“It’s better to empower the staff to solve their own problems”

Lincolnshire-based partner at Lunettes Opticians, Tushar Majithia, talks OT through his day – from morning commute soundtracked by Ashes updates, to evenings watching Ted Lasso with the family.

5.30am

I’m quite an early riser. When I wake up, I have a lot of things whizzing through my head. Depending on how energetic I feel, I either go out for a walk or a run. If the weather is really horrible, I stretch or do a bit of Pilates, or a bit in the gym instead – just something to start my day off, reset, and clear my head. It helps me think straight, and it’s a nice way to kick off the day.

6.30am

I have breakfast around 6.30am, after I’ve had a shower and got changed. I’ll have granola or a smoothie, or porridge with fruit. During breakfast, I catch up on the sports news: football transfer gossip, and daily news and current affairs as well. We’re obsessed with sport in my family, so I love to have a little catch up on what’s been going on.

7.15am

I leave to go to work around 7.15am. I love listening to podcasts in the car. They tend to vary quite a lot between optometry, business, and sport. Sport-related podcasts might be about football or the test match specials. During the summer, the Ashes series was captivating, so I really enjoyed listening to the Test Match Special podcasts.

7.45am

We’re relocating our Grantham practice, which is halfway to where I work in Sleaford, so there’s building work going on at the new site. I stop at the Grantham practice and check in with the contractors to see how things are progressing, or if there are any issues that need addressing. That takes 15 or 20 minutes, and then I get to work for about 8.30am.

8.30am

When I get into the practice I have a cup of tea and a quick catch-up with the staff, reply to messages and emails, and look at what’s ahead in the diary: what appointments I’ve got, which patients, and if there are any problems a patient might have that might need to be considered.

10am

I try to do most business development work on a Friday. I have started to work from home to do that, rather than going into the practice. When I go into the practice, there are quite a lot of distractions, but working from home helps me focus on things that I need to get done.

Day-to-day, when I’m in practice, I do mainly clinical work. We have quite a varied mix of appointments. We do eye tests and a fair amount of contact lens work. We have low vision and enhanced services contracts as well. There is a real mix of appointments. No day is the same, which makes the job really interesting.

12.30pm

Lunch is usually from 12.30 to 1pm. I tend to grab a bite to eat – it’s usually a jacket potato, a salad, or a sandwich. It’s nice to have that bit of fresh air, so I do go out for a quick walk. I will then answer a few emails and phone calls, and catch up on the news and sport at the same time.

1pm

We try and build in a few short breaks through the day, so we can catch up on reports and admin tasks. We don’t define that the morning and afternoon have to have a certain type of appointment – it just depends on the patients who come in. The afternoon is similar to the morning in terms of appointments and having a quick briefing with the team if there are any patient problems, or anything else that needs addressing. 

3pm

In terms of keeping energised, I think the staff are all quite motivated. We’re lucky, having a good team. I don’t tend to get involved a lot with the day-to-day running of the business. The staff are very good, and they all know their roles.

When I first took over the practice, I was quite hands-on – I was a bit of a control freak in many ways, and I wanted to get involved with everything. I found, over the years, that it’s better to empower the staff to solve their own problems. They’re all quite into developing themselves. When they do have a break, they often do continuing professional development or product training modules to keep their knowledge up. They tend to do their own problem solving and get on with things. They’re very good at that. So, I’ve taken a step back in that respect.

If there is a quiet patch in the diary, it’s also nice for the staff to have a bit of a chat and a gossip. That’s good for team building, and makes for a more enjoyable working environment.

5pm

We usually work until 5pm, and we will leave around then.

On a Monday or Tuesday, I’ll play tennis after work. A couple of times a week I’ll go to the gym or for a swim, and sometimes I’ll meet the family there. We like to do something in the evenings. In the summer, if it’s a nice evening, it’s nice to play nine holes of golf with some friends, and then have a drink afterwards. It’s quite varied as to what we do in the evenings. No day is the same.

7pm

If we’re doing something in the week, we tend to knock up something quick for dinner. We would either do some pasta or a stir fry, or maybe a chili or fajitas. At the weekend we tend to cook a bit more than we need to, so we’ve got a meal for the week. If I do go to the gym or we go for a swim, we can come straight home and have that.

On a rare occasion, if we’ve got nothing inspiring in the fridge, we’ll do a quick takeaway instead, but it’s not very often that we do that during the week.

7.30pm

In the evenings, once we’ve had something to eat, I like to relax with the family. We quite often watch a series on Netflix, or food or travel programmes, like MasterChef. We’ve recently started watching Break Point, which is a Netflix series about tennis. We’ve also been watching Hijack on Apple TV, with Idris Elba, which has been quite good. Also, things like Ted Lasso – those light-hearted, heartwarming programmes, that are quite enjoyable to watch as a family.