Rethinking business resilience, protecting employees from stress at work, the SME Climate Hub and the Small & Mighty Enterprise programme
Welcome to today’s blog post which discusses the latest business news for our clients. Please contact us if you want to talk about how these updates affect your business. We are here to support you!
Rethinking business resilience
Being resilient by choice is critical for both survival and for strategic advantage in an era where disruption is the norm. The threats businesses face today are complex and becoming more frequent than in previous times. We have seen a pandemic, an ongoing war in Europe with supply chain issues, a cost of living crisis, extreme weather and frequent ongoing cyber-attacks.
These events are more interconnected than before the Pandemic, and resilience is now critical for maintaining consumer and stakeholder trust. Many leading businesses are now making resilience a strategic aim to look at how they make the right investments in technology, talent and data.
Here are some practical thoughts that may help you think about resilience in a more strategic way:
- Think about a 360-degree view of risk and look for trouble before it finds you. Look ahead and assess future scenarios, perform sensitivity analysis or “What if” situations on your budgets or projections and examine changes in costs and customer behaviours.
- Use Generative AI (such as ChatGPT) to examine the effect of a change on your projections and let it outline future risks in your industry and play out scenarios in your business. Using your insight, advanced data analytics can help you identify early warnings of issues and opportunities.
- Know what areas you want to succeed in and where you cannot afford to lose. This involves understanding why you want your business to be resilient and will help target any investment to what is critical to your success.
- Ask yourself “When does a problem go from being a nuisance to unbearable?” What would wreck your business? If you accept that interruptions are more common in the last few years and that they will continue, then look at the risk from a customer, reputational, and financial viewpoint. This will help you develop contingency plans for realistic worst-case scenarios and help you get a clear sense of purpose.
- You cannot prevent external events happening, but you can plan for the worst across the risks your business has identified.
- Get everyone in your business involved in the strategy for building resilience. Discuss scenarios and canvass opinions. Ensure everyone knows their roles and responsibilities so they can act decisively during a crisis.
Our most successful clients are redesigning how they look at risk and using new predictive technology to play out scenarios to remain resilient in the future.
Please talk to us about the practical steps you can take to succeed in business, such as real time information, preparing budgets and “What if” analysis.
See: Guide to building business resilience (british-business-bank.co.uk)
Protecting Employees from Stress at Work
The Working Minds campaign has been created by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety that is committed to improving the health of workers.
Tackling stress isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a legal obligation. Working Minds can help you make it a routine priority for your business.
There are three main reasons employers should be looking to prevent stress and support good mental health in business:
- It’s the law;
- It’s good for business; and
- It’s the right thing to do.
Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, the law requires all employers to prevent work-related stress to support good mental health in the workplace.
It’s important to remember that in the end we’re all just people – and every one of us faces pressures in and out of the workplace. By treating each other with respect and compassion at work we support our teams and colleagues to stay well.
The earlier a problem is tackled the less impact it will have for the person and your business. Stress affects people differently – what stresses one person may not affect another. Factors like skills and experience, age, or disability may all affect someone’s ability to cope.
You can get started today with these 5 steps:
- Reach out and have conversations;
- Recognise the signs and causes of stress;
- Respond to any risks identified by agreeing action points between employer and worker;
- Reflect on the actions taken – have things improved?
- Make it routine to check back in on how things are going.
If you think that a worker is having problems, encourage them to talk to someone, whether it’s their line manager, trade union representative, GP, or their occupational health team.
See: Working Minds Employers – Work Right to keep Britain safe
SME Climate Hub
The SME Climate Hub is here to help small businesses deliver on their climate goals and they have developed free, practical resources specifically tailored to support SMEs on their net zero journey, through strategic emission reductions and opportunities for climate leadership.
Businesses can calculate their emissions with the Business Carbon Calculator, learn how to take action with the Climate Fit education course, and access support through the Financial Support guide and 1.5°C Business Playbook.
Research shows that such measures can significantly save companies on their overheads. For example:
- switching to EVs can not only cut running costs but also lower servicing and maintenance costs by around 40% compared to petrol or diesel cars;
- with up to half of companies’ overall electricity bill coming from lighting, making changes such as switching to LED bulbs can help shave up to 40% off bills;
- giving drivers fuel efficiency training can help save companies an average of 15% on fuel use and carbon emissions in transporting goods.
The new support is aimed particularly at 5.5 million small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in the UK, with business and industry accounting for around 25% of emissions. Research shows that 90% of SMEs are keen to tackle climate change but find it difficult to know how or where to start to find the right solutions to reduce their carbon footprint.
Studies also show 85% of consumers are more likely to buy from a business with a reputation for sustainability, meaning going green can help grow the economy.
The SME Climate Hub has also partnered with Oxford University to provide SMEs with a library of external tools that offer additional support to small businesses taking concrete steps towards climate action.
See: Tools and resources – SME Climate Hub
Small Business Britain’s Small & Mighty Enterprise Programme
The Small Business Britain’s Small & Mighty Enterprise Programme to help grow small businesses with expert guidance and mentoring is a six-week programme, designed to supercharge sole traders and micro businesses and concludes with a growth plan to support the next year of business opportunity. It will be delivered entirely online, allowing access from anywhere in the UK with flexible learning enabling opportunities for all.
What does the course include?
- Live weekly sessions recorded and available on a private Small Business Britain website available exclusively to course participants.
- Weekly worksheets to embed learning outcomes accessible on the private website hub, developed by each week’s expert trainers.
- Development of an Action Plan: a twelve-month plan to grow and flourish with the support of expert mentors.
- Two hours of 1-2-1 and group mentoring over the six weeks from expert mentors around the UK.
- Inclusion in an exclusive, supportive community to ask and answer questions, access experts and teachers, share experiences and network with other small businesses.