Norfolk County Council is looking at how we can support businesses in Norfolk to help ensure their workforces have the skills needed to take advantage of the digital revolution.
Please help by filling in this short survey (open until 21 July 2019).
The survey is completely anonymous and will take just five minutes to complete.
The answers will help us understand more about business needs in the county.
A ground-breaking flexible working initiative from Chartered Accountants, MHA Larking Gowen, has this month received national recognition from Working Families – an organisation encouraging flexible and employee-friendly work places across the UK.Named national winners of the Working Families Best Practice Award for Best Flexible Working, the award establishes the East Anglian-based accountancy and business advisory group at the forefront of new thinking on the relationship between employers, employees, and their work.
“We are proud to have won the Working Families Best Practice Award for Best Flexible Working initiative”, says Amanda Ninham, Head of HR at MHA Larking Gowen who, along with her team and a pilot group, developed the programme, “the ability to flex around our people’s daily demands supports our wellbeing commitment, and we’re delighted that our approach is recognised as best practice in the UK.” The company’s flexible working initiative, which included an office redesign to incorporate quiet space, hot desks, and collaborative working space, was developed through consultation with the pilot group, and followed a successful trial. “Over a third of our employees now work flexibly,” continues Amanda Ninham, “employee surveys show greater levels of happiness and engagement. Agile working options include flexitime, compressed, part-time and annualised hours, term-time working, remote working, and alternative office spaces.”
Amanda Ninham says that the benefits to both our people and the business have been profound. “employee sickness and unplanned absences have dropped, so has the need for costly overtime and time-off-in-lieu, and benefits have been seen in an increase to chargeable time. We encourage teams to meet once a month, use internet and Bluetooth technology to support communication between team members, and have a social fund to develop stronger team bonds. In addition, we continue to get positive feedback from clients, as well as new recruits,” she concludes.
Emma Arthurton, a manager at MHA Larking Gowen, is one of the employees to benefit from the award-winning approach. “I work part-time annualised hours, so instead of worrying about hitting a set number of hours a week I have an annual target and can decide my working pattern. Generally, I work term-time and have school holidays off. It takes careful planning to ensure I can still meet clients’ needs and I make sure it works. This is the most important part of my employment. It’s worth far more to me than money.”
“I congratulate MHA Larking Gowen, and all the winners of this year’s Best Practice Awards,” says Jane van Zyl, Chief Executive of Working Families, “We applaud all the employers recognised for taking creative approaches to embedding flexibility, building supportive cultures, and listening to and learning from their employees.”
Abate Pest Management has just recruited its 7th Service Technician to support its continued growth.
Danny Trowsdale, a highly trained pest technician with many years’ experience working with National companies, joins the team. Danny will be working in the Norwich area providing preventative and reactive pest control for businesses and domestic customers. This new recruit takes the number of service technicians to seven in the Eastern region, plus the Operations Manager/Field Surveyor and administrative support.
Earlier this year Abate celebrated 20 years in business and won the Small Company of the Year at the British Pest Management Awards held in London. Following this, they were welcomed into the Future50, which is an exciting business growth programme designed to recognise Norfolk and Suffolk’s most innovative companies
Jon Blake, Managing Director of Abate said “It’s great to be in a position to expand the team. We are extremely busy implementing new contracts and discussing new enquiries. We are also very fortunate in our ability to supply pest control services at required BRC standards to the food production industry. We are now coming into the busy summer months, so we are now in an ideal position to handle any peaks. We have also just started a recruitment campaign in Essex to expand this area and we continue to focus on our franchising operations.”
If you need any support with pest control, give Abate Pest management a call on 0800 980 9767 or visit https://www.abatepestmanagement.co.uk
Tuesday 20th May 2014 – New improved taxi facilities at Norwich Airport
Norwich Airport Taxi Association (NATA) has recently agreed a new contract extension with Norwich International Airport for the provision of taxi services to passengers. The new agreement will see enhanced passenger benefits including newer vehicles with no taxi over seven years old, additional executive cars and a new taxi booking office. All NATA staff will be easily recognizable thanks to their new corporate uniform.
The new taxi booking office has been opened in the arrivals meet and greet area of the terminal building and incorporates a comfortable waiting area. Any passengers using NATA as their means of transport from the airport will be welcomed and assisted by a dedicated taxi marshal who will escort them to their taxi which will pull up immediately outside the terminal exit doors.
NATA was formed in 1988 to provide a dedicated taxi service for the passenger terminal at Norwich International Airport and are the only approved taxi provider based at the airport. For more information please visit www.norwichairporttaxis.com, email [email protected] or call 01603 424044.
Colin McAulay, Office Manager for NATA commented “We are delighted to have worked closely with the airport to agree a new contract extension and as part of this agreement we have taken steps to enhance the customer experience. This includes the installation of our new taxi booking office within the airport which provides a comfortable waiting area, new staff uniforms and name badges. In addition the fleet of vehicles is set to be modernized providing a range of vehicles available for private hire.
Staff of Risk & Policy Analysts Ltd (RPA) based in Loddon and London were delighted to be part of the UK Employee Ownership Day (EO Day), run by the Employee Ownership Association (EOA), on Friday 28th June 2019.
RPA are taking part in the campaign to highlight the impact of employee owned businesses on individuals and the community, following their recent transition to being an employee owned business (April 2019). Employees at RPA want to share their experiences and engage with the broader employee owned business community to learn, develop and maximise the advantages of employee ownership.
To celebrate EO Day, on Tuesday 25th June, RPA came together in our Loddon and London offices, with Independent Trustee Alan Jennison, to share our experiences of employee ownership since our transition in April and to discuss the future, over tea and cake. Panos Zarogiannis, who has worked for RPA for over 20 years and became a Director at transition, led the celebrations with a personal overview of what the transition has meant to him and what he hopes it means for the future.
Local Loddon based cafe Spoon Cake made the bespoke cake for the Loddon team. In London the team shared their cake with a special guest, office dog Remy!
Formed in 1990 and employing over 30 staff, the UK and European policy consultancy, who are an EDP Future 50 2019 member, is proud to celebrate employee ownership alongside others in the sector, as Matthew Lambert, Managing Director, explains:
“We transitioned to be an employee owned business in April and so it is still relatively new for us as a company. EO Day gives an opportunity to come together to reflect on how far we have come and how far we would like to go. The co-owners have already started to discuss how we want to celebrate EO Day 2020!”
Deb Oxley, CEO for the Employee Ownership Association, said:
“Companies such as RPA are great examples of the economic and social benefits that can be achieved in an employee owned environment. This is why we celebrate the impacts of employee ownership on the individual, the business and the communities in which they are based.
The EOA is proud to lead the sector-wide celebrations of employee ownership on EO Day 2019, as part of our activity to raise awareness and support the growth and impact of employee ownership in the UK.”
Specialised Management Services Ltd (SMS), a subsidiary of Alderley plc, announces today three new appointments to its Board of Directors. These appointments have been created to provide additional strategic direction to the company’s infrastructure and growth; ultimately ensuring the continual delivery of technical excellence for all products and services for the oil and gas industry.
First appointed was Dave Howlett as Managing Director, former General Manager of SMS. Dave has over 20 years of combined Project Engineering and Management experience in both electrical and hydraulic disciplines and has served almost 10 years with the company. His broad knowledge of the business and the oil and gas industry provides Dave with the fundamental tools to drive SMS to achieve future accomplishments and continual success.
Liz Culyer has been made Operations Director after serving six and a half years as Proposals Manager for SMS. Liz was instrumental to the growth of the proposals and sales department and played an integral role in the execution and delivery of SMS products. As Operations Director, Liz will oversee all projects, production, operations and supply chain activities. Her influence is expected to reinforce the structure and streamline business activities ready for the next phase of development.
Gary Morrow, former Sales Manager for SMS has been appointed Business Development Director. Gary will focus on business opportunities worldwide across all SMS products and services and will also concentrate on marketing activities to ensure alignment with the company’s strategic and business objectives.
Tony Mansfield, Director of Alderley plc and Chairman of SMS comments, “I look forward to capitalising on the collective knowledge and experience of Dave, Liz and Gary. Alderley expect SMS to continue to meet profit and growth targets. The Board will be essential in shaping the strategic objectives to meet these.”
SMS recently celebrated its 15th year in business as a leading specialist in the manufacture and maintenance/installation services of hydraulic, pneumatic and electrical control systems. SMS has seen a high rate of business growth and has more than doubled its turnover in the last three years.
The TaxAssist Training Academy helps to keep franchisees and their staff one step ahead of the competition. A series of recent masterclasses which saw some of the leading franchisees sharing best practice proved a real hit for the network
TaxAssist Accountants provides regular training, update days and has expanded this year its masterclasses to its network of franchisees which are proving to be very popular.
James Mattam, Group Business Development Manager, said: “We’ve always enjoyed the Masterclass sessions each year with our franchise network which sees a panel of six leading franchisees share their real-world experiences surrounding all manner of areas of running and growing their accountancy practices.
“One of the recent masterclasses centred around ensuring our network provides the best service to clients at the right pricing point, creating value for each accounting practice. The feedback we received from the day was overwhelmingly positive.”
Walthamstow-based franchisee Nadeem Iqbal said: “It was a privilege to be a part of the ‘expert’ panel for fellow TaxAssist Accountants. What collective wisdom across the participants! I have many takeaways from the session. A big ‘thank you’ to Directors Daren Moore, Sarah Robertson and James Mattam for arranging this series of masterclasses.”
Umer Farooq, Luton-based franchisee, commented: “It was great listening to the different views of successful franchisees. I have taken note of a number of improvement points to implement in my practice.”
While Oxford-based David Lushington said: “The TaxAssist masterclasses are a brilliant way to find out about best practice within the network and are also a great opportunity for networking with other franchisees. They are just one of the many benefits of being a part of a successful franchised network.”
The TaxAssist Training Academy provides a comprehensive range of ongoing technical and business training courses on a regional basis on subjects as diverse as practice management, social media, multi-site strategy, data security and succession planning.
To find out more about the benefits of being a part of the TaxAssist Accountants network, please call Nikki Haythorne on 0800 0188297.
Allergens are now back in the news and customers are becoming immensely interested, particularly allergen sufferers. To a customer this could be a matter of life or death. We also know that you are only as good as your staff and their service. Can you ask yourself…”do I or my staff understand and are aware of the 14 Allergens and follow a robust procedure to ensure your customers safety?”. This includes anyone that handles the food, from the chef to the front of house. Let us help you, inform and educate your staff. BUY TWO GET THE THIRD FREE! (offer only relates to this course and date) We have a course in Spalding on the 26th June at an offer of £50 per person (buy two and get the third free!), to help build knowledge and to ask any questions that you may have to our expert tutor. Level 2 Food Allergen Awareness and Control in Catering Award covers: • Food allergens and food commonly causing intolerance’s. • Characteristics and effects of allergens. • The importance of effectively communicating information regarding allergenic ingredients to customers. • How Staff can minimise the risk of cross-contamination from allergenic ingredients. To book now www.ehtc.co.uk/level2foodallergen, spaces are limited and come on a first come, first served basis. However we do offer courses throughout the year. Please contact the team if you are looking for further dates. If you have any questions, need advice or want to speak to our of our experts, please don’t hesitate to get in touch on 0800 689 3512 or email [email protected]
Results-focused agency Full Mix Marketing is marking globe-trotting marketer Sally Baines’ first year as Marketing Executive within their growing team.
Sally joined the Norwich-based marketing agency in June 2018 following a career break to raise her young family. She returned to her native Norfolk with 13 years’ international marketing experience working for big name brands including Bell in Canada, NBC in Australia and Reed in London.
“It’s been a fantastic first year” states Sally. “I’ve been fortunate to find a job where my experience really counts. I was looking for a role that was challenging and varied, working with a lovely bunch of people. It’s great to be in an environment where everyone is so focused on doing a great job.”
Former marketing communications graduate Sally has cemented her position within the agency’s team as a skilled marketer and effective coordinator. As well as delivering social media, direct marketing and website development, her role has grown to include account management and helping prioritise work for her fellow marketers, digital experts, copywriters and designers.
“Sally has been a pivotal addition to our team” says Sarah West, Managing Director. “With her experience comes great organisation skills and a real talent for understanding what clients need. She’s a great communicator and helps everyone stay on top as our client list continues to grow.”
Sally has become an account manager for a number of new clients, acting as their primary point of contact. As well as coordinating efforts, she contributes to key marketing delivery and identifies fresh opportunities for the businesses she works with.
“Everyone in the team is so keen to help both clients and Full Mix Marketing grow. It makes for an exciting environment!” states Sally. “There is genuine buzz when a client tells us about a particular success from marketing we’ve delivered. I really enjoy the variety of clients we work with.”
Sally’s performance within the seven-strong team has led to the announcement of her promotion to Senior Marketing Executive.
“Sally is fantastic at keeping on top of our growing workload” continues Sarah. “As a business owner, it never easy to entrust others with your clients but Sally absolutely shares our passion, purpose and professionalism. She really understands the businesses we work with and helps everyone feel organised and able to do a great job.”
Full Mix Marketing is a results-focused agency, providing all the strategic, digital and creative marketing businesses need to grow. Whether delivering an individual element or entire marketing strategy, they’ve quickly gained a reputation for being trusted by businesses to deliver the results they need.
More details on Full Mix Marketing can be found at www.fullmixmarketing.co.uk
Cloud, connectivity and data centre experts MIGSOLV have announced a new solution with partners blocz IO to help organisations unify their data with VMware.
US software leaders VMware provide a suite of products which help businesses create a common operating environment across on-premises, private cloud and public cloud services. With their partners blocz IO now members of the VMware Cloud Provider Program, MIGSOLV are offering VMware to support their ultra-secure colocation and cloud environments.
“Many businesses are seeking hybrid networks to provide the right environment for their data” states David Manning, Managing Director of MIGSOLV. “With our colleagues at blocz IO, we can now blend colocation and private cloud in our world-class data centre, with on-premises and public cloud, to create the perfect IT eco-system for any organisation.”
VMware allows MIGSOLV and blocz IO to consolidate on-site IT infrastructure and data centre colocation with native and public cloud to create a single virtual environment. For businesses with complex or legacy infrastructure, it can help rationalise their IT, facilitate better protection and improve flexibility. It enables organisations to run applications across clouds and devices, while maintaining consistent operations.
“We’re thrilled to have joined the VMware Cloud Provider program,” states Lee Norvall, CEO of blocz IO. “Working with VMware software will increase MIGSOLV’s and our own ability to provide robust, dynamic and agile cloud solutions for growing and established businesses.”
MIGSOLV deliver East Anglia’s only purpose-built commercial data centre, renowned for providing world-class levels of protection, connectivity and support. As well as the colocation of organisation’s existing IT, 2018 saw MIGSOLV launch a unique private cloud solution which helps businesses improve protection and avoid high costs associated with mainstream cloud services.
“VMware is another next-generation solution from MIGSOLV for protecting, connecting and managing business’ IT and data” adds David. “It’s a further move away from prescriptive answers towards the flexible and scalable solutions our clients have come to really value from us.”
MIGSOLV initially partnered with blocz IO to create a fully-encrypted stand-alone backup for organisation’s critical data, housed in their data centre. This next step offers businesses higher flexibility and security, while enabling increased IT agility. MIGSOLV also provide solutions for enterprise-level cyber security and enhanced connectivity.
For more details visit www.migsolv.com
Hatch Brenner Solicitors and Norwich Theatre Royal have confirmed their continued partnership with the announcement of two new Season Sponsorships for the newly released 2020 programme.
The first is Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, which will be in Norwich from Tuesday 18 – Saturday 22 February 2020. The Red Shoes is a tale of obsession, possession and one girl’s dream to be the greatest dancer in the world. Victoria Page lives to dance but her ambitions become a battleground between the two men who inspire her passion. Matthew Bourne’s triumphant adaptation of the legendary film returns to Norwich after winning two Olivier Awards and dazzling audiences across the UK and the USA. The production boasts music by golden-age Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann, orchestrated by Terry Davies, with cinematic designs by Lez Brotherston, lighting by Paule Constable and sound by Paul Groothuis.
The second production is worldwide smash hit musical by Queen and Ben Elton We Will Rock You, which will play in Norwich from Monday 4 -Saturday 9 May 2020. The show offers the scale and spectacle that marked the band’s legendary live performances, with more than 16 million theatre goers in 19 countries having been thrilled by this awe-inspiring production since 2002.
‘A kind of magic. Spectacular. Magnifico!’ The Sun
‘An unmissable event and a sumptuous piece of musical theatre. The Show Must Go On, and on’ Capital Radio
‘Exhilarating and great fun’ Time Magazine
The production features Queen’s biggest hits including We Are The Champions, I Want To Break Free, Don’t Stop Me Now, Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites The Dust and, of course, We Will Rock You. A musical phenomenon not to be missed!
These productions are in the latest brochure released by the Theatre, and will be on sale to the public from Tuesday 2 July 2019.
Dawn Parkes, Managing Partner and Private Client Expert at Hatch Brenner commented: “We are delighted to announce these two new productions to take our partnership with Norwich Theatre Royal into 2020. We have evolved our relationship with our Theatre Street neighbours over time, as demonstrated by the widening of the productions we are involved with from purely dramas, to a wider ‘Season’ sponsorship involving dance and musicals. In particular I can’t wait to see The Red Shoes with our guests from the business community. Matthew Bourne’s productions are consistently fabulous and it is very exciting to see The Red Shoes return to Norwich.”
More details about both productions can be found at www.theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk
Our Summer Programme which we are running week commencing 19th August, to allow young people to come into our centre and try out some of the activities we offer.
For more information, or to book your place, please email admin@st-eds,org.uk or call 01603 622035′
Click below for full size poster