Some time ago, an employee was absent due to ill health and ultimately had to give up her job. For me, it is particularly important to communicate openly about things, in both good and bad times. My employees took it upon themselves to offer to take on more work and support me as I tried to manage both the job and my ongoing studies at the same time. It was an intense but happy time, and it showed me our team can work well and we can support each other when things are tough.

We are a motivated and innovative team and enjoy the work we do. I feel it's essential, as the boss, to offer a sympathetic ear to any problems my employees may be having. Disagreements are tackled together and resolved as quickly as possible. We try to implement employees’ innovative ideas and projects, even if this doesn’t appear financially appealing at first sight. We can also decide our own working hours and holiday preferences can be accommodated in most cases. Little extras, like a basket of fresh fruit, are provided to help the team enjoy a healthy diet.

A physiotherapist treats patients at a rate of one every half hour, which can mean seeing up to 20 patients a day. It takes a lot of physical and mental energy to get a handle on each new problem situation. This is why I advise against taking on a 100% workload. In my team, the employees largely choose their working hours and breaks themselves. To stop their everyday work becoming too monotonous, we try to inject some variety through things like group therapy sessions or external assignments.

We often have difficult cases to deal with in our day-to-day work. This can be very stressful for our staff. In times like this, I’m happy to provide support: my team can contact me at any time with a view to discussing difficult situations together or even passing patients on to another therapist.