FSB expects SMEs to carry on recruiting despite unemployment increase
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) expects small firms to continue to take on staff in the coming months, despite UK unemployment rising by 15,000 to 1.85m between March and May. John Allan, FSB national chairman, said: "Although unemployment is marginally up, the previously positive trend in employment growth will return in the second half of the year. Our latest small business index recorded the strongest small business hiring intentions since the index started in 2010. With a net balance of 14% of our members planning to take on more employees in the next three months, we expect the march toward full employment to resume over the summer and into the autumn."
London SMEs expect much higher growth than small firms in the North
According to a study by business e-lender Everline and the Centre for Economic and Business Research, London businesses are the country's most optimistic about growth, expecting their revenues to increase over the next ten years by an average of 44% or £162,000 to £528,000 in 2025. This contrasts with small-business leaders in the north of England; these expect growth of just 33%, or £65,000 to £263,000, in the same period, with a fifth of respondents anticipating no increase at all.
Number of start-ups has slowed down in past five years
A study by business information site Company Check has concluded that the year-on-year growth in new business incorporations slowed from 13.4% in 2010-11 to 4.9% in 2013-14. Start-up numbers grew consistently during the last parliament, with 2.5m incorporations registered between 2010 and 2014. The start-up survival rate remains encouraging, helping to keep the UK SME population high, but while 56,000 more businesses were incorporated in 2011 than in 2010, just 27,571 more were incorporated in 2014 when compared to 2013.
Bad IT habits "rife" in offices throughout the country
A poll of 500 UK SME employees suggests that many are guilty of committing a host of IT 'no-nos', including regularly eating at computers and spilling food and drink into their keyboards, while a fifth regularly use their personal instead of their company email address. Conducted by office technology firm Altodigital, the poll also found that 20% of respondents committed the "ultimate storage faux pas" of saving documents to their desktop instead of a secure server. Some bad habits are damaging small-business cash flow; for example, 16% of respondents admitted to regularly printing in colour when black and white would have met their needs.
CIPD launches small business HR support pilots
A major new pilot initiative that seeks to "help unlock small business productivity and growth through quality HR and skills development support to businesses" has been launched. The People Skills programme has been developed by the the HR professional body CIPD, with support from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, with the London Borough of Hackney, Stoke-on-Trent and Glasgow the three UK pilot locations. The programme will be delivered with local partners and will be available at no cost to small businesses and equip them with a range of bespoke HR support including one-to-one guidance from experienced HR professionals.