While the Government talks a lot about how British businesses should scale-up, what exactly does it mean and what is the role of HR in all of this?

Small businesses in Britain make up more than 99 per cent of all businesses here, they employ 15.7 million people which equates to 60 per cent of all employment.

Helping these businesses and entrepreneurs move to the next level would have a profound effect on the British economy.

So what’s standing in the way? Research from the ScaleUp Institute points to five main barriers small firms must cross in order to grow.

These are:

• Finding employees to hire who have the skills they need
• Building their leadership capability
• Accessing customers in other markets / home market
• Accessing the right combination of finance
• Navigating infrastructure

According to Emma Jones, founder of small business support group Enterprise Nation, learning management skills and bringing in the right staff can be one of the biggest challenges of all.

Emma said: “Those running small businesses are exceptionally busy people.  They run firms because they are successful in a particular skill or are good at executing brilliant ideas.  They are strong and resilient and are pushing hard to build great companies   But they are not necessarily natural managers and often do not have the time, or experience, to seek out the best staff.

“This is where they need help from HR professionals.”

In order to understand growth better, and where help or support is needed to get the business to the next stage of growth smoothly, it’s helpful for HR staff to understand this relationship between growth and management goals.

An event this week will attempt to unlock some of this for HR professionals as well as entrepreneurs looking to find scale.

ScaleUp 2016 is an event set to bring together the experiences of Britain’s top entrepreneurs – those that have already successfully grown – to help younger, but equally ambitious businesses, get to the next level. 

The day-long November 3 event, organised by small business support group Enterprise Nation and in collaboration with Sherry Coutu’s ScaleUp Institute and the Institute of Chartered Accountants, England and Wales (ICAEW), which is to be held in Birmingham’s Aston University Business School.

ScaleUp 2016 will hear from entrepreneurs like Tim Robinson, the man who drove the exponential growth of delivery solution Doddle, Jimmy Cregan, the charismatic force behind Jimmy’s Iced Coffee and Irene Graham, the ScaleUp Institute’s CEO on the vision of the eco-system Britain needs to develop in order to achieve and retain higher level firms.

There will also be a chance to hear from Enterprise Nation founder Emma Jones, MBE, the Government’s SME Crown Representative.

For more details look here