A CULTURE OF SUPPORT

The purpose of SharkLink

Nichola Mason (NM): We’re a group of seven partners with a variety of practice types, skill sets and time working within the group, representing Hakim Group partners, who are known as ‘Sharks.’ Our role is to ensure HQ remains aligned with the group’s practices, maintaining the culture as we grow.

Neil Hilton (NH): The main thing is to ensure there’s no disconnect between HQ and practices. We’re one big team, and our objective is to maintain that culture and family feel, whether we’re 600 practices or six. That was the focus of SharkLink, from when we first began.

A trial process

NM: Hakim HQ was looking at opportunities to provide better terms with alternative banks. Everything we do is trialled with a small number of practices before it’s rolled out to the group. In this instance, the trial showed a few bumps. Being able to feed that back through SharkLink meant this was addressed. The process is there to mitigate any challenges.

NH: We started from a really small number of practices, and we’ve scaled quickly. What was suitable five or six years ago could probably now be better. The culture is always to innovate and reflect and try and better ourselves.

SharkLink is there to support and sense check HQ. We’re privileged that we can get involved in these conversations. Recently, we’ve taken the auditing and governance platform back and made a few tweaks. It’s a question of, ‘how can we improve this and make it better for a group of 400+ practices as we grow, rather than a group of 100?’ You learn from your setbacks. It’s a learning experience, which is cool.

NM: It works both ways. If there’s something in practice that HQ think we could do better, we’re always willing to listen, and they’re equally willing if they’re doing something we think isn’t right in practice. They’re very quick to adapt and change if needed.

Unexpected learnings

NM: I work with lots of the new Sharks. We cover lots of things that they have never experienced, because they’ve been a dispensing optician, optometrist or practice manager, and suddenly they’re a business owner.

During onboarding, we included a finance session and talked about some of the fundamentals. These sessions were really well received, and made us question if other longer standing partners within the group may also have finance areas they would benefit from revisiting: VAT or corporation tax, for example, which might sound quite basic, but when you have spent your career patientfacing, its an area that gets overlooked. From these conversations we saw an opportunity for Sharklink to try and help.

At the roadshow this year, we did a session with Richard Woolley, financial controller at HQ, and SharlinkLink member Gavin Rebello. The feedback from Sharks was brilliant. One said, ‘I have been too afraid to ask that question about tax. I thought I should have known the answer.’ Some of the new owners don’t want to ask questions on subject areas that they might be unsure of. That was unexpected, but through listening we could understand and put a solution in place.

NH: As SharkLink, we’re trying to be present at every event that we do, to give people the confidence to chat to us if there are any issues. We’re becoming more outward facing. That’s the next evolution of SharkLink.

NM: In 2024 we want to be able to connect more easily with other partners. We would like to set up more local connections, so they’ve got more opportunities to connect, discuss, and share with us and our fellow Sharks.

NH: We are planning for 2024 and looking at reaching out to the brilliant partners across the UK. Every time we get together, we’re seeing how we can connect with people better. It’s top of our agenda.

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NAME: Neil Hilton

NAME: Nichola Mason

ROLE: SharkLink treasurer and partner at four Hakim Group independent practices

LOCATION: Cambridgeshire