Home / News and Events / Latest News / Final November update from ISME CEO

Final November update from ISME CEO

Dear Member and Colleagues,

We are now in the endgame of Brexit. Even in the unlikely event of a deal in December, it will not be comprehensive, and a lot of agencies will not be ready. Please do not leave your preparations until 2nd January- there is nothing that can be done by ISME to reverse the UK withdrawal from the Single Market and the Customs Union!

Help and financial support are available now, so don’t delay in using them. Below are some examples

 

ISME knows that 2020 has been a rough year for most SMEs, and we have been working hard to get access to an affordable examinership system for small business. I spoke to a UCC Law School event on 27th November to explain what we’ve been doing. My address is here.

Today of course is ‘Black Friday’. However, we are backing the campaign to turn ‘Black Friday’ Green by encouraging you all to support Irish and support small. We have a listing of ISME Members in our Shop Local campaign here and a selection of special offers available here.

As you may have heard the Government is floating the idea of statutory sick pay. ISME will welcome this proposal if it is chargeable to the social fund, as Sickness Benefit is currently. Otherwise, in the interest of small business, we will object to it.

In HR news, the suspension of redundancy provisions relating to temporary lay-off and short-time work, which arose as a result of COVID-19, will be extended until 31 March 2021. This means that the redundancy extension date will be aligned with the end date of the PUP and EWSS. More information on this extension is available here.

This week we ran our first free webinar with Google on ‘Google My Business’. It was a very informative event and the feedback was great.  Our next free webinar will take place on 2nd December, entitled ‘Get started with search engine optimisation (SEO)’. ​Alison Gogarty, ​Account Manager, Large Customer Sales UK, will lead the event. Find out more and register here.

My colleagues in ISME Skillnet have 2 fully funded online Skills Connect Programmes: QQI Level 7 Certified Digital Sales & Marketing and QQI Level 6 Essential Management Skills. Designed specifically to help workers rapidly reskill and adapt to a changing business landscape. For further information please email [email protected]

As business costs continue to rise and income for so many has been challenged, we want you to take ADVANTAGE of your ISME Membership to reduce your costs and add value to your business. We have refreshed our ADVANTAGE Affinity programme welcoming two new partners – Big Red Cloud offering 22% discount off Big Red Cloud Annual subscription and Big Red Book Payroll; and BuyMedia who can provide 15% reduction in the cost of advertising p.a. Click here to view all.

Finally, if you have not already, please complete our fifth COVID survey of the year here.

We, like you will be listening closely to tonight’s Government announcement.

Stay Safe,

Neil McDonnell,
ISME CEO