CHAMBER NEWS

BUSINESS FAIR

We’re very excited to have made a firm booking in the diary for our 2022 Business Fair, which will be held on Wednesday March 9 during Cornwall’s Festival of Business.

Stands are available to book now and we’d also love to hear from you if you’re interested in hosting a Chamber event in the festival week.

naomi@cornwallchamber.co.uk

WHY JOIN?

Cornwall Chamber of Commerce is an independent not-for-profit organisation accredited by the British Chambers of Commerce. We solely exist to represent businesses in Cornwall. Our events provide a platform for businesses to connect, create and make valuable business relationships. Membership to the Chamber starts from as little as £17 +VAT per month and provides you with the tools to promote your business.

Get in touch today to have a chat about how we can support you and your business.

A BALANCING ACT

THE WAY WE WORK REQUIRES SOME GIVE AND TAKE ON BOTH SIDES, SAYS CORNWALL CHAMBER CEO KIM CONCHIE

Summer in Cornwall is frenetic for our hospitality and tourism businesses – especially this year, but for other sectors it offers a short window of time in which to regroup, reflect and revitalise.

Now that restrictions have lifted, this short breather has hopefully given businesses the headspace to consider the best working practices moving forward.

As we have learned with this pandemic, it’s never as straightforward as restrictions lifting and everything slotting nicely back into place; with every step forward comes a tranche of important business decisions that need to be made.

If you offer sick pay, will you pay out each time an un-vaccinated employee has to isolate? Will you bring your whole team back into the office now that they can? Will you start having face-to-face meetings with clients? Will you expect employees to travel internationally?

The pandemic forced millions of people to work from home and moved us all into a new virtual age very quickly, but where do we go from here?

If Truro’s workforce only comes into the office twice a week to work, the cafes and shops in the city are only going to see 40% of the turnover they did pre-Covid.

However, if all of those people return to working in their Truro office five days a week, the drive to achieve net zero – and specifically Cornwall Council’s Vision 2030 for clean and green growth, will be going in the opposite direction to where it is now.

A working lunch meeting supports Cornwall’s economy and our local businesses, but if the meeting could have been conducted virtually, a car journey could have been avoided.

It’s not just the economic or environmental impact that we need to consider either; the impact that change could have on an employee’s mental health is significant.

So, we have to find a balance.

Employers need to be malleable and respond to employee requests appropriately. Some individuals might want to continue working from home whilst others might be nervous about driving long distances. This is a new situation that requires a bit of give and take on both sides.

Customer experience is paramount: many businesses have taken to remote working so seamlessly that they have questioned why they ever paid rent on an office, whilst for others it has been a struggle to manage staff remotely and achieve the same levels of customer satisfaction as before.

If you’ve struggled, the advice is to get the staff back in – give your business the best possible chance of thriving now that restrictions have lifted.

If the way forward isn’t so obvious, consider easing yourself in gently: bring all employees back into the office for a day a week, or have department days where all staff from one department are in. At the Chamber, we have recently announced ‘Team Tuesdays’ whereby all staff are expected to work in the office on a Tuesday.

It feels prudent to make cautious statements about September when, as we write this, Cornwall’s Covid cases are high and thousands of tourists are about to descend on the Duchy. However, the advice we are getting is that trading conditions are stabilising; we don’t have the threat of a new set of circumstances over us, so businesses should be moving forward with positivity and embracing the lifting of restrictions.

If you have any questions about how best to manage your business in the current climate, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. hello@cornwallchamber.co.uk