CBI webinar on Restart and Revive

It was a privilege to be involved in the CBI webinar series supporting SMEs impacted by coronavirus which was held on Monday 13th July and the recording is now available here.

The speakers were: Deborah Fraser, Director – Regions, CBI (Chair), Callum Biggins, Director of Campaigns, CBI, Katie Dash, Head of Everyone’s Business, Campaigns, CBI and Jenny Herrera, CEO, Good Business Foundation

The focus was on how we can restart and revive business and we contributed the following points (as displayed on the CBI’s website):

• Why does responsible business matter? For the most part businesses ARE behaving responsibly, but every so often a story leaks through.
• How people are treated matters.
• Responsible behaviour matters because it cares about people.
• We run the Good Business Charter, and lockdown has given us a chance to re-examine this and improve outreach, website, and business engagement. We’ve worked hard to ensure the Charter appeals to businesses of all sizes and sectors. Small businesses welcome the opportunity to be accredited as ‘responsible’.
• Responsible and sustainable business is not just for big business. Any firm can build back better by caring for their employees and customers, being sustainable. These are the areas we focus on.
• During the pandemic, we have depended on some of the lowest paid staff in society. We do not want these to become dispensable assets. We all have a duty of care to those who work to make sure our businesses run properly.
• There’s a rising call for fairness in all walks of life. The Good Business Charter is something any business can apply for.

SMEs

We are proud to have a high percentage of Good Business Charter members in the 10-50 employees bracket and we are shortly going to launch our 0-9 employees self-assessment in recognition that organisations of all shapes and sizes can be responsible and should be able to access our accreditation.