and time. Every moment an employee…

We’re nearly at the end of the year! Catch up on anything you missed across Practice Index in November. Best of our blogs HR Clinic – Performance Management (Questions and Answers) – In our latest HR clinic, Robyn Clark (aka JacksonR) and Susi O’Brien (HR Help advisor) explored how to address performance issues within general…

I’m sure everyone has had some sleepless nights recently wondering how to make a square peg (funding) fit a round hole (pay uplifts). When it comes to finances, we’ve had a bit of a shambolic time of late – for example, the announcement about the 6% uplift, which isn’t an additional 6%; trying to find…