Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to the August edition of our Worcestershire Growth Hub newsletter. Hopefully you’ve managed to get some well-deserved downtime during the summer or if you’re still about to go on leave, do enjoy it once you get there. As always, I’ve got a few updates to provide on behalf of the team.

Firstly our Professional Business Advisors Programme has returned for a fourth wave of delivery. This is a fantastic scheme which helps local businesses of any size to access expert advice across a range of key business topics.

This program is free to access and available now until March 2024. Visit our web page for more details on how to access the programme. And stay tuned for more updates about the scheme over the coming weeks.

Last month I made reference to a number of new co-working spaces popping up across the county. We have now built a co-working spaces landing page on our website, which showcases all of the available co-working spaces that we have in the county that we’re currently aware of, and those have been categorised by district geography.

We hope this resource will be of value, particularly to smaller businesses, pre-start or entrepreneurs that are looking for working space and, or to connect with like minded professionals. If you are aware of any co-working spaces missing from this page, please get in touch with us so that we can add them and we can continue to raise awareness about them.

Next up, I’d like to share a series of updates about support for businesses who are looking to recruit and, or upskill their staff. Working closely with our partners, the County Council and District Councils.

The Growth Hub will be delivering a programme of events in September and October around the world of skills and how businesses can better access the talent they need to grow and be successful. These events will cover topics such as workforce planning and inclusive hiring practices, including a particular focus on how businesses can embrace neurodiversity to enable support for all staff across their organisations.

You can find out all about these events and reserve a place via the events page on our website. Please follow the link in the newsletter.

Speaking of events, the Growth Hub will shortly be launching a new service, on our website, which will provide businesses with a single calendar of business events taking place across the county. This will bring together event information from across our partners and present it in one place, making it easier for you, the businesses and us as support organisations to see and learn about the upcoming business events that are of value to you.

This is another, albeit small, change we’re making to continue in our mission to provide useful information and support to our businesses.

Finally, on behalf of everyone here at the LEP, the Growth Hub and BetaDen, I’d just like to wish all young people, parents and carers the best of luck as we approach exam results time. Please be aware that there is a lot of support available for young people as they get their results and I’d encourage anyone interested to speak with the careers Worcestershire team who will be on hand to help with all things careers.

This again is a free support service delivered by the local Enterprise Partnership and the County Council. And again, contact details can be found within the newsletter. And with that, I’ll be signing off. Please enjoy the rest of August and let’s hope the Summer Sun manages to put in a belated appearance as we head towards September. We will have more business support news for you in September.

Please stay tuned.