This May marks Mental Health Awareness Week, a nationwide initiative to raise awareness, drive conversations and increase public understanding about issues regarding mental health.

Join us as we chat with our mental health and wellbeing champion, Rowena Dymond, who shares her valuable tips and insights on how we can all do our part in prioritising our mental health in the workplace.

How do you support the agency with mental health?

As a small business, we have implemented new processes to ensure we offer comprehensive support to the team. I have helped develop this new approach to create a supportive and understanding culture across the organisation.

Last year we introduced a 4.5 working day week to encourage a healthy work-life balance and we also work remotely on Monday and Friday. These introductions have helped boost productivity and retain talent.

What steps does the agency take to improve wellbeing?

Aside from flexible working, we have regular check-ins and performance reviews to provide feedback, guidance, and support to employees. We encourage an open dialogue about goals, challenges, and areas for improvement. Where we only used to have an annual appraisal for staff, we have now introduced a review every three months with a strong focus on mental health and wellbeing.

We’ve developed a supportive and inclusive workplace culture where employees feel valued, respected, and encouraged. We also have fun as a team with regular socials, including a team lunch in the diary once a month where we can escape the studio and get to know each other personally and socially. Hopefully, as the sun starts to appear, we will begin holding a few outings to the pub after work to switch off from talking shop completely.

What do you like most about your wellbeing role?

One of the aspects I enjoy most is the opportunity to make a positive impact on our team’s happiness, ensuring everyone feels listened to and supported. It is rewarding to know that we have an empathic approach so our team can lean into it whenever they might be experiencing mental health challenges. Whether it’s providing resources, lending a sympathetic ear, or advocating for better internal processes and support systems, knowing that I can make a difference in someone’s well-being is fulfilling.

What does Mental Health Awareness Week mean to you?

Mental Health Awareness Week encourages individuals to prioritise their mental well-being and ask for help when needed. It reminds us that seeking support is a sign of strength, not weakness and that there are resources and services available to assist those struggling with mental health challenges. At Resolution, we frequently remind the team that doors are always open if someone needs anything.

Personally, Mental Health Awareness Week serves as a reminder to reflect on my own mental well-being and practice self-care. It’s an opportunity to check in with myself, evaluate my stress levels, and engage in activities that promote mental wellness, such as mindfulness, exercise, and doing things that bring me joy!

It’s early morning on a wet day, and I’ve just parked up at one of the networking events we attend across the month. This one begins before the work day with a structured yet informal session of the traditional ‘meet and greet.’

Attendees chat over coffee and breakfast before taking a seat to listen to the guest speaker or panel discussion. It lasts until roughly 9ish when we all part, exchanging business cards (or LinkedIn profiles) and head off to work.

Welcome to your typical networking event. 

Lately, networking events have become essential for success in today’s interconnected world, whether looking to grow your business or simply expand your horizons. They provide a platform for knowledge sharing, building strong relationships and establishing a support system of like-minded professionals who can offer advice, encouragement, and feedback. This can be invaluable, especially during challenging times or when facing important decisions.

But they are not a one-size-fits-all and navigating your way through the networking noise may be a case of trial and error before you land on one that’s right for your business. We attend numerous events across the region, and they are all unique offering different expertise and experiences.

Read on for our hints and tips on what you need to consider when choosing the best networking event. It’s important you have a clear set of objectives before signing up, as attending the wrong one could be a waste of time and budget.

1. Virtual or in-person – COVID obliged us to engage in online networking meetings where meeting over a screen from the comfort of our homes became acceptable. Whilst many of us rejoiced to be back in the face-to-face environments, as a small business owner having the opportunity to connect with others without leaving the house makes a virtual option more financially viable and less time-consuming.
2. Industry relevance – Look for events that are tailored to your industry or field of interest. These events will attract professionals who are relevant to your business objectives, increasing the likelihood of purposeful connections and ROI factors.
3. Size and scale – Consider the size and scale of the event. Larger events may offer a wider range of networking opportunities and attract a far-reaching pool of attendees. The Business Exchange and Growth Hub are known for their significant events across Bath, Wiltshire and the surrounding areas, reaching a host of businesses across various industries. However, smaller events may provide a more intimate setting for meaningful interactions.
4. Location and time are key – Take into account the location and time of the networking event. Is it conveniently located for you to attend? Is it at a time that does not disrupt your working day? Will there be opportunities to network with professionals from your local area? Resolution has recently opened its doors in Bath, and we are regularly attending networking events in the city to meet new business connections, share experiences and expand our network.
5. Reputation and review – Research the events you want to attend and read reviews from past attendees. Look for events with positive feedback and a track record of delivering value to participants. Take the time to research and identify events that align with your goals, and be proactive in making meaningful connections while attending.

Lastly, it is important to note that it isn’t always about who is ‘in the room’ at that specific time, but who your new contacts could introduce or recommend your services to in the future.

Good luck – and don’t forget to have your LinkedIn profile up to date, as it’s often used for connecting with professionals before and after networking events.

Cast your minds back to late last year when we launched an anonymous survey to small and medium-sized businesses in Wiltshire and the surrounding areas. Our purpose was to understand how local firms market themselves, picking up some fascinating insights along the way.

Well, the results are in and you may have seen that we’ve already been publishing some teasing data across social media and in our newsletters. However, you’ll want to get your hands on the juicy stuff.

Read on for more information on how many businesses are dedicating time, budget and resources to their marketing strategy, and how many are not prioritising marketing.

What did we find out?

Over 60% of the businesses surveyed do not create a marketing plan. As a small business, it’s hard to find time to create a marketing plan but it is important for the success of your business. Need more awareness, enquiries and credibility? That’s where a good plan comes in.

Also, over 60% of respondents do not regularly set a marketing budget, which ties in with no marketing plan. Assigning a budget to marketing can help with the planning stage, coordinating activities and measuring success later when you are analysing the results.

What about the businesses that did spend?

Generally, most businesses spend between 2% and 15% of their revenue on marketing, depending on a range of factors including sector, product or service and growth targets.

Our results show that 40% of respondents are outside this range, spending less than 2% of revenue. These are likely to be smaller businesses operating in existing networks and with word of mouth. It’s possible that the owner’s time is not factored into these figures, attending networking events or investing in social media profiles for example.

Let’s talk about the websites

It may sound obvious, but businesses need an excellent website to act as the hub for marketing activity. It’s worth investing time, effort and budget to continue to keep it running well.

Almost all respondents had a website. In our experience, businesses update their websites on average every 4-5 years to ensure they are credible and market-leading. This survey shows that 70% of the websites were less than five years old, with 30% over five years old.

The big question – in-house or outsource?

Smaller businesses are often weighing up the pros and cons of whether to hire an in-house marketing manager or to retain an agency. In our survey, over 60% of firms did not have any in-house marketing. This is most likely because smaller companies cannot justify this cost, and need more marketing work for a full-time or part-time marketing manager.

We also noted that over 60% did not use a marketing agency either. Potentially because they do not have the requirement just yet, and/or are not aware that some agencies work with smaller firms, and/or they are too expensive for this stage in the business.

The high performers

No surprise that when asked about digital marketing activity, social media and email marketing came out on top. Easy to implement, manoeuvre and monitor, they play a key role in a marketing strategy. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn were the most popular platforms for the businesses surveyed. Are your customers also using these channels? It’s worth doing a recce to check. SEO and PPC came in at slightly less popular and we would always encourage to use specialists for this type of activity.

What is interesting to note is that less than 40% are investing in content marketing (blogs etc). Publishing blogs on your website can be essential in carving out your brand identity and promoting your business and its spokespeople as experts in the field.

Is traditional marketing still in vogue?

Face-to-face networking has come back strongly after lockdown with 90% stating it was part of the regular activity. 50% of businesses surveyed told us that they attended exhibitions, however when we asked what the split was between traditional and digital marketing, most were digitally biased.

What does the future have in store for newspaper advertising and direct mail campaigns as these were the least popular with the survey? Perhaps we should mention another clear winner which was the CRM system. Over 80% disclosed using one, reconfirming them as vital business tools. 

Find the full survey results here. Did you spot something in the survey that was helpful to your business? We’d love to know your thoughts.

For Resolution Design, we felt obtaining Cyber Essentials Certification was an important step in minimising modern threats. The Certification offers a mechanism to proactively guard against malicious cyber attacks and highlights many areas of potential risk.

Cyber Essentials is a government-backed scheme that will help you protect your organisation against a range of the most common cyber attacks.  Being more cyber-aware is important to businesses of all shapes and sizes to keep their security level up-to-date from rising cyber threats.

There are 2 levels; Cyber Essentials certification is the starting point to cyber readiness, and the next level is Cyber Essentials Plus – which requires hands-on technical verification to be carried out.

So, what’s involved? We started by completing the Cyber Essentials readiness toolkit.  This allows you to complete the questions for the certification and provides you with a personalised action plan based on your responses.  This was very useful to highlight any procedures or tasks that needed to be implemented before committing to proceed with the application and ensure you have everything in place to meet the requirements.

For Resolution, having obtained the Certification, we can now demonstrate our commitment to cyber security and reduce the risks of a data breach, ensuring we have all the measures in place to protect our devices, systems and the data that we use. It also indicates how we take a proactive stance against cyber threats, helps build on the trust we have with our existing clients, as well as demonstrates our commitment to cyber security for potential new clients.

Have you gone through a similar process, or maybe this has given you ‘food for thought’ about applying Cyber Essentials to your business?  You can find out more about the certification on The Government National Cyber Security Centre website at https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberessentials/overview