< Previous East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk FAMILY BUSINESS © stock.adobe.com/potstock The continued appeal of family businesses Taking care of one’s family is one of humanity’s core principles, customers see their own values in this, and want to support enterprises which echo their own beliefs. 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:12 Page 1www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link FAMILY BUSINESS P eople have always felt an affection for, and affinity to, family run businesses. Their presence harkens back to a simpler time where personal relationships, community values, and a genuine passion for the product drove local traders. When consumers describe family businesses, two of the most common adjectives used are stability and commitment. In a family business, it is natural for all family members to exhibit and express a high degree of commitment to the enterprise. This stems from the fact that the foundation of any family business is based on a shared business vision and identity. Such a level of dedication is rare and challenging to replicate in non- family businesses, as success or failure is rarely so linked to the stability of a family unit. As a result, the family firm’s vision is both consistent and cohesive, paving the way for more extensive opportunities for business growth and continued success. Additionally, this level of commitment fosters a more unified leadership structure and reinforces solidarity among all family members involved in running the business. This sense of loyalty often permeates throughout the organization’s staff and employees, resulting in a more cohesive and motivated team. As part-owners of the business, family members are willing to invest their own financial resources when starting new sub-ventures or during financial difficulties. This not only reduces costs and expenditures but also strengthens the financial capability of the business. The inherent desire to ensure long- term success is a driving force for their 32 Á 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:13 Page 2 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk willingness to contribute. However, this reliance on personal investment means that disputes can have a greater impact on the business than non-family businesses. In family-run businesses, the leadership team typically consists of family members who are willing to take on multiple roles and responsibilities to ensure the company’s success. However, the dynamics between family members, their history, and the blurred lines between family life and work can often lead to conflicts that are difficult to resolve. An example of such a dispute occurred in 2002 when the founder of Indian petrochemical manufacturing company Reliance Industries, passed away without leaving a will. His older son became the chairman and managing director, while his younger son became vice-chairman. The ensuing feud between the two brothers became public, and in 2005, their mother had to split the company, thus losing the trust and loyalty accrued by virtue of their family values. Depending on the size of the company, disputes may be able to be resolved without the burden of office politics. Encouraging regular communication among all employees can lead to speedy resolution of any issues they may face. However, some team members in certain businesses may prefer a more formal approach to communicate their concerns. In such cases, family council meetings can offer a structured platform for family members to discuss their concerns with the wider © stock.adobe.com/auremar 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:13 Page 3www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link FAMILY BUSINESS business. These meetings may or may not involve management, depending on the preferences of the business. It may help to bring in an impartial party, such as a family friend. The crucial aspect is to create a safe and non-judgmental space for family members to express their concerns and ensure that they feel heard. The flexibility and willingness of family members to go above and beyond expectations drives the continued success, enrichment, and better understanding of the industry, including the tasks at hand, employees, customers, and the present and future of the entire organization. This understanding can lead to better product and service development ideas that meet the needs of the company’s customers. Although trust is a vital component of family businesses, it may not be sufficient on its own. It is crucial to take internal rules and external corporate laws seriously to ensure good governance and management. A case in point is the 2008 resignation of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-Hee due to his conviction for tax evasion and investigation for selling stock to his son at unfairly low prices, which highlights the significant impact of good structure and management. This leads us to perhaps the largest concern regarding family run enterprises – nepotism. Some family businesses may make the mistake of promoting family members to senior management roles, even when they lack the necessary education, experience, or skills to handle the responsibilities effectively. In such cases, it would be prudent to hire more qualified non-family members for these positions. However, this can lead to tensions within the family, making it challenging to strike a balance between family relationships and finding the best person for the job. Nonetheless, a lack of competence at the senior level can significantly affect the success of the company, as well as the retention of talent. Whilst this is often seen as the largest pitfall for family businesses, this can be turned into one of their greatest charms. Training up family members to take positions within the business is a time honoured tradition, particularly when it comes to trades. Instead of promoting family members without justification, lovingly showing them the ropes, and giving an appreciation for the product is likely to result in higher quality output. Training family members up from a young age also takes advantage of the changing perspectives with each generation. Including the next generation of family members in the leadership and workforce of a family business can increase its competitive edge over non- family firms and provide access to the younger generation’s perspectives and ideas. One of the advantages of a family business is the smooth transition of leadership within the same family. This can ensure the continuity of long-term business policies or enable the successful accomplishment of established goals. 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:13 Page 4 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk OMS Q&A Can you tell us a little about the company and how you founded OMS? OMS was founded in February 1998 initially to develop and implement ISO 9001 into the Engineering Services Group of London Underground, which was carried out with great success and to time and budget. Initially OMS offered quality consultancy and business improvement. As OMS became a known and trusted name, to satisfy customer demand, we expanded our services to include health, safety and environmental consultancy, which was swiftly followed by providing training. We now offer a one-stop-shop service for health and safety training and systems consultancy. Our course portfolio includes NEBOSH, IOSH, CITB, SPA, IPAF, PASMA, Ladder Association, City & Guilds, UKATA, Worksafe, ILM, and CSCS tests. OMS employs 15 people and has over 30 Associates work for us. We treat the Associates as part of OMS and aim to develop and long- term mutually beneficial relationship with them. OMS was initially based in the Northwest, however, we carried out work in Leeds, Sheffield, Great Yarmouth, London and some overseas work in Canada and Germany. Therefore, it made sense to move to the East Midland as it was central and has a good transport network system. We moved into our current property over 12 years ago because the building is ideal for our needs, of its location to the motorway network and has excellent customer parking. You have recently celebrated 25 years in business, what do you feel the key to your success has been? Our key success has been developing a strong team of competent people who work well together, strive to understand our customers’ challenges, and go the extra mile to satisfy them, and that is why they keep coming back to us. I think the main criteria for success is having the right people with the right attitude and skill sets within the business to be able to take on the challenges that face any business. In many ways the OMS Team is an extended family all pulling together for a common goal. We try and involve our staff in the decision- making process for many aspects of the business, so they can see their ideas become reality and can take pride in being part of OMS. Our business is about building long-term trusted relationships with our customers and trading partners, and this is borne out by the longevity we have with both, John Jenkins was our first customer when we started implementing the ISO 9001 system into London Underground back in 1998, who attended our 25th Anniversary celebrations, as did Mike Shakespeare who was one of our first Associates that joined our team. What is your vision for the company for the next 5 years and how do you plan to stay on track to achieve your long-term goals? The next five years will be interesting, especially in the current geopolitical climate creating global challenges in supply chains. Last year we grew 27%, which brought us back in line with our projected grow strategy pre-Covid. We are forecasting that we will continue our growth trajectory, but in a more modest manner growing in the region of 10-15% year on year for the next five years. This OMS Celebrating their 25th anniversary, Managing Director of OMS, Clive Ormerod, talks to East Midlands Business Link about the company’s past, its strengths, and what their plans are for the future. Clive Ormerod, Managing Director of OMS 34-35.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:13 Page 1www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link OMS Q&A will be generated through additional market penetration and adding additional products to complement our existing offerings. It will be interesting to see the effect of changes in legislation caused by Retained EU Law (Revocation & Reform) Bill due at the end of 2023. Changes in fire legislation are also having an impact and there will be a significant growth in fire consultancy and training requirements because of it, so that is a big growth area. I also see a growth in the health and safety training requirements as new people come into the workplace, especially in construction and house building sectors. What has been the most difficult and challenging situation for OMS and how did you deal with this? The obvious answer is Covid-19, it was scary, the thought of having a training centre that was unable to operate and all the associated cost is not pleasant. However, we saw Covid coming a good month before it arrived. During this time, we started developing the virtual courses and started discussions with the Awarding Bodies about approval to deliver their courses virtually. The biggest hurdle was the examinations as the Awarding Bodies were geared up for face-to-face, invigilated examinations, however, we had experience of some of the examination software used in USA and adopted one that met the Awarding Body requirements. If not the first, we were one of the first companies to gain approval from them to deliver virtual training. This brought in some revenue and satisfied some of our customers’ needs as we have many companies in the essential worker category, which also kept the consultancy side of the business busy. Our strategy was to keep our staff and customers safe, satisfy our customers’ needs wherever we could, cut nonessential costs and cover our costs, if we could. We were stronger when we came out of Covid restrictions than when we went in and had to be very creative during Covid to survive. You continuously launch new qualification for the business, can you tell me about how you choose and plan these new training initiatives in? We chose our consultancy and training offerings based on the market requirements. We do research and speak to our customers, look at changes in legislation and see what new initiatives are coming down the road. The started delivering the NEBOSH Diploma at the start of last year, because several NEBOSH Certificate customers were asking about the qualification, we saw a demand for it and the course has had a much better than expected take up and has been a huge success. Similarly with 2377-77 PAT Testing and City & Guilds Construction NVQs that we gained approval for last year they have been a success story in meeting our customers’ requirements. For more information or to contact OMS directly visit www.oms.uk.com, call 01530 686 314 or email info@oms.uk.com @OMS - Training and Compliance @OMStraining @OMS_training Clive Ormerod, Managing Director of OMS with OMS’s first customer, John Jenkins, Managing Director of TMS Consultancy and Non-Executive Director – Xrial Group. 34-35.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:13 Page 2 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk OFFICE SOLUTIONS © stock.adobe.com/Victor zastol'skiy Measuring office productivity Measuring office productivity Wellbeing in the office isn’t just the newest buzzword – it’s a scientifically- proven measure of stimuli and surroundings designed to ensure the highest levels of productivity in workers. 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:15 Page 1www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link OFFICE SOLUTIONS I t goes without saying that the core function of any office is to give employees a place where they can be productive, but in today’s economic market where recruitment is expensive and it’s harder than ever to find the right members of staff, the purpose of an office could also be to keep people in a job. Or, at the very least, to stop them wanting to leave. Productivity and wellbeing nowadays go hand in hand. It didn’t use to be this way and many complain about work becoming “soft” or employees becoming entitled, but the reality of the situation is that workers simply have more options available to them now, and they are aware of that power. It’s easy to search for and apply for a new job online, so businesses have had to become more adaptable and thoughtful of their staff if they want to keep them. While “wellbeing” can be a difficult concept to master and one that has many fads and trends that can seem at times hard to put down (meditation, zen, detox, etc) there are still plenty of scientifically proven ways to make someone more effective at work. Business wellbeing is typically measured by very quantifiable things rather than esoteric terms, and it can be measured very easily. Wellbeing in the workplace speaks of staff morale, productivity, retention, and the attractiveness of an office to new hires who see it. On the other hand, poor office wellbeing can be measured in terms of staff turnover, employee absences, and sometimes even by ill-health and employees reporting of feeling stressed. Work can obviously be stressing but an office can be designed to reduce that stress. Some of the main things that impact an employee’s wellbeing in terms of office design are temperature, lighting, air quality, space, visual appeal, and noise levels. In many cases neuroscience has been used in experiments measuring productivity to directly understand under what conditions a person works better or worse. For instance, the optimal temperature for an office is between 16 and 24 degrees Celsius. It’s better to aim for around the middle-ground of 20 here, as that provides a comfortable experience in both cold and warm weather. The body is obviously very receptive to temperature changes, and has to use real energy (in the form of bodily fuel) to heat up or cool down the body. As this happens, other processes in the body are deprived of energy so that the body can focus on temperature. This is obviously far more extreme in life or death situations than it is in an office, but an office that is uncomfortably cold or hot will cause employees’ bodies to focus on heat regulation, which can result in low attention span, distractedness, fatigue, and an overall reduction in critical thinking. Lighting has a similar effect on the human body, and this is one most will recognise from how it impacts serotonin levels, which you may recognise as the “wakefulness hormone”. Serotonin has an impact on mood, attention, happiness and stress, and having the correct amount for any given room or workstation in an office is key. Light is measured by lux, and 300 lux is considered to be the scientific sweet zone for an employee to work most effectively without experiencing fatigue. That doesn’t mean the whole office should be at this level however, as too much of a good thing can cause the body to crash. In fact, break rooms and kitchens and areas for relaxation may 38 Á 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:15 Page 2 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk OFFICE SOLUTIONS want to dial back down to around 150 to allow staff the chance to relax a little and catch their breath, which is perfect for when they come back to their desks and feel rejuvenated again. Air quality and noise levels are much easier to sympathise with but can sometimes be difficult to do much about. While air filtration is definitely a good idea as unclean air can lead to sickness and absences, offices near to busy roads and city centres may find there’s not much they can do about the noise. What you can do something about however is distractions in the workplace. While phone calls are to be expected in a sales office for instance, they can be deeply distracting to others trying to work. Investing in better microphones and headsets means employees can speak more softly and not disturb their co- workers, while more space between employees can create a buffer. It can be hard to work when you can’t escape someone’s conversation in your ear after all. Other office tips for productivity include keeping some greenery in the office and making sure it’s well looked after – this is important because while greenery and plants can directly improve mood and wellbeing, dying plants can have the opposite effect. Natural sunlight is also important, so it’s better to angle desks away from screen glare than it is to perpetually keep the shutters closed. While you’re at it, offices designed to limit or prevent clutter can go a long way to improving mood and productivity, so a good spring clean – and keeping the office clean – is important. If there are an unavoidable set of files or bits and pieces 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:15 Page 3www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link OFFICE SOLUTIONS that can’t be gotten rid of then consider some filing systems to keep them out of sight. The goal here is to reduce “visual noise” or anything that might catch someone’s eye and distract them. All of us have a tendency to look around while we’re thinking and read things on walls, or the titles of books, and this habit, while unavoidable, can lead to distractions and productivity issues. Instead of posters, charts and other things sure to reduce morale, let the staff look at bright plants and unobtrusive furniture. Get the most from your office space Office design trends are constantly evolving as businesses seek to create functional and inspiring workspaces for a changing workforce. There is a focus on creating a home away from home. Somewhere staff feel comfortable and with an emphasis on employee wellbeing in a flexible and collaborative workspace. Stuart Wall, Design Director for APSS, specialises in commercial design and fit out. He looks at the current office trends. “The workforce is experiencing increased stress levels, burnout, and other health issues. Employers are looking to tackle this by creating a happier workplace. Biophilic designs i.e, natural light, plants, natural materials, indoor and outdoor spaces, water features etc. can really help improve employee health and well-being. That connection to nature can also boost productivity and creativity, creating a more sustainable and environmentally friendly space. “Flexible, multi-functional and adaptable spaces are trending as the office needs to meet a whole range of new criteria, often changing at a moment’s notice. This can involve movable walls or furniture that is easily reconfigured to meet the changing needs of the business. “Workplaces are adapting to provide alternatives to a standard desk for employees to work at too. This could be comfortable seating areas, collaborative spaces, individual working pods and breakout areas. “But it’s not all about comfort. Sustainability is a key consideration. Companies are looking to reduce their carbon footprint and create more eco-friendly workspaces. Using recycled materials, incorporating energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems, and encouraging sustainable practices such as reducing paper usage and promoting public transport all help. “At APSS, we have been working with companies that are struggling to find the right level of talent for their team and this is partly due to how their offices look. Other are finding that the talent they already have is leaving for a better working environment which is better suited to their needs. “The modern workplace is evolving, and offices are being designed to accommodate the needs of a changing workforce. Offices are becoming more dynamic, flexible and collaborative. Moving forward, we can expect to see more innovation in office design and technology.” © stock.adobe.com/denisismagilov 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 03/04/2023 14:16 Page 4Next >