Although this document is aimed primarily at practice managers, there is a lot of information that all managers and supervisors may find interesting or useful. The ideas within this document are there to be challenged as well as provoking thought and discussion. Read it, think about it and then make your own mind up on the validity and usefulness of the information provided.
The main reason for a practice manager is that they aren’t intellectually distracted by the day to day business of being a vet. I meet a lot of very bright people as a manager; unfortunately some of them make up for their impressive intelligence with a complete lack of common sense. I once had to explain to a friend who had just got a 1.1 combined German and Chemistry degree, how to sign on to the dole as the concept was so alien to them as to be incomprehensible.
Practice Managers are those people who are not only fairly intelligent, but have a huge amount of common sense. Some of the best managers you are liable to meet are those who combine their intellect with a generous dose of common sense when dealing with day to day decision making.
There are several types of practice manager that you will see in practice today. There are those who’s role and expertise is mainly accountancy based, those who are more of a general store manager, some who are vets or nurses and have expanded their roles to include general management tasks and then their are those who are almost like consultants in their ability to do some or all of the above as well as much, much more.
It’s difficult for most people to view management as a role they would want to do voluntarily and a lot of veterinary practice managers come to the role by promotion or by the route of additional duties above and beyond their main role. These people are usually the ones that find the role most difficult because they either haven’t got the experience and knowledge necessary or because their main role takes up so much of their time.
The two main differences of a practice manager and a practice administrator is wages and power. Practice administrators tend to be less well paid and almost entirely ignored when it comes to decision making. It’s still no picnic for practice managers when it comes to getting their opinions heard either, but they tend to be better informed and more involved in the business and therefore can use this to help support their points of view.
Get one and keep it. If you don’t clearly set out your stall in regards to work life balance and your start and finish times you will end up working all the hour’s god sends. The best thing you can do is get agreement for flexitime because there will be occasions when you will end up working late or starting early and these hours that you can accumulate can be used to give you some respite when the job starts to get to you mentally.
The staff don’t like or trust you, The owners don’t listen to you and just about everyone wonders what your actually doing in your office when they are all working themselves to the bone. On top of that unless you’ve got MRCVS after your name their are a lot of people who really wont want to take you seriously. The role of Practice Manager is an exercise in self motivation and self belief and some days can be harder than others. Unlike the corporate world in which there will be a more senior manager above you to help guide, mentor and praise you there is no such structure within the veterinary world.
When something goes right and you know it’s because you spent hours behind the scenes doing the work that led to the achievement. No one will openly admit or tell you that you did a good job, but you will know yourself and that can make the wages your paid seem irrelevant because on those special days its no longer just a job its your career and part of who you are. On top of that you get to help run a business and the experience of which strengthens your abilities as a manager.
It tells your clients in written form what to expect when they use your services. By setting out who is responsible for what and how things will be done both clinically and financially in regards to the customer, it removes any doubt or confusion from a customers mind.
When a client starts to disagree with something you can point to the terms of business displayed in your reception and show them that you’re not just making it up as you go along, but that you've gone away thought about things and taken the time to write it down as part of your policy documents.
Debt recovery is a difficult task that can be made a lot easier by the terms of business document because it basically tells the customer what you will do to them financially if they refuse or cannot pay the bill. It says things like –
After due notice to you the client, overdue accounts will be referred to our Debt Collection Agency and further charges will be levied in respect of the costs incurred in collecting the debt: Production of reports, correspondence, court fees, attendance at court, phone calls, home visits, etc.
The best way to do this is to write down some basic rules like, do you take direct claims, do you take direct claims from E&L, how long people have to pay their bill, what charges may be passed for late pmt and when, what unrecoverable outstanding amounts you will pass to a recovery agent and what you will basically have to give up on as to expensive to recoup and also, at what point do you pass the debt to a recovery agent.
Chase the debt promptly because if you don’t the longer you leave it the harder it will be to recoup. Don't just send out letters, ring the customer and try to get the outstanding payment from them there and then. Always put notes on the clients file because you can bet the one day you aren’t there the client will ring up to discuss the message you left them. Always be polite and professional because if you don’t the customer will use it against you as a way of getting out of paying the bill.
Anything below £50-£75 will probably cost you more than the outstanding amount so the best thing to do is note the account to say the customer is no longer allowed treatment until the bill is paid. Anything above that is worth chasing, but ensure that additional costs incurred by a debt recovery team are added to what the customer owes and is not payable by you.
About 30%-40% of your time can be spent chasing debt, calling customers and dealing with debt recovery agents. The agents themselves usually add to the customers outstanding bill, but if they don’t you will end up with a bill from them and that can be anything from 10%-25% of the outstanding bill.
Word gets round fast with people and if they think they can get away with not paying you then you will end up with a lot of small outstanding debts that you will never recover. Showing that you aren’t a push over and that you will actively pursue people for the money they owe you helps to reduce your exposure to potential debt. A weak policy on debt recovery can increase your outstanding debt amounts by 80%-120%. It makes sense to have that money in your pocket not theirs.
Every three months is optimal but getting it to that point can be a long hard task. I would however recommend you stick to this as it can help control how much you order, how much stock expires, security of stock and reduction in errors. Every one of these things costs you money so therefore keeping a tight reign on the stock levels with regular stock checking reduces the cost risks. Even if you cannot achieve a quarterly stock take what about a six monthly stock take. You can also then instigate a policy of listing your high turnover drugs and assigning people to check how much there is of that drug against the stock level count. If you do this on a weekly basis with things like vaccines or rimadyl or other high turnover drugs it will help you to keep an eye on the things that are updated on the stock system a lot.
Pricing is and should always be reviewed in line with cost. Not just the general cost of the goods bought but also the running costs of the building, wages, equipment and services you use. Don't just increase the price because your partner wants a new soft top sports car (yes I’ve heard that one). Each business has a sustainable growth factor and also a ceiling growth factor if you increase too much you lose clients and if you increase correctly and sustainably you will still hit a ceiling in which the amount you can earn is fixed by the number of clients in your demographic area, but you will still have the client base to generate that income from.
How well do you use the system you have. This can be one of the biggest income generators if you have the ability to question the database for answers. You can find out which vet is performing well in what areas what the average weekly invoicing amounts are and what discounting or incorrect billing issues you may have in regard to a particular vet. It can help you to determine new challenging income generation targets for the vets, which in turn will help to get the vets to do what you ask of them because they will know they are being monitored in a real way.
Some people find this easy and some really don’t. However sooner or later you’re going to have to realise that no matter how much work you do, if you don’t prioritise things by importance and look at achieving things in days, weeks and months rather than all at once you will struggle to achieve anything. The realisation that you don’t have to do it all at once can come as a surprise to some managers. Set realistic goals and expectations from your managers will become more realistic also. If they want something sooner then you need to negotiate with them what will take a back seat in order for you to achieve this new objective, because lets face it you’re already going to be swamped with work so something is going to have to wait. Your boss will then get the fact that you are busy even if they don’t say so.
Don't let the staff dictate the holiday procedures. If you've got 13 nurses and they all have 4 weeks holiday that effectively means you've got a nurse off every week of the year. For the sake of your sanity and to save on arguments set the policy for all your staff and stick to it. If two vets aren’t allowed off at once then they will have to either work it out amongst themselves or just submit their holiday requests incredibly early. A clear policy will save you money on locum costs and stops people feeling they are being picked on when their holiday request is refused. However just remember that its one rule for all, so if your not allowed off when the owners are off then you will either have to book your holidays early or live with the fact that you wont get the holiday dates you want every time. People will watch to see how you implement this policy in regards to yourself.
There is and there isn’t such a thing as client loyalty. What this means is that there may be a small percentage of clients who have always come to your practice but its more because they have a favourite vet than because of anything you've done. There is a larger percentage that are now registered with a number of different veterinary practices because they like to shop around for the particular skills, pricing regimes or bargains that various practices have. This is where you will get a short term loyalty that will expire as soon as you stop doing the special offer, discounted price, or buy one get one free scenario. This is where you can make the loyalty count because if you can have one special offer followed by another and so on then you will slowly suck the client into the practice and increase there spend per visit, spend per animal and ultimately spend per year. I would however ensure all offers are done because you have got some sort of offer or support from the drug companies.
Don't just buy a product from a rep because it is a cheap promotion. Look at the product it will be replacing and whether that product is part of a bigger discount package. Drug companies and reps have had an easy time of late due to the changes that the competition commissions report brought in. They now have to offer the same monetary incentives to everyone. However there is another thing that you can take advantage of and that is intellectual property. They will have large amounts of data on the industry and specialist knowledge on certain areas of veterinary business. Make them share it with you and use that knowledge to drive forward your own profitability. Pick their brains for things that you want or need as everything has a value including knowledge.
This is the worst task you will ever do. Why, because you will basically have to review everything you pay for and work out what that is costing you per hour. The only thing you don’t put into this list is the wages. You still need to work out the total wages cost and how much on average a nurse and vets hourly rate is, but that is kept to one side for now. So to get started I would break things down into categories and then within those categories list the individual things. Keep doing this until everything you pay out is listed in a category.
The categories and list might look something like this –
Building costs – mortgage, secured loans, business rates, buildings and contents insurance
Utilities – water, gas electric, phones, mobile phones
Equipment costs – Loans, rental agreements, maintenance agreements, insurance
The list goes on, but you get the idea. So long as you ensure everything you pay for excluding wages is in a list and there is a cost attached your half way there.
Once you have the lists you can do several things with the information. Firstly add up your list total to get a running cost and then work out what your opening hours. Divide the total running cost by opening hours and that will give you an hourly operating cost. Some people mention the closed time hours but lets be honest your utility costs will be low, your staff costs may be low or none existent and you wont be using half the equipment you normally use during the day.
Now you know the hourly cost, work out what it costs to do a typical operation that is 2 hours long and work out what consumables costs are incurred with that as well as nurse and vet hourly rates. You add in 2 hours running costs and you should have a break even point for that particular operation.
The data should give you a very clear picture of where you stand in relation to cost vs. price. This is a very powerful tool because if you’re thinking of expanding, buying a new piece of equipment, taking on more staff or increasing your cost base then you will be able to see what impact that will have and give you ideas as to how to deal with it.
If your prices are less than your costing total then don’t panic as you can do several things. You can ignore it and work out your most expensive routine operation and see what that comes out as, you can increase your prices in certain areas to compensate, you can reduce your total cost base by looking at staffing levels, look at certain procedures or moving into a speciality or referral area where the income is higher.
What ever you do, do it as a team. Vets or practice owners might not understand the finer points of money but they will understand when cost exceeds revenue. It can be a great tool in getting vets to price up properly, to understand the constraints on the business and to reign in there spending habits. It will also help your owners to understand how much of a grasp you have on the business when you can tell them more about the costs of running the business than they can.
I’ve covered this already but it needs repeating –
If you don’t prioritise things by importance and look at achieving things in days, weeks and months rather than all at once you will struggle to achieve anything.
Seriously this is one of the biggest complaints from bosses about their staff or junior managers. You must learn that by prioritising your workload you are helping to manage your manager and their expectations of you. You are not going to build Rome in a day but sooner or later you’re going to work for someone who thinks you can. Look at just how you achieve things and in what order. Some managers use the project manager approach of diarising things with deadlines so that you have a linear table showing what needs to start to be worked on when and what is due to be completed by when etc. whatever you do make sure it works for you and that you share your prioritising of work with your boss. If they know what you’re doing it helps them to relax and focus on future projects. You will then start to see your boss saying things like – “This work you are going to look at next month, I’ve been thinking about it and maybe when we start we could do.....”
This is always difficult for a manager to deal with as no one wants to admit they are in a senior role but cannot or don’t know how to achieve a certain task. Knowing your limitations can help you realise where you are as a manager. It sometimes brings the realisation that perhaps you need to do a particular set of training or attend a certain course. It might mean you approach your boss and say “hey I’d like to achieve this but I don’t know how too, do you have any ideas?” All the best managers are constantly learning new skills and new ways of managing and if you are going to be an effective manager you need to get used to this.
Never be afraid to use other people’s ideas if they work. Become a member of the VPMA as they have a discussion forum you can read and also post questions on. Read up on the industry you work in get to know the new thinking and modern ideas that people are coming up with. Sometimes your own staff might come up with a great idea that can have real benefits to the business and sometimes they have not so great ideas that actually lead you to think of something else that does work. In short read, listen, think about and learn.
Experience teaches you an awful lot. You might think you've seen it all but believe me you could spend thirty years in management and still be surprised by something. Learn from more experienced managers and think about what they've achieved. Look closely at the style of management you would like to emulate and try to work out what is involved in becoming that type of manager. A lot of improving your management style comes from self reflection after completing training courses or after reading a really interesting management book or article. If you aren’t willing to think about how you project yourself as a manager and how you get the job done then you will never improve on your abilities.
You can have a reputation as a ruthless tough manager, but if you have no other impact than that of sacking staff or crushing morale your reputation will be worth nothing. I always try to tell people that it’s not about reputation it’s about getting the job done. You earn a reputation irrespective of what you do and that reputation needs to be that of an effective manager. You go into the job saying what you’re going to do and then doing it. That kind of effective management will earn you the grudging respect of even your enemies, because at the end of the day no one will be able to say you didn’t achieve the goals you set out for yourself or the business.
Ah good old politics. Either you like it or you don’t, but either way you shouldn’t mistake politics with achieving your goals and targets. If you’re an ineffective manager who doesn’t achieve the targets required then you will not be seen as good manager. It won’t matter how much you kiss the bosses behind they will still get rid of you if they think you can’t do the job and to add to your problems you will be seen as being lazy too because you spent more time playing politics than actually getting the work done.
Having said all of that there is one exception to this and that is when you use politics in a very specific way to achieve an objective. It may be that you’ve done all the pre work for something but that the sticking point is getting the practice owners agreement. The use of politics at this point to manage your manager is an acceptable way of ensuring the end result is achieved. So long as you are balancing political manoeuvring with target completion you will avoid the trap of being seen as a lazy ineffective manager.
Some people think that ruling with an iron fist is a great ethos for a business and some think its being everyone’s friend and disciplining no one. Unfortunately where ever you go to work you will find the ethos is set in stone long before you arrive. Just because this is the case it doesn’t mean you can’t change it. However you will meet strong resistance and it needs to be done with care. The best approach is to actually be a mid point between the two previous examples. Strong when you need to be strong and nurturing of a friendly environment at the same time. In taking this position you can also work with those owners that have these extreme views on the practice ethos. Slowly you will be able to alter their position without undermining them by showing how incorporating their ethos with a more mid line approach can reap the rewards and benefits that the owners had in mind but weren’t achieving.
I’ve made mention of this once or twice already in saying manage the manager above you. The first great manager I worked for taught me this and in doing so helped me to forge a big part of my own management skill. Just because they own the business doesn’t mean they know what they are doing, or that they are competent at management, or bright individuals or even that they are nice people. You will come across these types of people time and time again along with quiet a few other types. These are people that hired you to do what they could not or will not do so when it comes time to achieve a tricky objective or for a decision to be made that takes them outside their own comfort zone you will have to learn how to manage them and get them onboard with your ideas and decision making strategies.
In its most simplistic form I call it “find the lever and pull it” but in essence what you need to do is present information to your boss or bosses in a way that helps them to see the benefit of doing the task at hand. Sometimes it can be done by getting them to let you make all the decisions on a particular project and then keeping them in the loop as to progress and sometimes it requires you to almost hold their hand as you guide them to the decision you want. However you must always remember one thing when doing this, only ever have the best intentions of the practice at the heart of the things you’re attempting to achieve. If you don’t it is an impossible position to defend against if the owner questions why they should go along with what you’re trying to achieve. However the mere fact that they question you and that you can say it’s in the best interests of the practice and here’s why etc, will help you to manage them even further. It also has the benefit of showing them that you are willing to keep them in the information and decision making loop which can be very important to an owner who is letting someone else manage their business.
Vets are incredibly bright people, but have the common sense of a lemming near a large cliff. It’s like trying to herd cats and vets are by nature not people who take direction well from anyone who isn’t another vet. However you can get through to them via their weakness in relation to money.
Vets always assume they can discount what they want and charge what they want and no one will be any the wiser or even care. However the first time you start to give them a breakdown of what they are invoicing on a monthly basis, how much discount they've done recently and how they compare to the targets you would like them to achieve or even to how other vets are doing and they will 99% of the time fold and give in to your will. This then will help you to drive clinical excellence and change because you can say that certain procedures must always use certain consumables and drugs or x-rays must always be done in a set way etc. because at the end of the day everyone is then invoicing consistently and therefore should hit the targets set more easily.
As for the other 1%, they tend to be vet owners or old school vets and as my saying goes –
“Sometimes you can bring a horse to water and even break its legs so you can dunk its head, but the damn thing will still be stubborn and hold it’s breathe rather than drink”
They should know that your in charge of them and they should know that you expect them to achieve the things set out for them, but all too often they don’t because they can be a power house in their own right and almost as wilful as the vets. So long as you realise this you can still effectively manage them. The key is to get them involved in the clinical excellence and customer care of the practice. Let them create and discuss ideas in their nurse meetings and when they bring something good to you let them do the prep work so you can implement it after. The key here is involving them in decision making and policy as it affects the way they do their job because they probably never have been in some or all of the previous practices in which they've worked. One more key thing to remember is to give praise where praise is due because you will find that nurses tend to be over looked when it comes to being told they've done a good job. Theirs is a thankless job sometimes and if they think the management are actually paying attention and noticing when they do a good job it will improve their self worth and morale.
The staff will never really like you and definitely not associate with you outside of work, get used to it. You are liable to be the one that yells at them disciplines them or gets them to do things they don’t want to do. Any attempt to be a “touchy feely friends with everyone manager” will only reduce your effectiveness and your ability to get the job done. This is why people who have been on the same level as the staff and are then promoted to a position where they are supervising the said same staff have so many problems adjusting and getting their former colleagues and now juniors to accept and do what they are being told.
It is a rare kind of business environment that is only seen once in a blue moon where everyone likes and socialises with the senior managers above them. This has as much to do with the mentality of the staff themselves as it does to do with the management style in place. We would all like to work in one of these types of places but the reality is that we probably never will as any manager who finds themselves in one of these types of workplaces tends to stay there until they retire or are carried out of the practice dead on a stretcher from old age still clutching the happy 120th birthday card signed with loving messages by all the staff.
I once cut a corner to achieve an objective and it backfired in my face. I got yelled at by my manager and I still had to do the whole task again the proper way. At best you end up with a cobbled together result at worst it blows up spectacularly in your face and you get yourself into some real problems or end up facing a disciplinary. If a job is worth doing do it properly and hopefully this will mean you only have to do it once.
This is a straight forward thing to work out really. It might take a month or two to recruit someone, about 3 months to get that person competent at their role and another 3 months before they start to become expert at the role in one area or another. If you treat them poorly and they then leave you have to start all over again, which means that it will take another 7-8 months to get someone new to the same place that the first person was at before they left. So in effect you've just wasted 14-16 months worth of salary and recruitment costs because you couldn’t work out how to treat a member of your staff properly. Now multiply this by a few staff in a year and you are starting to see the real cost of not managing your staff properly.
There are many types of manager all with their own little intricacies and ways of doing things. However when you look at some of the basic ways that managers respond or try to create an impact you can place them into three categories, the good, the bad and the stupid.
Bad managers are more concerned with their own standing and reputation than they are with the job at hand. You will see these types of managers coming into the business and setting out their stall by trying to crush any resistance from the staff immediately. This can take the form of singling one border line employee out and disciplining them or being to hard and inflexible with the workforce whilst being overly relaxed or even ignorant of the higher employee or management teams even if it is these teams that have the major problems.
Stupid managers are just that. They have no idea what they are doing and rather than take advice, read up on things or get training, they insist on doing things their own way usually with disastrous consequences. They tend to be a source or ridicule amongst the staff and the owners look on them as a dead weight to be gotten rid of at the first opportunity.
The good managers are those who realise they aren’t gods and that they will make mistakes occasionally. They tend to look at the other two types of manager and make mental notes on how not to do things. These managers take their work seriously and therefore tend to be open to new ways of learning, new ideas and concepts as well as listening to their staff and seniors when they have thoughts or advice to give. To be a good manager you first have to realise that it is a career long learning curve where even your most solid of ideas may need to be re-thought or changed dependent on the workplace they are in, the economic climate, the staff morale or the objectives that need to be achieved. This is the longest hardest road to travel where your resolve will constantly be tested. If you can hold true to the ethos of good management through the toughest of times you will become a manager that people remember and talk about long after you have gone.
Some people go into management for the money, some for the kudos or reputation and some because they realise they are brighter than their peers and that they can affect real change or do things better. Whatever your reason it can soon dim into obscurity when you start doing the job. Sooner or later when the job gets really difficult you start thinking things like –
“Please let it be the end of the week”
“If I keep the status quo and don’t rock the boat I will be ok and my job will be easy”
“Dear god let this nightmare be over soon”
“I'm not listening, I didn’t see anything and it’s not my problem if I don’t know about it”
“How am I going to make any difference here?”
No one will be there to tell you its ok or that you can handle it because usually they're the ones looking to you to provide the answers. However what you need to remember is that it’s ok to have moments of doubt, its ok to wish you weren’t at work sometimes and it’s ok to look forward to the weekends. The core thing that you need to remember is that fresh faced manager who came to the job happy and excited by the opportunity of being a manager. Remember why it was you wanted to become a manager and focus on that positive.
If you did it purely for the money then remember how it felt to get paid what you felt you were worth. If you did it for the kudos or reputation focus on the fact that yes you are a manager, but more than that you are the manager picked to work at that company. If you did it because you felt you were brighter than your peers or because you could bring real change then look at the first thing you changed. That won’t be your first command as a manager, but rather that you convinced your employer that you could bring something they wanted to the role and that you were the right manager for the job.
Whatever you wanted out of management it’s occasionally good to reflect on these objectives you set yourself. It will help to refocus and centre you during difficult times.
Yep this is another one of those moments where I reiterate what was said earlier and with good reason.
If a job is worth doing do it properly and hopefully this will mean you only have to do it once.
I cannot stress enough how much damage this will do to your ability to manage if you continually cut corners. Take the time to get it right and it will reap rewards for you later on. The first time you will realise this is when one piece of work you completed properly at an earlier date suddenly becomes important in the work you are asked to do. You will be quietly very grateful that you did things right as it will make completing the new task easier or more straight forward.
I regularly attempt to turn my weaknesses to my advantage. For instance I have no clinical training and state this openly to vets and nurses when I need to discuss clinical matters with them. They may have the knowledge but I bring the standards and by using my weakness as a way of getting them to give more clinical input into the conversation I can get a more comprehensive view of a clinical matter whilst showing them that their opinions are not only being listened to, but actively sort out. Be open about a weakness in your abilities or knowledge base to the very people who possess the strength in that area. Use them as a way of achieving your objectives and give them the recognition and praise when they help you achieve your objectives.
It can be the same with your strengths, just because you know how you to do something, it doesn’t mean that your staff do. Take time occasionally to explain how it is you came to certain decisions or why it is you do things in a certain way. Use your strength in an area as a training aid for others who may not possess the ability you have. Not only will this help them to formulate their own ideas and increase their knowledge but it will help them to realise what it is your trying to achieve and why.
It’s all about the long game, the short game, the medium game and any other time related comparable for the achieving of yours and the businesses objectives.
Patience isn’t just a virtue; it’s an absolute requirement of management.
You wont win every battle first time, you wont achieve ever objective first time and you most definitely wont change all the employees and employers attitudes first time. Sometimes you have to use psychology in subtle and blunt ways to manoeuvre both the staff below you and the managers or owners above you, in order to bring about the changes or improvements that you want or that the business requires.
A classic way is to test out ideas with people and let them get used to the fact that you may want to implement the idea long before you actually do. This gives them the time they may need to psychologically adjust to change. Another way is to almost convince people that your idea is their idea and they therefore have had an impact on the business themselves. What ever psychological tactic you us, just remember that it is a vital piece of your armoury when trying to get the job done.
I have known incredibly intelligent people who couldn’t grasp the concept of how to sign onto the dole. Just because you have vets or vet owners that have spent 5 years in vet school and have letters after their name, doesn’t mean they know what they are doing when it comes to managing a business. You can be an averagely intelligent person with a high level of common sense and have a really positive impact on how the business is run. Remember intelligence is no substitute for common sense and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. There are many bright ideas that have failed abysmally because someone forgot to use their common sense when working out how to implement the idea.
Formal certification can be a way of furthering your knowledge and training. I would recommend the Certificate in Veterinary Practice Management (CVPM) as it is an industry focused qualification that will help you to better perform your role. A Masters in Business Administration (MBA) is an excellent qualification for any manager but isn’t something that every manager can do. It is very expensive and if you’re new to management can be completely overwhelming. If you are an experienced manager who finds themselves in the position of working for a practice willing to pay the £10,000-£15,000 that the course costs, then the benefits this can bring to your management abilities is considerable.
There are also other management qualifications and training available including NVQ’s, diploma’s and degrees. All of these qualifications will help to improve your management skills and should be looked at as a way of helping you to help the practice. You may also find that you can get some or all of the funding for these types of courses paid for by “Train to Gain”, which can be contacted through your local Business Link.
It can be important to remember that you aren’t the first manager to do this type of job and you won’t be the last. If you get a chance to talk to other managers then take it. It can be a real eye opener to realise that you aren’t the only one going through a particular issue or dealing with a particular problem. It will also help to reinforce your own self belief in your management abilities, when you find that people are asking you for advice on issues that they have never dealt with before. Beyond that you will find that getting to know people who may have access to knowledge or resources you don’t can bring real benefits to your business.
No matter what you do or what type of manager you are never underestimate the impact you can have on a business. Remember they hired you because you were the best candidate and impressed them the most. That is an impact in its own right.
If you get things right and take the view that real change or real improvement takes time then over a period you can radically rewrite the way the entire business operates. From the very ethos of the practice, right down to the basic morale of the staff, your mark will be felt if not seen for a very long time.
There is no reward greater than seeing the business you manage succeed.