BUSINESS NEWS
A Q&A WITH HYBRED CONSULTANCY Becky Stevens is a Director at Hybred Events
Becky Stevens is a Director at Hybred Events, a company severely impacted by the coronavirus crisis. But rather than simply accepting the situation, Becky decided to combine her extensive health and safety experience with the skill sets of other business contacts and create a completely new company. Hybred Consultancy helps businesses of all sizes to become Covid-19 Secure, through health and safety, HR and creative support. Amy Lishman from Brighton Chamber has been speaking to Becky about her decision to pivot her business and the first two months of the venture. Q1: You started Hybred Consultancy in May this year. Can you tell us a bit about how it all began? Like so many people in events, the day after the lockdown my company, Hybred Events, lost 95% of our clients. As specialists in event safety and operational planning, all our work was drying up — with festival cancellations and little certainty about the future for the industry. Speaking regularly with colleagues and close contacts, we quickly realised we had extensive, specialist skill sets that were likely to be much needed over the months to come. Which led us to the launch of Hybred Consultancy, a company which is all about helping businesses to reopen safely, efficiently
26
and with confidence — a truly daunting task for many right now. We’ve taken a leap of faith, rapidly investing in training, a new website, system setups, marketing and business development. We’ve trained the team in Covid-19 safety and started carrying out risk assessments for businesses across a variety of sectors. We’re seeing the results already — I’m so pleased to have found an outlet for all my health and safety experience in these challenging times and to be able to see companies re-opening their doors that I — and the wider Hybred team — have worked with. Q2: Nearly two months in, how is the business evolving? The evolution is constant! As you can probably guess from the volume of government updates and legislation the team is having to be extremely reactive, constantly assessing what businesses need to do in order to be Covid-19 Secure.
Also, we recently expanded our team to include Jo Prior, an HR and employment law specialist. So now Hybred Consultancy can offer key advice for companies deciding how and whether to bring back furloughed staff. Another major evolution is in the types of businesses we can support. We focused initially on the health and wellbeing sector, but soon realised that other sectors were opening much sooner. We’re now in a position to help any operation become Covid-19 Secure — from national tours, to major offices, to tiny independent stores. Q3: What has been the biggest challenge? How have you overcome it? Keeping up with the ever-changing guidance. There is still so much about Covid-19 that isn’t known that we have to ensure we are checking all the guidance and scientific reports daily. We know that businesses want to focus on what they do best, and that
❛❛ Have faith in your team. When you launch a new business so quickly and are working remotely, you can’t do everything yourself ❜❜
