More than 200 North East businesses are set to come together this month for an event which will aim to put ‘good business’ at the heart of the region’s future.
The free event, Good to Grow: Realising success and growth through better Business, has been created by North of Tyne Combined Authority in line with its Good Work Pledge.
Speakers at the event, taking place next Tuesday at the Innside by Meliá hotel in Newcastle includes keynote speaker, writer and film maker ‘Big’ Ian Donaghy, alongside a panel of North East business leaders, including Dr Patricia Prado, a senior lecturer in business ethics at Northumbria University, Stuart Miller, managing director at Newcastle Strategic Solutions and Darush Dodds, head of corporate affairs at Esh Group.
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They will be joined by panelists Simon Hanson (NEPO), Jonny Grubin (SoPost), Nigel Moralee (AWS), Sheena Widdowfield (Opencast) and Kari Owers (O Agency) to discuss the concept of doing better business and the opportunities available for leaders to make positive change.
The Good Work Pledge scheme was launched in early 2021 with the aim of making poor employment a thing of the past, and Good Work the norm. As part of the scheme businesses are awarded a level of the pledge, helping to build a ‘community of good work’, where members will have access to learning, networking opportunities and support in the pursuit of good work and sustainability. The pledge includes five pillars of best practice; promoting health and well-being, developing a balanced workforce, valuing and rewarding your workforce, effective communication and representation and demonstrating a social responsibility.
Caroline Preston, who leads the Good Work Pledge project for the NTCA, said: “The work place has changed and sustainable growth now needs to be a top agenda item. This event is a way for businesses to discuss how we can pull together as a community and encourage good practice as a means to grow, retain staff and attract the next generation of talent to our North East businesses.
“The North East currently has the highest rate of child poverty in the UK at 38% and 75% of families that fall within that figure have at least one person working. We need to act now as a business community to make work better for everyone. We have an amazing spirit here in the North East and many businesses are working hard to make sure their employees are happy, healthy, and well rewarded but we need to do more. Poor employment can have a really detrimental effect on our communities, these jobs are low paid, often unreliable and offer zero or minimal additional benefits. Worse still these low paid jobs are often done by the very people who keep us supplied with food, who look after our loved ones and keep us moving.
“While there are many factors that affect this, businesses do have a part to play when to comes to offering opportunities to progress, flexible working so families can juggle childcare or other responsibilities, promoting health and wellbeing and proving security for their people wherever possible.
“A lot of our sectors are still suffering from a skills shortage, and this is a proactive and actionable way of addressing this as a region. Research shows that when businesses invest in their people, employees are more loyal and perform better in their roles, giving you space and resource to grow your business in a sustainable way.”
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