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INFORMATION AND NEWS

Business Growth Seminars

SBC, in conjunction with JMF Employer Services, invites you to a series of free Business Growth seminars that they are running over the next few weeks, to help you grow your business in 2011. There are a few places left, so make sure you book your place today.

In February we assembled a panel of experts, all from successful businesses, including Liz Jackson from Great Guns Marketing and Channel 4's Secret Millionaire, to pass on their top business tips, to Hampshire businesses.

We are continuing these seminars on relevant topics on a quarterly basis.

Attendance is free for businesses that meet the relevant criteria, however, places are limited and filling up fast, so make sure your reserve yours asap!

We join NED Solutions as an Alliance Partner

We are pleased to announce we have joined the NED Solutions network as their prefered supplier for HR services.

About NED Solutions:
We are a national organisation providing support to businesses across all market sectors with our professional and experienced Non-Executive Directors. Our N.E.D.s improve performance, mitigate risk, innovate and create new opportunities, together with our Alliance Partners, to ensure sustainable performance and increase shareholder value.

We provide board-level professionals who have real business experience, excellent contacts and networking skills, and good corporate governance knowledge, to act as an extension to your leadership team.

Our directors are all highly experienced, senior board directors having many years of active board level experience with successful businesses. What's more, all our directors are full members of the Institute of Directors and have successfully completed, at a minimum, the IoD course, "The Roles & Responsibilities of a Non-Executive Director," so you can be sure they have the board experience and the skills you need for your business.

We give you confidence in selecting the right Non-Executive Director to enhance your Board and develop your business.

NED Solutions - click here for further information

Quoted in 'Pharmaceutical Field' Magazine

We are pleased to announce that we have recently contributed to an article on Stress at Work in the prestigious Pharmaceutical Field magazine.

Pharmafield magazine - Stress at work article

Quoted in 'Island Business' Magazine

We are pleased to announce that we have recently contributed to an article on Absence Management in the Island Business (Isle of Wight) magazine.

Delivering Bad News

At the moment we are faced with a number of challenges as business managers. We need to keep our productivity high and our teams as motivated as possible while recognising that we are facing challenging trading conditions.

During this challenging time you may need to have difficult conversations with your team to communicate corporate messages that will have a negative outcome.

It may be that you have to speak to an individual about:
• Making them redundant
• Not giving them a pay rise
• Managing expectations about opportunities for advancement in the organisation

We thought it would be an idea to help you be a little more prepared for these challenging conversations. These are our top five tips:
1. Face your fear: the conversation needs to happen, so don’t put it off.
2. Consider the recipient of the message: what can you do to soften the blow? Some people like to hear it straight. Others will want the message ‘fluffed up’ a bit.
3. Practise what you are going to say with a colleague or HR Department, so that you can be as prepared as possible.
4. Think carefully about where to hold the conversation. For example, meeting rooms with glass walls can be very intimidating.
5. When you have finished the conversation give the individual time to consider how the decision will affect them. You may consider allowing them to go home for the rest of the day.

Click HERE for all the details or go to the next webpage

Corporate Support Service

We provide professional, practical and pragmatic help, support, guidance and day to day advice on a range of employment law and human resource related matters in order for clients to maintain effective working practices and operate within the ever changing legal framework.

Our activities include:

Ø Employment Law – providing day to day advice and larger projects including the review and formulation of employment documentation, policies and procedures. We can Also represnet your company at Employment Tribunal and have won some high profile cases this year.

Ø Human Resource and employee relations support
Ø Training workshops – both ‘in house’ and public forum, on a wide range of practical employment law and HR matters e.g. Managing Unsatisfactory Performance; Discrimination and Harassment in Employment; Managing Absence; Conducting Investigations and Disciplinary hearings; Teambuilding; Coaching for Performance.

The Consultancy is headed by Stephen Wright, an experienced Human Resources Specialist. He holds an MSc in HRM from Portsmouth University, an LLM (MA) in Employment Law from Middlesex University and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development. He has a wide range of expertise in both the private (Professional Services, Pharmaceutical, Engineering, Security, Retail) and public sector (Public Transport) at times of organisational change.

We look to build long standing relationships with our clients by offering an efficient, practical, value for money service.

Further information:
Stephen R Wright MSc LLM FCIPD
0800 917 2629
Stephen@SouthernBusinessConsulting.co.uk