Do you know how much the UK economy relies on small and medium enterprises (SMEs)?

It’s huge.

SMEs account for 99.9% of all businesses in the UK, employing 16.3 million people (61% of the private sector workforce), accounting for half of all private sector turnover (House of Commons Library, Business Statistics, 21 December 2021).

Owning or working in an SME is often very, very hard work. Sure, there are upsides – being your own boss, potential for growth and such like – but SME leaders and employees frequently have to be super flexible (holding down many roles) and extremely resilient (in the face of fluctuating market demand, financial pressures and Covid). SME leaders often work in isolation from others so it’s also a lonely place to be.

I’ve worked in a number of SMEs and facilitated several hundred business leaders through leadership programmes – such as the excellent (and heavily funded) Help to Grow Management course – and the main challenge people face is having the time and headspace to work on the business rather than in the business.

Supporting SMEs to think and learn is a very hot topic right now, and is part of a major university and business school conference taking place in June 2022, hosted by Sheffield Hallam University.

I’m a co-chair for this conference topic and I want to hear from you if you are somehow involved with SME learning. You might be an SME leader who takes an active approach to your team’s learning, you might be a training provider, business school or university specialising in SME executive education, you may represent a government or other seed corn funding body, you may be an academic researching this area or represent a business network such as the Chambers of Commerce or a Local Enterprise Partnership.

Here’s some musings on possible topics you might like to share at the conference:

• Firstly, SMEs can be incredibly busy places to work, so how do SME leaders find the time to learn? Do they learn in the evenings or weekends or do they to squeeze it into the working week? And how do they justify the time investment?
• Do they learn by themselves or do they collaborate with other SME leaders, maybe in a peer or support group network, and do these groups have external facilitation or are they self-managed?
• Who is it in the SME that ‘does’ the learning? Is it the leader or owner, and if not, do they nominate someone in the team, and how do they then gain the knowledge?
• What aspects of business or leadership do SMEs need to know about, and how do they horizon scan to spot new market or technological opportunities and challenges?
• How do SMEs source their development needs? Do they get advice from their local government employment and skills advisors, their regional enterprise partnership, Chambers of Commerce, universities, business schools or private providers? How well do those providers really understand SME issues and what is the quality of their support?
• Are SMEs able to progress through different learning pathways and which pathways are most effective?
• What teaching and learning approaches are most effective? Our approach at Sheffield Hallam University is highly relational in that we develop strong relationships with our SME learners to build mutual trust and a positive, outcome-focused attitude. How are others approaching this and what are the results?
• Has delivery changed as a result of the rapid growth of video-conferencing technologies and is this always a good thing?
• What are the barriers inhibiting and opportunities enabling SME learning?

If you are not an academic don’t be spooked by the language of abstracts, symposiums and streams. Fundamentally, this is an opportunity to share your ideas, get some helpful feedback and allow us all learn in the process! Oh, and the conference is on-line which makes it even easier to get involved.

Click on this link if you would like to submit a proposal for the conference and feel free to add your own musings in the comments field below. Even if you don’t want to present your ideas might spark a thought for someone else.

Vincent Traynor