LAUNCHPAD This issue is all about people – the brains and beating hearts of any business

It’s a well-known aphorism trotted out regularly by companies of all sizes that “our people are our greatest asset”.

Are they? Really? Let’s be frank – they can also be a company’s biggest liability. Few of us will have been lucky enough not to have locked horns at some time with a difficult boss or challenging employee. And perhaps we might be guilty ourselves.

More than ever before – thanks perhaps to social media which can leave few anywhere to hide, companies are having to not only treat their staff properly, but be seen to do so.

Our long-read features in this issue all concentrate on people. We look at where the next generation of skilled workers will come from (pages 50-63), and highlight 100 companies which are going the extra mile for their employees (pages 64-73).

We also went looking for the coolest workplaces (pages 88-95). Gone are the days when all an employee could expect was a desk, chair and access to a kettle for their morning instant coffee.

Now some big companies are offering cinemas, yoga studios, sleeping pods and fancy-pants cappuccino machines alongside complementary bowls of healthy snacks. One wonders how the small companies, which don’t have such deep pockets to invest in smart workspaces, can compete for the skilled workers they need.

But perhaps they have what bigger businesses often lose as they grow: a strong sense of community and mutual support.

Whatever the size of your business, your staff will be an asset if they’re treated with respect and consideration.

The companies we all most want to work for will offer staff/employees/colleagues (whatever you want to call us all), a friendly, inclusive, collaborative workplace where everyone is given the autonomy to undertake the role they were employed to fill, training opportunities to develop their skills further if they want, and the understanding that sometimes home life, or personal emotional challenges crash into work time.

On the flip side, employees should understand that business owners or directors have their own challenges and respect should go both ways.

The pandemic has changed, probably irrevocably, our working lives with work from home, hybrid working, and some companies even offering four day weeks.

But does this adaptation of working practices threaten (or perhaps just change), that warm feeling of camaraderie of the five-day-a-week, 9-5.30 work ethic where we all engage with colleagues in the same physical space, sparking creativity and enthusiasm in each other?

The jury’s still out on this.

We all need creative interaction to drive ideas and deliver better outcomes for business and the wider economy.

Enjoy reading our latest packed issue, which also includes inspiring interviews with Dominic Threllfall, the boss at Swindon and Cirencester motor dealership Pebley Beach, which isn’t shy of embracing technology to engage better with customers (pages 30-32) and Philip Johnston, the boss of Tewkesbury-based Trackwise Designs which last year broke its record for manufacturing the longest multi-layer flexible printed circuit at 72 metres (pages 76-78).

Nicky Godding Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher

Kirsty Muir Commercial Director and Co-Publisher