Event returns to help businesses recruit and retain staff

With nationwide job vacancies at their highest for 25 years, local businesses are being invited to a free and interactive session to explore how they can attract new employees and reduce their staff turnover.

Organised by City of York Council’s Economic Growth team in partnership with Start and Grow York, Recruitment and Retention: Resilience will take place in York’s Priory Street Centre on Tuesday 8 October from 8:30 am – 1pm.

HR experts from across York and North Yorkshire will be exploring how  businesses of all shapes and sizes can improve their staff recruitment and retention processes in cost-effective, inclusive and innovative ways.

As well as unlocking practical advice on the day, attendees will be introduced to a wide range of support programmes offering fully or part-funded support to resolve their staffing issues.

Attendees will hear first-hand from local businesses, including York’s Grand hotel, about how they developed creative solutions to attract and retain talented and highly motivated employees.

There will also be plenty of opportunity for attendees to network over free refreshments.

Councillor Pete Kilbane, Executive Member for Economy and Culture at City of York Council, said:

“Attracting and keeping great staff can be a real issue, and it’s clear that businesses across the country are still struggling to fill vacancies.

“Last year’s event was a truly inspirational day, showcasing how thinking outside the box when it comes to solving staffing challenges also helps make the world of work a fairer and more diverse place.

“I’d whole-heartedly encourage all York businesses to come along and share their experiences and ideas at what promises to be another informative, useful and thought-provoking event.”

Ian Carlier, CEO at Momentic, who are delivering the Start and Grow service, said: 

“Through our work supporting start-ups and small businesses we are seeing the increased need for a more structured approach to recruitment that breaks down barriers, and misconceptions behind common staffing problems faced by employers.

“We’ve designed our recruitment and retention support programme based on feedback from our previous programmes and York’s business community to work on a solution-based outcome model for each attendee.

“It’s been great to see so much early interest in this support and we look forward to building on the success of our peer network approaches to help local businesses get the right employees in the right roles, at the right time.”

This event forms part of the council’s business support offer, which has been allocated £797,303 for 2024/25 from the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

To book your free tickets to Recruitment and Retention: Resilience, visit: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cityofyorkcouncil1/1381612