People Puzzles Midlands July Newsletter

Me enjoying the fine weather with my English bulldogs (a small obsession of mine) in sunny Stratford-Upon-Avon, walking along the river past Holy Trinity where Shakespeare is buried and saying a quick hello to the bard.

A few updates this month:

Post-election

As you are probably aware, Labour has made some pretty bold proposals around workers’ rights which will potentially have quite an impact on all of our businesses. With some of our clients asking questions about how this will affect them last week we ran an online round table with some of our brilliant People Directors and around 300 businesses to chat through what we think the likely impact on SMEs will be.

I really urge you to listen to the panel discussion that took place on our 45-minute webinar and engage with it early as it can be a great opportunity to continue to stay ahead of the competition to attract the best talent. This might help you think about how to approach any changes for your business.

For a short summary of the proposed changes, this article from our north of England Regional Director Debra Lee gives a quick overview.

Looking towards growth

I think we can all agree that the most exciting part about Labour’s proposals was the promise of growth and better resources for growing businesses to access funding and investment.

Sectors such as construction, renewable energy and transport will benefit more immediately than others but the ripple effect into tech, manufacturing, healthcare and many others should stimulate some excellent opportunities which is great news for us all!

Planning is essential to make the most of these opportunities if considering new sectors. Once you have created your longer-term business plan, you need to map out any new roles you may need. Consider where responsibilities and processes have changed and any roles that are superfluous or need redesigning. Once you have worked out which people you need in which roles, identify any skills gaps you have and how you will fill them.

These are all areas where having a part-time People Director really helps and often costs less in the longer term by not making mistakes along the way with a forward-thinking approach. You can read more about how to do this here .

Working on the business rather than in it is so important, and having time away on holiday is a good time to reflect. I wanted to share a short 2-minute video from one of our clients González Byass , a Spanish wine importer, where we have been supporting their UK team for 5 years. If you’ve got two minutes spare to hear about how we've helped them on their growth journey it’s well worth a watch.

I am off for the next few weeks on a family holiday for some sun, sea and sand! Whatever your plans are for the summer, I hope the weather stays warm here & abroad and wish you all a superb August.

People Puzzles

?

?