Welcome to our latest e-newsletter. 2009 is turning out to be a year to remember, or forget, depending on which side of the fence you sit. Is the economy recovering or still getting worse? The reality appears to be, regardless of our own personal experiences, it is doing both. According to Jim Wood-Smith, Head of Research at Williams de Broe fund managers, the aggregate is probably that it is treading water, but in the manner of someone who stays afloat by a system of random thrashing around, whilst conveying the impression of being attacked by an electric eel.
This is borne out by our own experience. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen more enquiries from clients looking to move home and extend their mortgages, and also re-entering the buy-to-let market and taking advantage of a 25% - 30% drop in property prices. Yet our recent seminars on ‘Planning for Retirement’ were oversubscribed with a very keen ear on the session run by Chris Strevens from Frank Taylor & Associates that covered dentist practice valuations in the current climate. The good news is that practice goodwill still seems to be holding up well, although perhaps not quite at the heady levels of 2008.
Diversity of assets remains our watchword. Don’t expect dramatic market improvements in the foreseeable future, but the fear of total meltdown of the financial systems, which last year looked a real possibility, has now waned.
Suzanne & Peter
Suzanne & Peter
Managing people is always tricky because although ‘people’ is one simple word, it represents the infinite characteristics that make up the individual personalities we manage. Saying that, there are right and wrong methods, and good and bad approaches, which is what Suzanne discovered when she attended a course run by Sheila Scott and Hayley Bloodworth entitled Managing Difficult People (and good ones too!).
Here’s an extract from Sue’s follow-up email to Sheila:-
Thanks for a fantastic day yesterday. I came away feeling really positive and energised, so watch this space! Next team meeting we will be discussing our core values, golden rules and constructive feedback. We will also be putting something about the workshop in our next newsletter and on our website as like Kevin, I think this course is essential for all managers!
Sue’s comments:
Why we should promote this course
So many dentists and small businesses do not know how to protect themselves against disputes with employees or on the positive side, to get the most out of their employees and therefore have a more successful business/practice. The managing difficult people course teaches you how important it is for every business to have core values and golden rules. Below are a few examples:-
Core Values
- Excellence
- Integrity
- ‘Can do’ attitude
Golden Rules
- Always working as a team for the best possible outcome for the patient/client
- Always going the extra mile
By instilling these values/rules it gets the whole team involved in the practice, ideas will start flooding in and motivation will be much higher.
The course also teaches you about constructive feedback and what an impact it can have on the team’s motivation levels and how tricky situations can easily be defused and even turned into a positive. It covers a little bit on the law, how important it is to have written contracts and to have proper management procedures, which are documented and followed at all times.
For course details visit Sheila's site
When discussing the NHS Pension Scheme at our recent ‘Preparing for Retirement’ seminars, it was apparent how many dentists approaching retirement were not sure how the scheme works for them. This is perhaps not so surprising as its structure is unique to GDPs. However, it was still a concern to hear one dentist say he thought it was based on his final salary and he was continuing to do NHS work for this very reason!
To clarify, the NHS Pension Scheme for GDPs is not
a final salary pension scheme, as this would clearly discriminate against practitioners who lessen their NHS work as they approach retirement. The scheme is based on your total lifetime NHS earnings, which are added together and up-rated to reflect today’s values. The pension is a factor of 1.4% of this figure and a tax-free lump sum of a further 4.2%.
Thus a dentist whose lifetime earnings in today’s terms, total £1.5m would receive at age 60 an index-linked income for life of £21,000 per annum and a tax-free retiring allowance of £63,000. The factors for the new NHS Pension Scheme are different, as normal retirement is now 65 and no automatic tax-free cash applies.
From 1 st
July 2007 to 30 th
June 2010 it is possible for members of the old NHS scheme to transfer into the new scheme. As a rule of thumb, we do not recommend this, with the caveat that everybody’s circumstances are different and you should take specialist advice. That’s why we’re here!