In celebration of Small Business Month, award-winning local HR company Pinnacle People Solutions have teamed up with the Liverpool Plains Business Chamber to provide a free breakfast workshop at the Quirindi Community Hub.
Held from 7am Wednesday 23 October, the event promises to be an insightful morning of education and networking for small business owners.
The morning is sponsored by the Liverpool Plains Shire Council and aims to give business owners the opportunity to learn skills around boosting team performance and create thriving workplaces.
Tammie Clark, current president of the Liverpool Plains Business Chamber said, “We’re really grateful to be able to partner with Pinnacle People for the 2nd year to provide an event for our local business community.”
“Last year was our first Business Wise event and we did a small business expo, this year we’re doing our breakfast workshop which is really all about building rapport and relationships within our local business community.
“It’s also really aimed at helping our small businesses navigate a lot of the big HR changes that are coming through at the moment with regards to contracts and casual employment – it’s a lot to navigate.”
Ms Clark strongly encourages all to attend the event.
“This is open to everyone who’s interested, whether you’re in business at the moment or you just want to learn. We’ve got some fantastic resources both at this event and within the Business Chamber group and we really want to encourage people to reach out and ask for help if they need it.”
The Clarks also run a busy cereal grain and cattle property and she wanted to emphasise the importance of this event for the local agricultural community, not just businesses in town.
“The link between the town businesses and the agricultural industry in towns like ours is so strong and mutually beneficial.”
“We go through very similar, if not the same HR issues and I think between the information that’s available and the opportunity to come along and network and socialize with your local business community it’s such a valuable event.”
Jacqui Newman is Pinnacle People Solution’s HR lead, and she will present the morning’s workshop.
The workshop, entitled Small Steps, Big Impact: Your Path to Performance that Matters, encompasses topics selected by the local business community.
“We surveyed the chamber members and the most commonly selected preference for which topic we tackled for the breakfast was performance management,” said Ms Newman.
“What I mean by this is helping business owners gain skills that allow them to have positive and negative conversations with their staff members, this also links in well to our other topic of positive duty of care – which is a big issue within the new HR legislation.”
“All of this helps business owners navigate some of the HR changes and also allow them to have better staff retention and more effective teams.”
She echoes Ms Clark’s sentiments about the difficulties faced by local business owners in navigating some of the legislative changes occurring in the HR space.
“Most small businesses don’t have in-house HR and there’s so much red tape and legal jargon to decipher it can be really overwhelming for small to medium size businesses to get their heads around,” said Ms Newman.
“There also tends to be a lot of ‘can’t we go back to the good old days’ type sentiments – which I definitely empathize with – but business owners should know that they don’t have to go it alone.”
“We work with quite a few of the business chambers across the region and they are here to help support our business communities so if you’re struggling, reach out and have those conversations with your peers.”
“This is ultimately the spirit of Small Business Month and why we’re really proud to be able to partner with Liverpool Plains Business Chamber to bring this breakfast event to the community – please everyone come and enjoy some free breakky and advice!”
Pinnacle has further cemented themselves as not only a local HR powerhouse, but a name on the national HR scene. CEO, Bronwyn Pearson, and HR and Projects Officer, Courtney Nixon, have both just been recognised as Excellence Awardees at the 2024 National Australian HR Awards.
Tickets for the Business Wise breakfast event are free, but registration is required, via the website.
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