13^th December 2022

By: Elizabeth Smith, Director of Research, Business Forums International Ltd

Tags: HR Brexit Retention Flexible Working Immigration Mental Health Pandemic Recruitment Wellbeing Cost of Living Crisis Right to Work Immigration Law Retention Strategies

Retaining and upskilling your staff in 2023

2022 has been many things; not all pleasant and certainly not without challenges for HR. Companies are still struggling to get staff back to work, to fill positions left vacant by Brexit and Covid and to retain current staff. Recruitment and retention is still top of the list of concerns, and the cost-of-living crisis has added another dimension to an already fragile workforce.

Upskilling and retraining remains key for HR professionals in 2022/3

Our research has also highlighted the issue of upskilling and retraining as over-stretched staff take on extra roles and responsibilities, often feeling unsupported or with inadequate training. Over half of our delegates this year were new to a role. Changing immigration and visa directives, along with a new, frequently hostile trades union landscape has left HR professionals feeling vulnerable and unprepared for these new challenges.

We spend a lot of time listening to our delegates, and we have responded with a series of brand-new training opportunities to meet these new challenges. With over 25 years in the business, we know how to design and deliver world-class training and the past few years have been a masterclass in translating that expertise to the virtual world. Our trainers can keep an audience engaged and learning, and we are determined to maximise the virtual training experience to meet the restrictions on travel and budget we are hearing about from our clients.

Changing our training course offering to meet your needs

We’ve also looked at the format and length of the training courses we deliver and have introduced a whole new series of courses for 2023 that will meet the need for the differing levels of experience and knowledge that our research highlighted, as well as meeting a new need for shorter more intense courses, with lots of time built in for surgeries and to learn from more real-life examples.

We listen. We design. We deliver.

But it’s still true that content is king. By spending so much time listening, we are confident that the subjects we tackle are the most relevant to an HR profession struggling to recruit both in the UK and overseas. Our programmes help you to understand where to source the best staff, to ensure your processes and policy are compliant and help you retain staff through workable and transparent inclusion and diversity programmes.