ISSUE 4 - JUNE 2022
SKILLNET TRAINING:
FINGAL CHAMBER SKILLNET
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris TD has today announced €11 million funding awarded to Skillnet Ireland to support small and medium businesses in a post-Brexit world.
Great to see so many member companies engaging with us over the past few months. As the country opens back up to full potential we need to look towards our employees, ensuring they have the correct training for the roles they are carrying out.
REVITALISING BUSINESS
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Digitalisation: Supporting businesses integrate digital technology and change the way businesses operate and deliver value to customers. Innovation: Facilitating new business models, delivery models, customer engagement tools, learning technologies, Research and Development, and the management of innovation and collaboration. Sustainability: Developing the capacity to create sustainable business models, job types and career pathways, and to integrate existing frameworks and standards. Leadership Development: Strengthening the capacity of owners and managers in key areas including planning, finance, talent management, process management and supply chain management.
Speaking on the announcement Minister Harris said: “The Government is committed to supporting small and medium businesses who are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. “As businesses tackle these challenges, this funding channelled through Skillnet Ireland will play a vital role in helping businesses adapt to compete and grow. I am encouraging Skillnet Business Networks to apply for this funding and use it to meet the challenges SMEs in their sector or region are facing.” Paul Healy, Skillnet Ireland Chief Executive, said: “Our Skillnet Business Networks have made an extraordinary difference throughout the country in the past two years, offering support that has been instrumental in keeping businesses trading through unprecedented challenges. With today’s announcement of an additional €11 million in funding under the EU Brexit Adjustment Reserve, we have an exceptional opportunity to collectively support the SME sector in Ireland in 2022. It will allow our Skillnet
TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Business Networks to help SMEs plan for success in key areas including digitalisation, sustainability and innovation.” The talent development and upskilling solutions funded through this BAR funding will be available to all SMEs nationwide. These programmes will be delivered by Skillnet Ireland Business Networks across a wide range of sectors and all regions. Businesses can avail of these supports through Skillnet Business Networks and are invited to join a network relevant to their sector and region at www. skillnetireland.ie/our-networks.
A focus for a lot of companies is on the digital skills, making sure all employees are upskilled in Excel, Word, Outlook and looking towards Sharepoint and Computer Aided design packages to ensure we are working in a sustainable way using what many of us found as new territory in Covid times, using the cloud and Microsoft 365 as the main medium of communication for the hybrid working arrangement. Companies are investing in talent development with People Management programmes, Project Management, Supervisory and management training to ensure their growing employee numbers have been given the correct training for them to deliver in their intended roles. As we grow again through 2022, we will see many employees promoted to new roles based on the knowledge they have gained over previous years employment. Often overlooked is the requirement to provide them with the new skills they will need to deliver in their new role. In 2022, we will focus on delivering talent development to meet the following challenges that we face over the coming years:
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Digital acceleration Business sustainability and climate action Workforce innovation SME Leadership Supporting foreign direct investment in Ireland
Fingal Chamber Skillnet have developed, with Adare Human Resource Management, a HR forum where all HR professionals from our member companies are invited to come along and discuss the most pressing Hr issues and assist each other in finding suitable solutions. Our next meeting is 7th April 2022. Further details on fingalchamber.ie/events. The network, together with our member companies have recently completed our submission for the Revitalising Business: Driving Business Growth in Ireland’s Post-Brexit Economy programme led by Skillnet Ireland and supported by the EU Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR). We look forward to receiving confirmation of this programme and to bringing it to all our members from May 2022. As always, we welcome your enquiries on participation on any of our courses or enquiry on delivering a course for your employees. Contact us skillnet@fingalchamber.ie
Helpful Link: We have set up a webcal link to add all training courses to your calendar – please find the link here: https:// www.fingalchamber.ie/training
FINGAL CHAMBER - NETWORK MAGAZINE
Focused on supporting business recovery and growth post-Brexit, the funding will address several priority areas including:
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ISSUE 4 - JUNE 2022
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