Since 1st August 2016, the administration of the Apprenticeship Age Grant has beed devolved to the NEW ANGLIA LEP resulting in some significant changes for the benefit of employesr and apprentices.

Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE) of 16 to 24 year olds in Norfolk and Suffolk supports businesses that would not otherwise be in a position to support individuals aged 16 to 24 into employment through the Apprenticeship programme. The following information is relevant to employers starting an apprentice from August 2016 in a business with a postcode within Norfolk or Suffolk. For businesses outside of this area should refer to www.gov.uk for details of the national AGE scheme or contact their training provider.

The scheme is being administered by Norfolk County Council on behalf of both counties. The grant will be offered to those employers who are eligible and such employers may receive up to 5 grants in any one-year period. The value of each grant is as follows:

• £2000 for each apprentice who is aged 16 to 18 at the time they start their Apprenticeship;
• £1500 for each apprentice who is aged 19 to 24 at the time they start their Apprenticeship.

The grant will be paid as a lump sum direct to the employers nominated bank account, once the apprentice has completed 10 weeks on the Apprenticeship programme and the necessary paperwork has been received: see “How do employers apply”? below.

So, which Employers are eligible? To be eligible employers must

• Have fewer than 250 employees in total;
• Start a new employee on an Apprenticeship or place an existing employee on an Apprenticeship programme on or after the 1 August 2016;
• Commit to continuously employ that apprentice for a minimum of 12 months or as long as it takes them to complete the Apprenticeship;
• Confirm that they are aware of and do not breach any state aid rules by receiving the grant;
• Agree to pay the apprentice in line with legal minimum requirements or more;
• Ensure that the apprenticeship is delivered by a training organisation that is funded by the Government to deliver Apprenticeship Frameworks.

For the purposes of this grant, the start date for the Apprenticeship is taken to be the date at which the Employer, Learner and Training Provider sign the Apprenticeship Agreement

Which apprentices qualify? To qualify, an apprentice must be:

• Aged 16 to 24 at the start date of their Apprenticeship
• Enrolled on an Apprenticeship Framework. (Starts on Apprenticeship Standards are not eligible)
• Be working with an employer based in Norfolk or Suffolk
• Eligible for Apprenticeship funding from the Skills Funding Agency
• Eligible to work in England
• Be starting a new Apprenticeship framework or progressing from a lower level onto an Advanced or Higher Level Apprenticeship

How do employers apply? Employers in Norfolk or Suffolk, once they have selected an Apprentice and the start date has been agreed, should go to www.apprenticeshipsnorfolk.org/agegrant and complete an online application form for AGE. The following details will be required:

• Name of Business
• Name of the Apprentice*
• Apprentice Date of Birth*
• Name of Training Provider or College delivering the training.
• Address of Business where the apprentice will be employed
• Telephone Number
• Name of contact within business
• Email address
• Bank Details (into which payments are to be made)

*Employers must seek permission from the apprentice to share these details with Norfolk County Council for the sole purpose of claiming the grant before submitting an application. It is recommended that this permission be obtained in writing.

Once the first stage of the application is completed, a password should be created which will allow login to the site after 10 weeks. The online system will issue a reminder to employers after 10 weeks to remind them to provide documentary evidence that the apprentice is still employed and in learning. This should be provided electronically by the training provider or college and can take the form of a progress review or a record of support or assessment. This must be signed by the employer, apprentice and the College or Training Provider representative. Once we have checked this document and verified the claim, the authority will make payment to the nominated bank account within 28 days. If there are any queries or issues, the authority will be in contact by telephone or by email to ask for clarifying information.

This payment is in the form of a grant and therefore it is exempt from VAT.

Employers should note that if the apprentice leaves or is not in learning after 10 weeks, eligibility for any proportion of the grant will lapse.

Employers who have already received a grant for an apprentice under this scheme and who apply for a further grant (maximum of 5) will be asked to provide evidence that the original apprentice is still employed on an Apprenticeship or has completed their qualification in full. If this is not the case, we reserve the right to withhold or refuse to pay any further grant.

Next Steps Employers looking to recruit a new member of staff then visit www.apprenticeshipsnorfolk.org and choose “Employ an Apprentice”.

When the apprentice has been recruited and the college or training provider has completed the paperwork, the employer should visit www.apprenticeshipsnorfolk.org/agegrant and complete the application. After 10 weeks, upload the required evidence and receive the money within 28 days of the claim being verified. Note: Most Colleges and Training Providers provide a free service to help employers to recruit an apprentice.

Training providers will be able and happy to offer assistance with the process, recruiting an apprentice and making sure that he/she is on the correct Apprenticeship qualification. Alternatively, contact Apprenticeships Norfolk/Apprenticeships Suffolk on 0344 8008024 or [email protected].

When starting a new business venture, a key success factor to establish is your value proposition. It’s also helpful for existing business owners to revisit their value proposition from time to time to help continued business growth.

But what is a value proposition, and how should you go about writing one?

What is a value proposition?

In short, a value proposition is a promise by a company to a customer. It explains:

• what benefits your company provides
• who you provide those benefits for
• how you do it uniquely well.

Your value proposition should be focused on delivering unique and sustainable value to your ideal customer.

Why do you need a value proposition?

As an internal tool, a value proposition helps make sure employees and management are aligned by understanding the benefit the company is trying to deliver. It helps everyone focus on the aspects of the business that make the biggest difference. A strong value proposition can therefore help you avoid wasting time, money and energy.

The right value proposition reveals the connection between your products and your potential customers’ goals. Being clear on that will give you the confidence and clarity you need for continued development and innovation of your products and business processes whilst maintaining profit. It should also give you the basic wording for your marketing messages, focusing on the few things that make the biggest difference.

How to write a good value proposition

Before writing your value proposition, you need to be absolutely clear on why a customer should buy from you. You should have a clear understanding and commitment that your product or service will add value to a target audience. Thinking about the following might help:

• Customer Needs and Insights:Are you able to solve problems, reduce costs or increase sales?
• Added Value:Are you able to add value to your customer?
• Unique Selling Point:Is your product or service innovative or are you able to offer a point of differentiation over your competitor?
• Proof:Can you create trust and quantify the benefits so that the customer believes you?
• Customer satisfaction:How are you going to exceed expectations?

Alongside this, make sure you consider all the risks in your business and be realistic with your financial expectations. Return on investment must always be at the forefront, but do not forget the importance of cash flow and the resource time required to administer. However creative you may be, I strongly recommend that you formalise a project plan or sales forecast before you get too far down the road. Key milestones and the introduction of measures will help ensure that you stay on track or adjust to compensate for any deviations caused by obstacles.

Once you’re confident that you have a product or service people want, and is financially sustainable, it’s time to write your value proposition.

When writing your value proposition it’s important to remember that it’s for people to quickly read and understand. So keep it clear and concise and avoid jargon. Try to use the type of language your customers use. You need to address:

• What is it you’re offering?
• Who is it for?
• What problem does it solve?
• How is it useful? What is its key problem-solving capability?
• How is it unique?

Structure-wise, aim for a strong headline that grabs attention, and one short paragraph to explain what you do, for whom and why it’s useful. You may also have a sub-heading, three bullet points or a visual. There’s no set format, just keep it focused.

How to use your value proposition

Having a great value proposition isn’t enough. You need to use it!

Firstly, make sure everyone within the business knows what it is. Then use it to target the customers who will benefit most from your product or service.

Make sure your customers can see it. If it’s carefully considered and well written, put it front and centre on your website homepage – it should help potential customers quickly understand why they should use your company.

You may find that you need one value proposition for your business and then a series of propositions for individual product lines. That’s fine, just apply the same logic to each.

On Monday 19th June, our Junior Software Developer, and I attended the inaugural Norfolk Cyber Security Cluster meeting. The cluster has been set up by David Higgins, an award winning Cyber Security consultant, to encourage cyber security knowledge, skills and capabilities for businesses within Norfolk. We heard from three different speakers taking us through the risks, what’s going on inside the mind of a hacker, and the one that I found most fascinating being Telephone System Network Security Consideration, known as the “forgotten backdoor into your computer network.” When I think of Cyber Crime I think of phishing, ransomware and things such as credit card fraud. Well actually the biggest one that I’m sure we all are aware of isn’t necessarily at the forefront of our mind when protecting our data is your telephone system. It’s also greater than credit card fraud too. Paul Marriott from Eastern voice and data talked us through: “It is believed that telephone fraud is costing in excess of £1.5 billion a year.” What’s making your business vulnerable to telephone hacking?

• Leaving your security access passwords in default mode, eg. “0000”. Did you even known you had a security access password? If you didn’t then you need to change your password from
• default – and sooner rather than later.
• Routers can be incorrectly installed
• Leaving open vulnerable ports
• Major network providing installing fibre lines but haven’t actually locked down your router

Soft targets – These are users with high staff turnover. Information isn’t communicated and passed down between new members of staff meaning telephone information can be unknown to many employees. The steps to take to prevent telephone hacking:

• Select your supplier carefully – do your research! You can find reliable suppliers on crown commercial website
• Review your current setup
• Set up call barring
• Passwords regularly changed
• Deploy pin access
• Find out if you have fraud protection on your lines and find out why if you don’t?
• Look at your phone bill to see what’s going on! You would look at your card bill, wouldn’t you?

TIP: Be careful of telephone numbers beginning with “079”, you can incur connection charges for around a minimum of £20.00 before any conversations take place. Some people are using these numbers to call you and enquire, asking you to phone back. To ensure maximum security:

• Gamma Horizon Clouse Base System

The most secure phone system, a cloud based solution will provide high level security at network level, ensuring abnormal activity can be detected and stopped.

• Secure SIP (session integration protocol)

A different type of channel (phone line) and is more secure. There are plenty of points to take away from this to prevent your company from phone fraud. If anything, I really suggest you make sure security password isn’t on default, and to find out if you have fraud protection on your lines! David’s next event will take place on Monday 17th July on the topic of “GDPR – Compliance for SME’s & Security for Cloud Computing.” Click the below link for details: https://www.norfolkcyber.net/cluster-meetings/gdpr-compliance-for-smes-security-for-cloud-computing-34161081715/

Another Summer comes and the annual Lunch on the Green event took place at Clapham & Collinge Solicitors on Wednesday 12th July 2017. The event was sponsored by Break, an amazing local charity of ours, who provide a range of residential and community based services for vulnerable young people and families across East Anglia. Lunch on the green is such a fab event from start to finish, from being greeted with a cupcake by the helpful and happy faces of Clapham & Collinge, to walking on the red carpet with a glass of wine in your hand. It was great to see some familiar faces such as Lorna from Thrive, Chris from GGS, Michael and Aaron from All Is Flux and of course the lovely Jill from The Space. We also enjoyed talking to The Norfolk & Norwich Association for The Blind (NNAB), hearing about the innovative events they are arranging to raise funds for local blind children. There were lots and lots going on including some pretend money for a game of roulette, a shakespeare quiz by the lovely Sheringham Theatre, spinning the wheel on The Feed‘s stand for some Kettle Chips and discounts and lots of opportunities to win hampers and champagne. It was really cool to see a lot of Tech being used at the event. We took along with us Jacek Lipinski, a sixth form student with us this week for his work experience. Jacek is studying coding and has an interest in tech and software, so it was great to see him getting involved on Sim-fly‘s flying experience and having a close up look at Barclays 3D Printer. When also taking part in Face 2 Face Finance‘s counting money in the piggy jar, rather than writing our names down, we were refreshed to see they had their ipads at the ready, and an email sent to us to confirm our guess! It was also really cool to see Customised UK with their super big smart TV.  Overall we enjoyed a catch up with some great people, making some meaningful new connections, seeing a cool lamborghini, lots of entertainment, delicious food and sunshine, a fantastic day organised by Clapham & Collinge.

Failed deadline? Compassion, isn’t that letting yourself off the hook?

So welcome again to my blog. Firstly, just to say a big ‘well done’ to everyone that took part in activities for Mental Health Week in May. It was great to see the work that is being done to raise the profile of mental health issues and let’s keep this on the agenda for 2017.

Apologies for anyone who was interested to hear my thoughts on coping with exam pressure. The phrase of ‘I think I missed the boat’ comes to mind but I do hope that you checked out BBC Bitesize, which provides practical and supportive information for young people via their website.

The topic for my blog this month is ‘How do you cope with situations where you don’t meet deadlines, or perform below expectation?’ Do you criticise yourself, perhaps even saying that you have failed or are in fact a failure, or do you adopt a more compassionate approach to yourself?

“Compassion“, I hear you say, “isn’t that just letting yourself off the hook and condoning poor performance?” Believe it or not, it isn’t! As a therapist, I routinely incorporate compassion focused techniques into my work when it becomes apparent that self-criticism, high expectation of self or others or difficulties coping with emotions are part of what maintains a client’s distress. Therapy sessions help clients to understand and develop the skills of compassion, helping them to develop a more compassionate way of talking to themselves and acting when life is tough and doesn’t go to plan.

For me, the first step is to help clients to recognise their tendency to having self-critical thoughts. What situations trigger them and what do they say? I often refer to this as the ‘monster’ or ‘poisoned parrot’ that sits on your shoulder giving you a running commentary of your faults and things to be afraid of. How does this monster sound? How do you feel when you listen to it? How do you respond to it? Does your monster remind you of events or people in your life that have been critical or not particularly nurturing? The reality is yes, that our past life experiences and social relationships will have affected our brains and our ability to be compassionate towards ourselves and others. 

So can we change things? Yes, with a desire to want to, hard work and perseverance. It involves understanding what it means to be compassionate and developing some of the qualities of compassion such as empathy, sympathy, forgiveness, acceptance and tolerance, developing feelings of warmth and taking responsibility for our actions.

Compassion focused therapy involves many stages but a useful tool, that I often use with clients, is to consider the idea of a compassionate image.  If you could develop a compassionate image, of someone or something that is non-judgemental, warm, wise and has strength, that you could relate to when life is tough, what would this look like? Would they be male, female or even an animal? How would they sound? How would they talk to you and relate to you? If they could hear you being critical of yourself what would they say?

Remember a truly compassionate image or friend is kind and understanding, not dismissive or critical, but also tells you how it is. They help you to acknowledge when you have not achieved things, consider why this is so and help you to take actions to improve your situation. They recognise that we are humans and as such behave as humans, having emotions and making mistakes. They recognise that whilst it’s human instinct to sometimes want to avoid difficult situations, they know that this only makes things worse and they motivate us not only to take action, but also to take responsibility for our actions. 

In learning to be compassionate to ourselves we might also want to look at how compassionate we are to others in our life. How do you respond to others when they are in distress, make mistakes or perform badly?  How might your new compassionate image respond to others if they were guiding you?  

As a therapist and mother with teenagers, I don’t profess to be compassionate all of the time, far from it! But what I do know is that learning to be kind and compassionate to ourselves and others can only be a good thing; it improves our mental health and is therefore something worth investing time in.  

  If you are in interested in learning to be less critical of yourself and others then please contact me at my website www.feelwelltherapy.co.uk . For more general information on compassion then you might be also interested to look at the Compassionate Mind foundations here .

For now, have a good summer.

Michelle.  

It’s been a busy few months for as we’ve been out and about gathering business views for the development of our new economic strategy for Norfolk and Suffolk. We’ve held events across both counties, with key sector groups and today saw 75 local authority representatives come together to discuss topics including skills, infrastructure, business support, trade and export and much more. Thanks to all of you who have come along to one of our sessions or filled in our online survey – our strategy team is compiling all of the feedback and the strategy is now being drafted ahead of publication in the autumn. You can find out more on our website at https://www.newanglia.co.uk/developing-new-economic-strategy/

Communication   You may envision communicating with a software developer to be quite difficult, due to their nature of sitting behind a computer screen by themselves for hours on end, however in our experience that couldn’t be more wrong.    Our developers are extremely passionate about producing great software. Their communication skills are strong as they work closely with our clients and their users to learn, explore, teach, problem solve and help them make the right decisions. They are innovative, creative, extremely detailed and intelligent people that have a curiosity and love for learning. Due to their analytical mind, they evaluate all aspects of every situation, making them brilliant at solving all sorts of problems.    Normal rules apply when communicating with a developer. Find out a bit about them and build rapport like you would with anyone else, according to the characteristics of each individual. They’re just as diverse as everyone else, and in our experience extremely fun people that love making jokes, their burgers, music and beer! Although developers aren’t hesitant to communicate, they do tend to prefer emailing and other online forms of communication rather than face to face or phone.   Team work   Developers are good team members who work alongside designers, other developers and clients to regularly discuss work and manage feedback. Developers like to meet regularly to share progress. At Naked Element we hold daily stand-ups to discuss progress, what we are doing today, what we did yesterday and any barriers in the way. A stand-up meeting is simply a meeting that attendees participate while standing. The discomfort of standing for long periods is intended to keep the meetings short and informative. Stand ups ensures all members of the team are on the same page and working cohesively. Also developers need to know ‘why’, why does the client want this feature? Why do they want it done this way? Why does it need to be done by tomorrow?   Help them do their job   In order to help developers do their job both happily and to the best of their ability, it’s important to provide clear software requirements, or be open about where the boundaries are if allowing for some creative licence.    Providing requirements   It’s good to provide open requirements so developers can learn as they go, only getting into the detail at the last responsible minute. However, a Project Manager or Development Lead should ensure that client requirements are not too open, to prevent misinterpretation. Although key features of the system should be instructed, developers are creative people and they know what works and what doesn’t, allow them to play with software they’re interested in and show you ideas.   Functionality comes first, design second. If you have a clear idea about how something should look, provide examples or explain this upfront. Every task is drilled down so there are often over a hundred lines of requirements. For example a simple requirement ‘As a Sales person I want to log a new sale on my system’ can be broken down to help the developer understand better…   As a Sales person I want to:

• Search for a client to which the sale relates
• Search by company name, contact name, account reference number
• Select a client from the search results list
• Record the product name, sales value, quantity and color
• Select a delivery address and date
• Take a payment 
• Submit the details to the fulfillment department
• Print a copy for my records
• Etc.

Don’t believe the bad press about developers being nerds! After all, Nerds are just Geeks without a social life and all our developers have social lives and isn’t it cool to be a Geek these days? Do not be afraid to talk to them, get to know what makes them tick and enjoy the benefits it brings to your software development project.   Now you know a bit about our developers, learn a bit more about how they do it.

This week, the Supreme Court ruled that employment tribunal fees are unlawful. Government figures showed that 79% less cases were brought over a period of three years and the expectation is that the number of claims could rise significantly with the abolition of fees. It is absolutely and fundamentally important that more people have access to justice but amongst employers, there may be some anxiety about the news.

But the best approach to employment tribunals is always to steadfastly work to avoid them.

There are costs associated with tribunals. Financial, yes, but also human costs. For either side, it must be hugely daunting to address a tribunal, even with the support of experienced, expert, and supportive employment lawyers. And indeed, there is the damage to reputation, both within and outside the company.

For an employee relationship to end up in court is the ultimate breakdown, the last resort, and one that companies should seek to avoid.

And companies can do this through developing positive employee practices, exemplified through clear, transparent, and fair policies and procedures.  Through developing an empowering and supportive culture, where feedback isn’t just sought but given too. Where choices are given, where opportunities to influence are offered, and where there is no fear nor stigma associated with honest views; where complaints as well as compliments are actively encouraged. Through developing great managers who are able to engage with their employees, to develop their direct reports, and to identify issues or concerns and address these. Through effective and inspiring leadership, which sets the standard for the organisation, clarifying the expectations – in no uncertain terms – of what will and won’t be tolerated.

Of course, even with this in place, there are times when relationships can still fail and robust and clear procedures are needed to address this along with the expert knowledge of an employment lawyer.

But minimising the risk of tribunals has to be the best approach. Because nobody – employer nor employee – ever enters into a relationship hoping it will fail, expecting it to result in litigation. Which is why the company focus must always be on working to ensure that an employee tribunal will not occur through positive, proactive, and committed employee engagement, clear practices, great management, positive leadership, and a supportive organisational culture.

Disruptive businesses make a big splash in the media, but how does the thinking behind them come about? We look at the key rules of disruptive business thinking.

The word ‘disruptive’ used to refer to poor behaviour in the classroom, or the impact of strikes on the railway. But the tag is now far more likely to be linked to new types of business, where market value often outweighs investment and costs. Both Uber and Airbnb entered the already crowded markets of minicabs and holiday lets, but their rethinking of the entire model was what saw them race to the top at a pace traditional businesses could only dream of.

The media can’t get enough of them, and their business growth was largely driven by digital-native millennials who had the technology. Both are now large enough to commission television ad campaigns and PR drives to mop up the older generations.

So how can other start-ups in diverse sectors use this model to dominate (or at least radically change) the marketplace?

1. Find the gap in the market

Finding the gap may require mentally dismantling your target market and rethinking it from scratch. How would you start if you were the first one into the market, or what can you do that no one else can? Uber has as many detractors as fans (as is often the case with disruptive models), but there’s no denying it does away with the lottery of knowing which cab company to ring for the fastest and cheapest journey.

“Disruptive ideas come from having an attitude to challenge and push to improve established ways of doing things,” says Jas Bagniewski, CEO of innovative mattress retailer Eve Sleep. “I think if you try to improve every aspect of an industry, becoming disruptive is inevitable.

“When we started, we looked at how we could improve every aspect of the traditional mattress-buying experience. That way of buying – going into a showroom and lying down awkwardly for 10 minutes – is broken. We offer a better experience for customers because you can buy online quickly and easily, we offer next-day free delivery and you have 100 nights to try the product. By selling direct to customers, we can also offer a premium product for a better price.”

2. Be a true original

The first thing any business will need to do is ape the old Apple slogan of ‘think different’. It may be a business-speak cliché to speak of thinking outside the box, but disruptive entrepreneurs need to do little else in the initial stage of their start-up. Without that spark and a USP, their business is just another ‘me-too’ company that could simply get lost among the competition.

True disruptive thinkers and entrepreneurs are few and far between. So great ways to disrupt often come from teams of thinkers coming together to create a business, or outside experts being brought in to rethink a market. You want the kind of idea that makes people wish they’d thought of it.

“I think if you try to improve every aspect of an industry, becoming disruptive is inevitable” Jas Bagniewski, CEO, Eve Sleep

3. Solve a problem

“Ours was a consumer problem rather than a gap in the market,” says Tom Cavill, co-founder of property investment business Bricklane.com.

“We started with the problem that we and many friends had, then worked hard on an innovative solution. Before Bricklane.com, you either had to scrape together a huge deposit and invest all you had with a mortgage, or you were shut out of the market. We allow you to own a stake in a property [with others], whatever your situation.

“We feel we’re disrupting several markets: we allow first-time buyers to keep up with the market as they save and allow those who can’t or don’t want to buy to receive the financial benefits of ownership. Renters living in our homes also get better service and stability than is average in the market.”

4. Don’t forget the small print

It’s easy to see disruptive thinkers and doers as the anarchists of the business world, but none of them would get anywhere without considering the legal or ethical implications of their new ways of thinking and working.

If you’re testing the boundaries, you can be sure lawyers will want to as well, especially when people start putting large valuations on your business. Make sure the way you wish to operate complies the law and financial regulations because small slip-ups can be costly. If your app is bumped from app stores for minor violations, you could be set back by months.

5. Think about time efficiency

Millennials drive the market for disruptive business and famously want everything done now, whether it’s their food delivered or their finances sorted.

Airbnb took a concept that was only accessible on obscure community pages and brought it to the fore, saving hours of searching and competing with hotels along the way. If you can reduce complex tasks to a couple of clicks, you could be on to something.

“We’re disrupting the automotive retail space by consolidating the customer journey of buying a used car,” says Maximilian Vollenbroich, co-founder of Carspring.co.uk, a business that allows you to search for the car you want, find financing and arrange delivery of your pre-checked motor all in one hit. “Whereas a consumer would have to do transactions with multiple parties – from the dealer, financier, insurance and warranty provider and breakdown cover – at different places and times, we enable them to sort this all in one place.”