All Careers Advice

The sports vision maverick

Optometrist Nick Dash, CEO of sports vision advisory company ProSportsVision, has been involved with sport throughout his career. Alex Thomas reports

Holding on to your best staff

How do you make sure your staff feel appreciated and motivated? David Gilliver outlines the key issues in retaining talented personnel

Gaining through training

David Gilliver reports on the need for training of non-professional staff, with customer skills particularly important in times of economic uncertainty

Assessing the assessor

Rather than an exercise in box-ticking, the role of a pre-registration assessor demands a variety of skills. Emma White reports

Land of opportunity

Martin Hodgson shares his experience of working as an optometrist in Australia

The cataract surgeon

The life of the cataract surgeon is a busy but incredibly rewarding one. Shannon McKenzie reports

Optician Salary Survey: Average pay on the rise

Over 700 practitioners logged on to opticianonline.net to take part in our annual salary survey, revealing not only levels of pay but also patterns of working, preference for benefits, reasons for changing jobs, desired locations and how long it took to find them. Emma White reports

Independents and franchises pay best

Franchise and independent practices continue to offer the highest salaries with dispensing opticians at multiples earning on average half as much as those working at franchise practices, according to latest statistics.

Anglia Ruskin University working together

Our series on UK optometry departments continues with a visit to Anglia Ruskin University. Emma White reports

Salary Survey 2005

Longer working hours, lower salaries and a strong desire to work in specific locations characterised the results of this year's salary survey which for the first time was conducted electronically

Looking to Australia

After having qualified as an optometrist in the UK, Rabiah Narband moved to Australia. Here she describes the structure of the profession Down Under and what she had to do in order to practise there

The gold standard

How can optics attract the technicians, laboratory supervisors and managers of the future? Here, the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers (SMC) explains the benefits of its SMC Tech qualifications

Locums

The work/lifestyle benefits of being a locum are obvious, but with daily rates remaining static and work becoming harder to find, the lure of a salaried position, albeit working for less, is beginning to entice even the most independent minded back to the full-time fold, as Rory Brogan discovers