Providing advice for businesses and employees? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

Right now, here in Australia, there are a myriad of resources available for businesses, business owners or managers, and employees.

Pretty much every local Council, State Government, Industry Body, Chamber of Commerce and networking organisations have workshops, “How to?” information, advice and assistance, guides or other material available to assist us through the Covid19 pandemic.

Everybody’s doing it!

I saw an interesting email this week, from a reputable mental health charity. They had been asked for assistance and “Can you provide a speaker?” for a workshop that a local business chamber wanted to provide for their membership.

The email response was, essentially: “Look, we’d love to help, but everyone is asking us for this right now and we just can’t assist. Here are some links to information available from a variety of sources – Government, mental health experts, etc.”

It’s a good point to note though – right now, there is a wealth of information out there. If you are an organisation such as a networking group, business chamber etc – maybe the best thing you can do to help your members is to point them in the direction of the most relevant and helpful information.

So, what’s the solution?

If you ARE planning on a workshop or event (via our old friend Zoom, of course), then you could consider either adding value to what is already out there. Alternatively, try pointing attendees to what is already out there (so, a ‘summarising’ theme, perhaps?). Finally, consider making your presentation or theme on a subject that is not already available from another reputable source.

Here at Development Pathways, that’s exactly what we are doing to assist the St George Business Chamber (www.stgeorgebc.org) with their monthly online workshops. Presenters are (a) providing “Here’s what you need to know/do and here’s where to get the information” presentations or (b) are providing a unique or added-value workshop to compliment the information available already.

Likewise, local Councils or other organisations have created local business directories, to encourage a “Shop Local” mentality. Here’s a couple of examples from southern Sydney LGAs: https://georgesriverbusiness.com.au/ and https://www.bayside.nsw.gov.au/community/businesses/backthebay

So, take advantage of any and all information that’s currently available. Let’s all get behind efforts to inform and assist businesses and employees at this stressful time But, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel