— You will hear five short recordings about improvements in the workplace. — For each recording, decide What improvement has bee

Growth for a new business like ours can be as much of a problem as a positive. You’re struggling to keep up on all fronts, and the people side of things can be a real headache. What we do is rather specialised, which means you can’t just take people on as and when you need them. That’s why making the skills building sessions available to more people was a good idea, as it means we can grow expertise internally.

Small businesses can be incredibly inefficient in all sorts of ways. We’ve certainly been guilty of paying out for things without checking the outlay against the benefits. But with this new chap appointed, I can see we’re going to be much more careful. We have to put everything to him, and he analyses all spending. Waste is going right down, and we’ve cancelled some orders for unnecessary new machinery. Margins are looking better already.