North East England Chamber of Commerce chief executive John McCabe

Northumbria University and NEECC host event to tackle the challenges of retaining talent in the region

Northumbria University and the North East England Chamber of Commerce have joined forces to host a free knowledge-sharing event for business leaders and HR professionals, exploring the challenges of talent attraction and retention and how organisations of all sizes can develop a leadership pipeline.

Grow Your Own: How to Attract and Retain a Talented Team will take place on the 6th June 2023, 9:30 am – 11:30 am, at Newcastle Eagles’ Vertu Motors Arena.

The event, supported by Supply Chain North East, is open to all businesses and aims to provide an engaging platform for people professionals and senior leaders to explore strategies and best practice for recruiting, engaging and upskilling talent within their organisation.

With an impressive line-up of expert speakers and thought leaders including Chamber chief executive John McCabe, Northumbria University HR and leadership academic Helen Charlton, Walker Filtration’s Group HR director Alix Bolton and Newcastle Eagles’ managing director Paul Blake, attendees will gain insights into the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in the HR and people management arena.

John McCabe will outline some of the skills and labour market barriers facing businesses currently and the importance of building leadership skills and capacity to maximise growth here in the region.

John said: “The region faces profound labour market issues, and employers are reluctant to create job vacancies due to economic uncertainty. Whilst this isn’t a challenge unique to the North East, it is arguably greater than in other parts of the UK.

“As a consequence, businesses need to be prepared to create their own future leaders. This underlines the importance of having a sustainable recruitment and retention strategy to ensure they can attract, develop and retain talent effectively.

“We hope this event will support the regional business community in facing the current labour market challenges head-on and provide insight, advice and strategies to help drive the continued growth and success of their organisations and the region as a whole.”

Dr Helen Charlton, senior lecturer in leadership and HR management and director of Apprenticeships at Northumbria University added: “Investing in leadership development is proven to improve company culture, competitive advantage, customer satisfaction and efficient business performance. But all too often, people come to management or leadership roles within a business by circumstance rather than design.”


By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily

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