Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to the August edition of the Worcestershire Growth Hub newsletter. To start this month’s update, I would like to highlight some of the support available to our smaller businesses in the county.
If you are a 1 to 4 employee business in Worcestershire, the support landscape can appear complicated and confusing. There is a lot of stuff out there, but fear not as we are here to help guide you and signpost you to what is most relevant for you. The Growth Hub are hosting business clinics at venues across the county with, Ran, one of our account managers. These clinics provide opportunity for a 1 to 1 meeting with Ran, free of charge, who will listen to your challenges and then help to navigate you through the support offers available, which are best to meet your growth needs and ambitions. Find out more about dates, times and how to book a slot within the newsletter.
The Growth Hub team recently hosted our Finance and Investor Readiness event, helping Worcestershire businesses to understand the financial support available to them and how to best position their business for future investment. I’d like to say a huge thank you to our speakers from Ballards LLP and Mercia Ventures for their time and the wisdom and expertise imparted to support our local businesses. If you missed this event and are interested in the topics covered, then please make sure to engage with our team to see how your business could be supported. And sticking with the theme of events. It’s worth highlighting to businesses that there will be a range of new business support events becoming available from September. These events will continue to cover all the key business areas that you are feeding back to the team, as causes of concern or interest. Topics include workforce development, financial support and exporting, amongst others. You can stay on top of all of these events, plus others that are provided by local partners such as business expos and networking breakfasts via the Worcestershire Growth Hub’s Events calendar, which is available on our website.
Next up, I’d like to remind businesses that we’ve launched our new Workforce Planning Tool, which walks your business through the steps you need to follow to ensure your business is prepared for future challenges and skills gaps. Alongside this, we are also working with our schools and colleges to ensure that young people across the county are prepared for the workplace. To help us to do this, we need the thoughts and feedback of local businesses about the values and behaviours they want to see in the next generation. Links to both of these developments can be found within the newsletter.
And finally, a further plug for SkillsBoost Worcestershire. In partnership with local government, we are providing grant funding to businesses to help upscale existing employees, meaning you can improve your employee skills at reduced cost. SkillsBoost Worcestershire is available to access now. To find out more about the wide range of courses and qualifications that are on offer via our trusted network of education and training providers, and how to access the grant funding available now, please follow the link in the newsletter or contact the team.
There are plenty more updates within this August newsletter, and I hope you find something of value to your business as you browse through. If you’d like to access any of the support mentioned in the newsletter, please contact the Growth Hub team with the details on screen now to find out more. See you next time.
