Bristol Green Capital Partnership is a community interest company supporting a unique membership network of over 1,100 member organisations who have committed to working towards a zero carbon, socially just Bristol where all our communities and nature thrive.
Originally founded in 2007, and becoming a community interest company in 2014, the organisation has recently experienced a need to further grow its staff, to support various activities and projects around the city.
During this time, the organisation has been receiving support from Business West advisors via the Workforce for the Future programme.
We spoke to Hannah Roddis, Head of Operations, to find out more about the help they have received and how it has impacted the business.
“We’ve been a relatively small organisation for quite a long time”, Hannah explained, “then suddenly there’s been quite a big demand for new staff to support the delivery of a range of projects across the city. Since 2014 we’ve gone from one or two people, to five or six and now suddenly nine. When you get to that slightly bigger stage, you realise you need to ensure your organisational policies and processes are as robust as possible, and that’s where Business West has come in.
We found out about the Workforce for the Future programme, as Business West are one of our founding Supporting Members. We’re also a Chamber member. So, we got put in touch with Eithne, HR Support Advisor, and she has been helping us to look at some of our company policies, such as Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion; Maternity, Paternity, Adoption; and GDPR. It’s been great to have really bespoke consultation from her – I’ve literally just emailed if I don’t know the specifics around a particular HR matter, rather than having to refer to a range of different advice services and websites and possibly ending up more confused than when I started! We’ve also talked about recruitment and right to work questions such as how to manage visas and graduate visas, and she gave me an answer I could easily translate to my team to make a decision about what we could and couldn’t do – previously I could have easily lost half a day down a rabbit hole online looking for the solution.”
Through 1-2-1 meetings and emails, Eithne helped support with ensuring the organisation’s policies were up to date, legally sound and robust.
“Eithne has helped us by letting us know which policies we legally must have, and then what policies are more enhanced. We’ve been given templates to work from which has given us a good starting point. Quite often, I think with HR processes and policies, it’s understanding the legal terminology – Eithne has made things really clear for us, which in turn has helped us make decisions about what we can and can’t offer. She’s been great at answering off the cuff questions too!”
The organisation also received support from Business Skills Advisor, Julia Gurr, on training options for the team and recruitment, including ideas for how to recruit for an interim CEO position, and benefitted from attending a free workshop on ‘How to Make Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Work for your Business’ and follow on 1:1 sessions with BeOnBoard as part of this.
“If the Workforce for the Future programme and Business West hadn’t been offering HR support, we would have had to look elsewhere for help, such as freelancers or a HR package, which are actually quite expensive for a smaller organisation with less revenue.”
“As for plans for the future, I’m still working with Eithne on things like our staff handbook and terms of employment, so I will asking questions around that to make sure we’re on the right track! Just having that person to refer back to throughout the whole process has been really helpful. I’ve already recommended the programme to other organisations.”
Business West is delivering Workforce for the Future in collaboration with other partners and the West of England Combined Authority.
For more information on Workforce for the Future, please visit the West of England Growth Hub. The Growth Hub is the West of England Combined Authority’s dedicated business support service which offers free, one-to-one advice and guidance for SMEs.
The West of England Workforce for the Future programme has received £4m of funding from the European Social Fund as part of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme in England. The Department for Work and Pensions (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for the England European Social Fund programme. Established by the European Union, the European Social Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support skills development, employment and job creation, social inclusion and local community regenerations. For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.
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