Healthcare is a people business. Around 65% of the budget of any healthcare provider is spent on staff salaries. Each organization employs a large number of people with a vast range of skills. As a senior doctor or manager you could not possibly step into the role of many of the people that you lead. When the chips are down ‘it is the people who do it for you’, as one of my past Board chairmen often told us. The difference between employing staff who are happy, motivated and give an extra 10% and staff who are demotivated, take time off work and when at work spend time grumbling in corridors, wasting 10% of their day, is the difference for the organization of a change in productivity of 20%. So it is really important to value your staff. There are a multitude of processes and procedures to attempt to make this happen.

Once you take on the line management of staff there are a number of key tasks in which you have to participate, and are responsible for ensuring happen, even if you are not empowered to take all the actions yourself. Each of these tasks is supported by a detailed procedure which will have been written by the human resources department in your organization. The procedure will be based on the current legal framework. Deviation from the procedure may render your actions outside this legal framework. It is essential that you take advice from your HR advisor especially if you are moving into conflict with your employee. There are five broad areas: getting a person started, managing normal working, special requests, dealing with problems, and measuring how good you and the organization are at managing staff.