When Gordon Brown announced he was appointing Lord Alan Sugar as the government’s small business advisor, most small business owners, felt pleased that someone who has been on the front line of business for a number of years, was going to have an input in small business policy. However, this initial positivity was short lived as Lord Sugar managed to alienate almost all the small business sector, by referring to them as ‘moaners’. However, a recent report out today has revealed that we are again going to take a leaf out of Lord Sugar’s book as more and more companies look for there very own ‘Apprentice’ !
As we are now officially out of recession, many companies are switching their survival strategy to growth plans and one of the most important aspects of growing a company is higher more staff. However, as National Insurance is set to increase and the economy is still far from stable, many small business owners are looking to extend their staff resource by hiring more apprentices.
Gavin Murray, owner of Talk IT comments: ‘When I initially started the company formation process, I knew I would need to take on staff. However, as the recession progress our finances got progressively worse and we just couldn’t justify taking on more staff, even though we needed the resource. Consequently, we took on an apprentice and we have never looked back. Our appetencies are hard working and eager to learn. They also keep our company at the cutting edge of the sector, as they are constantly looking at new ways the company can develop and questioning outdated industry orthodoxies.”