When it comes to assessing the success or otherwise of a business, the standard measure is profitability. The question is always asked: how much money is it making? Or another favourite: what is it returning?
There is another gauge, which is human, and that is to assess how many jobs it is creating? That is looking at the very real difference the firm is making to people’s lives and to the communities where they are located.
Conscious of the importance of job creation, the latest ‘Track 100’ from E2Exchange, or E2E, has ranked Britain’s 100 most successful small to medium enterprises on this question. The E2E Job Creation 100 is the fourth such track to be produced in association with The Independent this year, following the E2E Female 100, E2E Tech 100, and E2E International 100. The list is based on their accounts from the past three years.
E2E is the UK’s leading private companies networking and mentoring organisation, with tens of thousands of members and rising. Their Track 100s are designed to showcase those firms that are excelling, exhibiting consistent progress and presenting disruptive business strategies to impact not just their own sector, but also on a nationwide – and in some cases, a global – scale.
Shalini Khemka, founder of E2E, assembled a panel of company leaders to mark its unveiling. They were Nida Sattar from Allica Bank, Peter Harrison from FGH Security, Peter Vohmann from Sidekick Group, and Wendy Christie of The Social Element. They were joined in discussion, before an online audience, by yours truly as chair and Dhaval Patel from Universal Partners, the foreign currency payments provider that is partnering the Track 100s.
It was a fascinating discussion, involving frontline experts lending their insights. Nidda Sattar said her company was “investing in enabling our people to learn continuously”. She stressed the importance of firms helping people reach their full potential and assisting them with their future employability.
Wendy Christie talked about everything always coming back to people. She was positive about the impact of AI, believing it will create more time for employers to spend time with and focus on people. She stressed the importance of employers looking after their teams, making sure they feel supported and protected. It is easy to get carried away by expansion and success but this was a grounding reminder of what really matters, she said.
Peter Harrison said how Rachel Reeves’ first Budget and the increase in employers’ national insurance had cost his company and impacted on the staff count. Peter Vohmann agreed, estimating that in his firm it had made them pause on some hirings and forced the cancellation of a project that would have been beneficial for the business and good for employment.
Dhaval Patel expressed reservations about the quality of young recruits in the UK compared with those in other countries. “In China and the UAE and elsewhere, they are taught about AI; they are equipped with the right tools and they are far more advanced in what they know. It’s on their school curriculum, unlike in the UK.”
Patel said he looked at what children were taught in UK schools and wondered how relevant much of it was for today’s world. At Universal Partners, they’ve developed their own academy that provides skills training for employees for eight hours a week, every week for three years.
Vohmann echoed his concern, recounting how he recently interviewed a high-flying graduate in business, finance and marketing, who had no knowledge of the Microsoft suite of office products. They didn’t know how to use Excel or PowerPoint. “I don’t understand why things like that are not taught on the national curriculum,” he said.
