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Norwich-based processing equipment manufacturer Fabcon Food Systems has prepared for its next phase of global growth with a series of new appointments and promotions.

Fabcon, which manufactures and installs handling and processing equipment for the snacks sector, has bolstered its team on the engineering, sales, logistics and management sides of the business.

Andrew Peek, who co-founded the Delta Close-based firm in 2015 with Managing Director Trevor Howard, becomes Operations Director and adds research and design to his engineering, technical and design portfolio.

Andrew’s move to a more strategic position sees Luke Cossey promoted from Senior Design Engineer into a new Engineering Manager role.

The company’s leadership team has also seen a further boost with James Bradford becoming Production Manager, moving from his role as Supervisor and Compliance Officer.

In the engineering department Jakub Bak joins as a Mechanical Design Engineer, with Nick Kittle coming on board as Controls Engineer following many years working as a sub-contractor for FFS.

The Fabcon sales department has also been expanded as Adam Harvey joins the team as a Sales Engineer, working closely with new and existing customers.

In further key appointments, Jim Ayre joins as Parts and Logistics Coordinator, in charge of purchasing and managing the stock and materials required for Fabcon’s growing list of orders. Meanwhile, Kevin Wrathall is appointed as Project Manager on a contract basis and will coordinate a variety of UK and global build and installation projects.

Trevor Howard, Managing Director of Fabcon Food Systems said: “We are in a hugely busy but exciting period of growth with orders for our British-built machinery coming in from across the world.

“This means we need more specialists but also an improved management structure to make sure we are giving our customers the best possible service, managing processes well internally, and also being out there developing relationships and winning new business.

“All eight appointments and promotions are fully deserved and we really do have a first-class team in place as we look towards 2023 and a variety of global projects we have in the pipeline within the snacks industry.”

Founded in 2015, Fabcon Food Systems manufacture, supply and install handling and processing equipment for the food industry. Designed and built at the company’s

Norwich factory and design hub in the UK, the expanded Fabcon team of 30 supply systems and machinery to customers in the UK, mainland Europe, the Middle East, Australia and Africa.

Image provided by Fabcon Food Systems

Help to Grow: Management is an applied course supporting managers and leaders of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). Learn new skills, boost your profits and improve business performance, resilience, and long-term growth. The programme is accredited by the Small Business Charter, with funding support from HM Government.

The curriculum will support you to build your capabilities in leadership, innovation, digital adoption, employee engagement, marketing, responsible business, and financial management. You will receive one-to-one support from a business mentor, and by the end of the course you will have developed a tailored growth action plan to help release the full potential of your organisation.

The 12-week programme is 90% funded, meaning the fee payable by participants is £750.  Help to Grow: Management has been designed to fit alongside full-time work commitments.

You can find our more via our web pages here: https://t.co/GmHlMIYq1D and register yourself for the course directly via this link: https://smallbusinesscharter.org/h2gmcourse/uea-ee-cohort-2/.

Burnout should not be the cost of success

After a gruelling 3 years of pandemic and recovery which took the rug from under us all, many organisations have been made to review how they worked, how they could survive and, if they did, how they could reinvent themselves. CEOs of all organisations have taken the brunt of critical decision-making.

Business leaders, whether in the not-for-profit sectors or commercial world are used to working under high-pressure, however in the not-for-profit sector where CEOs may be working with a smaller team the onus is on them to ‘keep the ship afloat.’ Pressure from funders, Boards of Trustees and stakeholders can be immense and is taking its toll. At CBR Business Solutions, we are seeing the impact of these pressures on CEOs in the voluntary sector. Our conversations with CEOs and trustees highlight the huge strain that CEOs have been under and the impact this is having on them.

The pressure to ‘lead by example’ means that many CEOs follow a culture of overwork.  They are often preparing for worst-case scenarios which may include considering restructures and redundancy scenarios, directly affecting the people they work with and rely on. On top of Covid and Brexit, the cost-of-living increases, balanced against downturn in income and the prospect of delivering all of these messages to staff they care about, can increase anxious thoughts.

Whatever is happening within the organisation, CEOs can feel a need to look strong and positive in front of their staff and Boards of Trustees and feel that any show of vulnerability will be seen as a weakness.  This increases a feeling of loneliness.

“Give up the delusion that burnout is the inevitable cost of success” is a well-known quote by Arianna Huffington, Co-founder of The Huffington Post and CEO of Thrive Global.

Whilst CEOs are the decision-makers who help lead others, as individuals they are not super-heroes/heroines. There is a need for strong support from their Boards, not only in terms of organisational strategic decision-making, but also wellbeing, mental health and resilience.

A duty of care towards your CEO

In our work providing HR support, we are often seen as trusted advisors – people who know the organisation well but are independent. An increasing number of our conversations are with CEOs feeling the pressures of the role, or trustees concerned about how to support the CEO and mitigate the risks for the organisation that over-reliance on one person may bring.

What is often overlooked, is that the CEO is also an employee of the organisation. Under employment legislation they have the same rights as any other employee.

Every UK employer has a duty of care which looks to the critical health, safety and general welfare of all employees, regardless of the size of an organisation. Generally speaking, employers’ duty of care comes into force when a person or group of people do something that might reasonably harm someone and this harm may be in the form of mental or physical injury.

With work-related stress now widely recognised in the UK as a serious health and safety issue, employers are duty bound to treat this condition like any other workplace hazard.

From a legal perspective, an employer who has failed to identify and take reasonable steps to prevent work-related stress, can find themselves exposed to claims for constructive unfair dismissal where employees have felt forced to resign due to stress.  Equally the dismissal of an employee on grounds of capability because of stress, may result in a claim for unfair dismissal.

Trustees of a charity have a responsibility towards all staff (and volunteers) and must ensure that the charity complies with relevant law including employment, pension, equality and health and safety legislation.  Trustees therefore have a vital role to play, in supporting their CEOs through effective lines of communication and support and by understanding their responsibility for ensuring that the health and wellbeing of their CEO is taken account of.

How CBR Business Solutions can help

As HR Consultants with particular expertise in the voluntary sector, we are working daily with CEOs and Trustee Boards with their decision-making processes and plans and considering how those may impact employees.

Having a third party, independent professional to be able to have a confidential, open discussion on upcoming strategic decision making, which will inform in-time next steps and ensure legally complaint HR practise, is hugely beneficial to any process.

“We  have used several HR providers in the past but would rather buy from a fellow infrastructure organisation.  The advantage we have with CBR is they know the VCSE sector, our value base, why we want to do things a certain way. The benefit of external HR is they are independent.  We have CBR for some specific pieces of HR work, but they are also useful for assurance when implementing change.” CEO – MACC – Manchester.

If you are facing similar issues and would like to discuss how we can support your organisation, you can find out more here or contact our HR consultants Kate and Nicola: HR@cbrsolutions.org.uk

Image provided  by CBR  Business Solutions

UK labour market activity slowed for its third consecutive month as employers cut back on hiring in order to weather recession, according to BDO’s Employment Index

• Price pressures remain high for firms as the Inflation Index registers another historically elevated reading, despite falling for the second consecutive month
• BDO’s Output Index fell to its weakest reading since the third national lockdown as the cost-of-living crisis continued to drive declines across the services sector
• Business confidence plunged to a two-year low as recessionary pressures and the expectation of further economic woes caused optimism to plummet

Weaker hiring intentions and recessionary pressures suggest a challenging winter ahead for UK businesses, according to the Business Trends report from accounting and business advisory firm BDO. November saw all four indices across employment, inflation, output and optimism fall for the second time in the last three months.

The latest figures show BDO’s Employment Index contracted by 1.20 points in November, as it fell for the third month in a row to 111.85. While the Index remains above 95, considered the watershed between growth and contraction, it now sits at its lowest point since February 2022. This decline has been caused by weaker hiring intentions across the services sector.

BDO’s Inflation Index declined for the second time in the past three months, falling to 118.43, although still remains historically elevated. This represents a sizeable contraction of 2.24 points – the largest fall the index has seen since May 2020. The lower reading was driven in part by a drop in the value of sterling improved following market volatility attributed to government measures announced in September’s mini-Budget.

Indications of a recession have put downward pressure on productivity growth among businesses. BDO’s Output Index recorded a steep drop of 2.43 points to 90.56 in November, registering its weakest reading since the third national lockdown at the start of 2021. This suggests that overall economic output is contracting, with further sub-95 values expected until at least Q2 2023.

BDO’s Optimism Index plunged to a record two-year low of 91.64 in November, as recessionary pressures and the expectation of further headwinds caused a drop in confidence.

The services sector has seen the largest fall in optimism, having been particularly exposed to inflationary pressures and a decline in output, as supply chain disruption and soaring living costs impacted consumers and businesses alike.

Entering the Christmas run-up, waning confidence among businesses reflects falls across the Employment and Output Indices, while there are still significant pressures on the Inflation Index.

Peter Harrup, Partner and Head of East Anglia at BDO LLP, said:

“This time last year, businesses faced an uphill battle after months of on-going COVID-19 restrictions and the pandemic still impacting economic activity. While the challenges may be different this year, the outlook remains concerning, as the latest figures suggest the economy is on the verge of contraction.

“Rising costs, continued supply chain challenges and historically low spending power are just some of the challenges businesses and their customers face at a time of year when activity should be reaching its peak.

“As another interest rate decision is due, and with a tough macroeconomic environment to battle, firms need the right support and reassurance from the Government to provide confidence ahead of an uncertain winter.”

Image provided by BDO

It’s Been A Busy 2022 For Layrd Design!

Moving Office, Awards and New Team Members.

We moved into our new office space in November and have welcomed three new team members over this year.
Emily Batten and Gina Clarke joined us as new Interior Designers and Emily Gray joined as our brand new Design Studio Manager.
Our Director, Will, won the Silver Award for Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the SME Cambridgeshire Business Awards too!

Sketch & Social December Meet

Our sketching group will be at St Paul’s Church, Cambridge, from 6pm on 14th December. 

You can sketch a live yoga class (or the amazing architecture), then join us for a festive drink afterwards.

All abilities welcome – just bring along a sketchpad and pens!

Completed Projects In 2022

What’s Coming In 2023?

Interesting Reads & Recommendations.

As Interior Designers, we love immersing ourselves in the latest trends, publications and tools (and we think you’ll find them interesting too!)

Dezeen – Super inspiring and accessible architecture, design and interiors online magazine.

Design Milk – Quirky online magazine, all about trends in the design and home furnishing world.

Interior Design Magazine – High end interiors and architecture magazine.

Coolors – Free tool to generate colour palettes for your space!

TED Sustainability by Design – Curated playlist of TED talks, all about sustainability in design.

ArchDaily – Online blogs covering a variety of global architectural news, projects and events.

https://www.layrddesign.co.uk/

The annual celebration of science and curiosity, Norwich Science Festival, won big at last night’s Norfolk & Suffolk Tourism Awards, with two awards.

The Festival, co-ordinated by The Forum in partnership with many organisations across the region, including UEA and the wider Norwich Research Park, won both Family Event And Experience Of The Year and Marketing Campaign Of The Year at the awards ceremony held at Milsons Kesgrave Hall in Suffolk last night.

Natalie Bailey, Norwich Science Festival Producer, said: “We’re thrilled to have won the best Family Event for Norwich Science Festival. This is a brilliant recognition of how far the Festival has come its first few years, and it’s all thanks to our wonderful partners, funders, sponsors, contributors and the wider Forum team, who all come together to make it such a success.”

Jan Robertson, Norwich Science Festival Marketing Manager, said: “We’re delighted to win best Marketing Campaign for our 2018 Festival. We worked with the wider Forum team and our partners to raise awareness of this engaging and fun Festival, and with DesignPod to create exciting family friendly graphics. It’s fantastic win this award, and to acknowledge the collaborative, multi-channel marketing campaign which has helped grow the Festival immensely and reach new audiences.”

The 2020 Norwich Science Festival will take place during October half-term, with plenty of activities, talks, workshops and shows for all. Last year, over 137,000 visits were made to Science Festival events across the nine days, and generated an estimated economic value of over £2,716,000 to the local economy.

To keep up-to-date with announcements, follow @NorwichSciFest on Twitter, or Norwich Science Festival on Facebook and Instagram, and keep an eye on norwichsciencefestival.co.uk for headline announcements in July and the full programme at the start of September.

Norfolk County Council has submitted a proposal to the department for Transport (DfT) which could see up to 70 zero-emission buses arriving in Norwich in 2024.

In March this year the council secured £3.3m funding after a joint bid with First Bus was submitted to the Department for Transport (DfT) for funding from the ‘Zero Emission Bus Regional Access’ (ZEBRA) scheme. The bid was matched by £3.6m of local investment from First Bus and will deliver 15 battery electric buses which will be in operation by March 2024 along with supporting infrastructure and electrical grid upgrade works.

Since then, the DfT has invited all cities that were successful in receiving ZEBRA funding to submit a change to the scope of their schemes, which could include additional buses and electrical charging infrastructure.

Following discussions with First Bus, the Council has developed a proposal for an additional 55 zero emission double decker buses to also be operational by March 2024. If successful there will also be a need to install an additional 57 fast chargers at the Rowntree Way First Bus depot.

Cabinet member for Highways, Infrastructure and Transport Martin Wilby said: 

“We are excited that we already have the 15 buses confirmed to be in operation in 2024 but to have the opportunity to increase this to a potential 70 buses was one not to be missed. If successful, this will be an extraordinary boost to our ambitions to run a net-zero transport system in Norfolk. The support that First bus has shown for this demonstrates the excellent working relationship we have with our bus operators here in Norfolk and how working together can help to achieve the very best for our County.”

Piers Marlow, Managing Director at First East of England said:

“This proposal will enable our Roundtree Way bus depot in Norwich to operate an entire zero emission bus fleet.  This means we can remove all diesel infrastructure and engineering equipment and demonstrates our commitment to zero emission buses going forwards and our alignment to the Government’s ambitions for a net-zero carbon transport system.

“We will continue to work closely with Norfolk County Council to deliver bus priority for customers in Norwich and progress the decarbonisation of our bus fleets across the region.”

The bus routes that these additional zero emission buses would serve all operate in Greater Norwich and will run through the city centre, which is currently declared an Air Quality Management Area.

The switch from conventional diesel engine buses to electric would reduce Co2 emissions by more than 80,000 tonnes – which is equivalent to taking around 4700 small petrol cars off the road. It will also save 32 tonnes of NOx and PM2.5 every year. These are the fine particles and other exhaust gasses known to reduce air quality and harm people’s health.

We anticipate hearing back from the DfT with a decision on our proposal by the end of the year. 

The Tudor Lodge Consultants SEO team is very happy to announce a new partnership this month, this time with Griggs Homes. The family-owned construction and property development company operating in North London and the home counties wants to boost its online presence in the property sector, and through a white hat SEO strategy, this will be achieved via the expertise of our highly skilled team.

About Griggs Homes

Griggs Homes is completely dedicated to creating the home of their clients’ dreams and is passionate about providing inspirational, innovative design alongside its wealth of experience in the field.

The family-owned firm specialises in new luxury property developments in premier locations across the home counties, as well as in the commercial sector in areas of London.

How Tudor Lodge Consultants is helping Griggs Homes

Landing pages: informative, concise landing pages that have relevant keywords are integral to being ranked and indexed properly by Google. These factors both have a huge impact on how a particular page will rank. Consequently, the SEO team at Tudor Lodge Consultants has made sure that the luxury property construction firm landing pages are promoting key terms such as bespoke builders, and luxury property developers.

Building links: another important aspect of a white-hat SEO strategy is building trustworthy links within the relevant domain. In this case, with Griggs Homes, it’s making sure that the company is building backlinks with reputable websites and companies in the homes and property sector.

This is incredibly important because establishing a website as trustworthy through multiple backlinks leads to higher search engine rankings, which is the ultimate goal. This is because Google will tend to rank websites with a higher number of good quality links more positively, as they are deemed as more relevant and authoritative than others in results pages for a query.

Flagship Homes have unveiled 33 new homes in Narborough.

The scheme, at Rectory Close off Denny’s Walk, includes 31 homes for affordable and social rent as well as two owner/occupier properties.

The new homes – a mixture of 1, 2- and 3-bedroom bungalows and one four-bedroom house – replace 12 post-war Airey and Swedish prefabricated houses which had previously been on the site. These properties were no longer fit for purpose, with half of them having fallen empty.

Six families who had lived in the old Airey houses have relocated into the high quality and modern new homes. Two owner/occupier homes were also replaced on the site.

The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss, MP for South West Norfolk attended the launch of the new homes on Tuesday, 28th May. She said: “It was great to meet the team behind the new development in Narborough. Housing is in high demand so to have more affordable homes in the area is extremely positive – I was delighted to have the chance to chat with local residents and look round the new properties.”

As well as the new homes, further improvements to the site have been made with the creation of a new public space and four speed bumps installed as a traffic calming measure.

The scheme, which has attracted £558,000 in funding from Homes England, has been delivered with the support of the Homes & Communities Agency, Breckland Council and Narborough Parish Council.

Tony Tann, Managing Director of Flagship Developments said: “Our work on this development allows us to provide great quality homes on this site for many more people than before.

“Through this scheme, we are meeting housing need, and we are pleased to be providing the majority of these homes at affordable rent.

“It is particularly good to see families who lived in the former Airey houses moving into these new homes.”

Councillor Peter Wilkinson, District Councillor for the Nar Valley Ward and Parish Councillor for Narborough Parish Council said: “I have championed this scheme from the very beginning as I saw it as an opportunity for families to have not just a house but a beautiful home. This has realised a dream as buying a house is out of reach for many families. I was really happy with the vision that Flagship had for this site.”

Work on the development began in summer 2016 and was completed in early 2019.

Conversions are the backbone to any business; without them, your business wouldn’t be on the path it is today. But we all know looking for ways to increase your conversions without making drastic changes to your website is hard.

In this instance, the first thing to consider is making sure your website is consistent regarding your calls to action (CTAs) and specifically their chosen colouring.

Why is this important, you ask? Well it’s proven that our eyes are drawn to eye-catching colours, something that stands out from the rest of the screen. The best place to implement these colours are at your conversion and clickable points. These colours need to be relevant – you can’t just throw in a luminous orange for the sake of drawing attention to your telephone number. Why? Let’s get into it.

You say tomato, I say tomato

Word association is something that is often linked to brands – for example “every little helps”, you think of Tesco. “I’m lovin’ it”, you think of McDonald’s. We could go on forever, but you get the point. The same applies to colour.

Colours are associated with brands, such as purple for Cadbury and red for Coca-Cola. If we take Cadbury’s as an example, we can see on their website that they feature predominantly their royal purple colouring as their background.

They are using their secondary brand colour, white, as the colour for their main clickable elements. This colour works really nicely for them as the white is a bright contrasting colour compared to the purple which really catches the eye. These colours feature across the site to draw your eye to the pages Cadbury want you to explore, it’s simple but so very clever.

But what colour should I use? 

Not every brand is as lucky as Cadbury when it comes to their brand colours working so clearly together. Take AFS Supplies, for example. AFS is a long standing business of 40+ years, they have quickly become a leading provider of health and hygiene products, as well as providing services to livestock farming and all allied industries. On their website, you can see that their logo features a range of colours, which can make it difficult to choose which one would work best for not only the website but to accompany the industry with which they fall in.

As they supply to an array of industries, it is imperative that they choose an appropriate colour for their calls to action. Now, you may not believe in such things, but colours come with certain connotations. As already mentioned, purple has a sense of royalty, blue has an aura of trust, and brown, steadfastness. When it comes to the colour green, this has a calm presence – it helps to ease any feelings of dread as well as being linked closely to nature.

As AFS Supplies works a lot with the agricultural industry, of all the colours green was the clear choice. It represents a calm process to ordering your supplies, as well as aligning with their industry connotations. 

The ease of choosing your colour can differ depending on the existing brand.

We have implemented the same strategy for Dust Masks Direct, AFS Supplies’ sister company. With only one brand colour, this one was easier to implement. As specialists in PPE they have a clearer target demographic which made it simpler to implement their brand colour throughout the site in the same way. The trusting blue used in their branding is perfect for their business. PPE is something vital to a lot of industries, so trusting the company you buy from is a must.

Cadbury has nailed it with their royal purple, communicating the luxury of their chocolate as well as their royal standing in the chocolate industry. Choosing your colour needs to not only catch the eye but represent your brand identity. 

You’ve chosen your colour – now what?

So you have your colour, now use it in the most efficient way to maximise your conversions! But how? We are using a natural green to accentuate all the calls to action around AFS Supplies site, such as the buttons to the product pages so it is clearer where on the site users should navigate to. 

Not only are these used on calls to action but also on all clickable elements of the site to help with guiding the user throughout and to avoid any rage clicks on something that can’t be clicked on! Any signs of frustration on the site can mean the difference between a customer converting… or not.

Whatever you do, don’t fluctuate between colours! There’s nothing more misleading than a range of clickable colours. You’ll find with one or even two main colours, you will help to increase your conversion rate. It’s a simple and easy way to do so without bringing too many eye-catching colours to the site. 

Of course, adding colour to your clickable elements and calls to action is just a start to increasing your conversions. Further steps you could take would be looking into SEO, social media marketing or PPC.

Your marketing strategy needs to be tailored bespoke to your business depending on your marketing goals, it’s not one size fits all. Interested? Give us a call on 01603 859007 or email hello@nuimage.co.uk and we can set up the next steps! 

Images provided by NU Image