Despite the rise of social media recruiting and AI tools,
traditional job boards are still playing a key role in connecting employers
with active job seekers.
The challenge isn’t reach – it’s managing application
quality. Clear, optimised job adverts, targeted placement, and multi-board
strategies can make a big difference in attracting the right candidates.
In our latest blog, we explore why traditional job boards
still matter and how to use them more strategically.
As a company based in West Norfolk and working on projects across the UK, joining the Chamber is an important step for us as we continue to grow our network and strengthen our connections within the regional business community.
The Chamber brings together businesses from across Norfolk, providing opportunities for collaboration and local economic development. By becoming a member we look forward to engaging with other organisations, building new relationships and supporting the continued growth of businesses across the county.
At CCN we deliver traffic management, groundworks and jetting services nationwide, supporting highways, utilities, commercial and domestic infrastructure projects. While our work takes us across the UK, Norfolk remains our home and we’re proud to be part of the local business landscape.
Becoming part of the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce allows us to stay connected with other businesses in the region while continuing to expand our services and partnerships nationally.
We look forward to meeting fellow members and contributing to the strong and supportive business community that the Chamber represents.
This was the question we explored on Tuesday 20th January at the Maid’s Head Hotel, there was a buzz around the room as Dean Pierpoint, Skills Director at the Norfolk Chambers of Commerce provided an explanation, using the employers voice gathered from our survey, into the complex skills system that has been developed and why a brokerage system could help businesses to navigate and help to simplify the system. Katy Dorman, Apprenticeship Strategy Manager for Apprenticeships Norfolk, followed up and explained how a brokerage system has brought success to Apprenticeships Norfolk.
Employers and training providers were made to earn their breakfast as roundtable discussions got underway. Engaging conversations were had throughout the room as 3 key questions were put forward and the 3 top answers:
What part of the brokerage service would make the biggest positive difference to your organisation?
Single point of contact & visibility of the service
Signposting and awareness of opportunities
Full-service knowledge e.g. grants, funding, sharing of knowledge and understanding of terminology
What barriers or challenges should the brokerage solve first to be genuinely useful for employers?
Lack of connectivity – available providers, flexibility, support
Understanding what the business really needs – more focus on upskilling
Collaboration between training providers
What does success look like for you if brokerage becomes fully operational?
People in learning, in the correct courses, with the correct output
A simple to navigate, understandable skills system
Focussed brokerage for specific industries – supported through the whole process
Employers are clear that brokerage only adds value if it simplifies an otherwise fragmented system. Guidance and support through the system are the biggest challenges that need to be addressed and a hub of individuals that understand what’s best for businesses and able to assign the best provision to the business. Ultimately the goal of brokerage would be to put people on appropriate courses for the individual and the business.
Cory Brothers Limited has been a trusted supply chain partner for businesses for over 180 years providing freight forwarding, project logistics, customs clearance, liner, and warehousing.
Head of Strategic Development Mike Bowden explains why they are a Keystone Employer in Suffolk:
What are the benefits of engaging with the Norfolk and Suffolk LSIP?
“At Cory we are committed to supporting young people who are considering a role in shipping. As a keystone employer and by engaging with the Norfolk and Suffolk LSIP at events and through one-to-one conversations, we are able to showcase what a rewarding career in shipping can be to the next generation of employees.”
What is the importance of the LSIP within the local skills Landscape?
”The most important thing is the ability to articulate the employer needs and creating a better alignment between the employer and educator. This will ensure that the workforce is better prepared for current and future job markets.”
What is the value of supporting skills within your workplace?
“One of the key values at Cory Brothers is developing our people. We believe in setting ambitious goals and constantly pushing our own limits, and encourage our team members to surpass themselves, explore new ideas, and innovate. Through this we create a positive and inspiring work environment where people can develop, collaborate, and enjoy what they do.”
Flagship Group – solving the housing crisis in the East of England.
Nadine Tapp Head of Group Academy tells us why the LSIP is important to them.
“As Chair of the Building Growth sector group, I’ve seen first-hand the difference a strong, responsive skills system can make. Working with the Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) has given me clearer insight into the skills landscape – and a platform to voice the real challenges employers like Flagship face”.
“At Flagship, we’ve always taken a hands-on approach to training and growing new talent. But partnering with the LSIP has helped sharpen that focus. It’s allowed us to raise concerns, highlight gaps, and work closer with local providers. A great example is our collaboration with one of our local colleges – a relationship that grew through this work and helped us win the LSIP Sponsored Large Employer Award at the Norfolk Apprenticeships Awards.”
“I’m also proud to contribute as a Keystone Employer for the LSIP, where I can bring a housing and construction perspective to the table and help shape a skills agenda that’s built around the needs of our sector and our places”.
PCE Automation provide bespoke solutions to global manufacturing challenges, and a Suffolk Keystone employer for the Norfolk and Suffolk LSIP.
Managing Director Shaun Wigley explains more:
What are the benefits of engaging with the Norfolk and Suffolk LSIP?
“PCE Automation actively contributes by participating in LSIP surveys and speaking at local events. This engagement has enabled us to share our experience collaborating with local colleges and apprenticeships, while gaining insight into how the LSIP is shaping the skills agenda for Suffolk”.
What is the importance of the LSIP within the local skills landscape?
“The LSIP plays a critical role by giving local businesses a voice to identify specific skills needs within our county and industry. This ensures that training programmes and qualifications are effectively tailored to meet the evolving requirements of the Suffolk economy”.
What is the value of supporting skills within your workplace?
“The future strength of our sector depends on developing talent internally. Through collaboration with educators, trainers, and businesses, the Norfolk and Suffolk LSIP helps maintain a steady pipeline of skilled individuals, safeguarding the sustainability and growth of our industry”.
Norfolk Chamber is holding a breakfast event with Norfolk County Council, on 26 November at Norwich City Football Club, which will look at the fast moving developments in transport. The breakfast is aimed at business leaders and CEOs from businesses across Norfolk who are interested in hearing about travel and transport developments in and around Norwich, in particular the impact and benefits of the Norwich Northern Distributor Road and its place in the wider ‘Transport for Norwich’ strategy.
Investment in the Norwich Northern Distributor Road (NDR) will help unlock thousands of jobs and support the development of up to 10,000 new homes. It will open up access to Norwich International Airport, large areas of Broadland and North Norfolk and business areas in the north-east sector of Norwich.Preliminary work will have started, ahead of main construction around March next year.
The NDR also enables progress on a number of other transport initiatives that come under the Transport for Norwich banner, including the latest city centre changes, further cycle route developments and Bus Rapid Transit.
Recently there has been a lot in the press about the delays in the start of the NDR. The Wensum Valley Alliance recently announced that it had launched a legal challenge to Norfolk County Council’s decision over funding for the NDR. Their claim being that the County Council meeting – where the Council agreed to put forward £10m towards the £30m funding gap, after the cost of the road escalated – was unlawful.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has issued a series of what it describes as provocative articles “challenging the cosy Westminster consensus” on a range of business and economic issues, including exports and trade.
The articles seek to undermine a range of myths that have taken hold in Westminster and Whitehall in areas including debt, productivity, bank finance, education, infrastructure, inward investment, the EU, energy, broadband and exports.
With regard to the last of these topics, the BCC tells Prime Minister David Cameron that his ambition to double UK exports to £1 trillion by 2020 will miss its target – by 14 years.
“Put simply,” it argues, “while Government support may have helped individual businesses succeed over the years, it has failed to move the dial on exports overall.”
Pointing to the fall in the UK’s share of world exports (now down to 3%) and the continuing increase in the trade deficit, the BCC makes clear that export support to date is not working.
British businesses simply do not perform as well in terms of exporting as their French and German counterparts. Of the five million companies in the UK, only one in five are exporters – compared with one in four in Germany.
Government should be focusing its activities on helping to open up markets for British business, the BCC recommends, and leave business-to-business trade promotion Activities to the private sector.
It also highlights that UK export growth will not happen without action closer to home: addressing infrastructure deficiencies and the skills gaps and ensuring that businesses of all sizes have the access to finance that they need.
GDP grew by 0.5% in Q3 2015, compared with growth of 0.7% in Q2
Services output increased by 0.7% on the quarter, production grew by 0.3%, but construction output plunged by 2.2%
Commenting on the preliminary UK GDP figures for Q3 2015, issued yesterday by the ONS, David Kern, Chief Economist at the British Chambers of Commerce,said:
“The main reason for the slowdown was the sharp fall in construction, a sector which is traditionally volatile and erratic. However, our strong services sector continues to keep the recovery on track.
“Our economic growth remains unbalanced. Although total production is slightly up, expansion in the extractive industries masked a further 0.3% decline in manufacturing output. The trade deficit also widened in this quarter, and we are still heavily reliant on consumer spending.
“Nevertheless, it is good news that real GDP is now 6.4% higher than the pre-recession peak in early 2008. What we need now is further measures to boost growth to support the recovery, with particular emphasis on exports and infrastructure investments. Fixing the fundamentals will place the economy on a surer footing.”
The British Chambers of Commerce Q4 quarterly economic survey (QES) is currently underway. As part of that survey, the Chambers are trying to understand just how much the business community is aware of the recent proposals for a new settlement for the UK within a reformed European Union.
David Cameron formally set out his demandsin a letter to the presidentof the European Council Donald Tusk on 10 November, stating that four objectives lie at the heart of the UK’s renegotiations:
Protection of the single market for Britain and other non-euro countries
Boosting competitiveness by setting a target for the reduction of the “burden” of red tape
Exempting Britain from “ever-closer union” and bolstering national parliaments
Restricting EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits such as tax credits
Mr Cameron hit back at claims by former Tory chancellor Lord Lawson that the four goals were “disappointingly unambitious”, saying they reflected what the British people wanted and would be “good for Britain and good for the European Union”. The Prime Minister also said: “It is mission possible and it is going to take a lot of hard work to get there.”
Responding to Ofsted’s stark report on the state of apprenticeships in the UK, Caroline Williams, Chief Executive of Norfolk Chamber said:
“Businesses know that good apprenticeships can help bridge the gap between education and work. The overriding priority has to be delivering high standards, with training providers accountable for the long-term results they deliver. Otherwise, far too many apprenticeship schemes may fail to equip much-needed employees with the skills they need to succeed.”
Dr Adam Marshall, Executive Director of Policy and External Affairs at the British Chambers of Commerce, said:
“Businesses have been concerned about the direction of apprenticeships ever since politicians decided to prioritise big numerical targets over long-term results. Sir Michael Wilshaw is right to challenge the status quo. A conveyor-belt model, focused solely on hitting the government’s target of 3 million new apprenticeships, would be detrimental to quality – and weaken hard-won efforts to boost the reputation and profile of apprenticeships amongst employers.”