Management, Leadership & Employee development for SMEs

Welcome to the portal for SMEs management, leadership and employee development

Firstly some facts on the landscape picture of SMEs.

Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) are a major force in the UK Economy.

The 2007 figures published by the then Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform showed that:

• SMEs make up 99% of the economy.
• There are under 4.8 million enterprises with a workforce of just under 30 million people
• Nearly 3.5 million are one man [person] band
• 1.3 million are employers employing 14.23 million individuals
• 858,245 have up to 4 employees
• 221,600 have between 5-9 employees
• Just under 480,000 large companies with over 250 employees each.
• Size matters in terms of productivity.

Training and development for success in SMEs

The Learning Organisation guru Dr Peter Senge has remarked that if we keep on working in the way we do; we will keep on getting the results we get”. This is great if we are doing well at the bottom line but even then, successful companies keep striving to improve on performance.

The core purpose of all SMEs of all sizes is to succeed. But in order to succeed, SME Business Owners, Leaders and Senior Managers will need to lead the success of their company through the full engagement and involvement of all their people.

Investing in their own development as well as that of their employees needs to be carried out on an on-going and systematic basis. Creating an environment in which every one learns and every one teaches [ALL LEARN: ALL TEACH] in order to improve quality, productivity as well as job satisfaction is key.

The over used mantra in business circles that “our people are our most valuable assets” will require SME Business Owners, Leaders and senior managers to ensure that investing in the development of all their people is closely aligned with their business strategy and goals.”

Learning on the job, about the job and on how to become more effective in all the roles and tasks of the job requires both in-house and external support and learning. Making time to train, coach and mentor in-house based on the needs of the business and of gaps in employee skills is vital.

Making use of external support and training through such schemes as TRAIN TO GAIN, as well as other initiatives such as Apprenticeship will also provide huge benefits to SMEs.