Tag Archives: Covid-19

Hospitality, News

Stampede launches free managed gift card service to help hospitality businesses recover lost income

Stampede, a Leith-based start-up offering digital growth services for the hospitality sector, today launched a free managed gift-card service for businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to help them recover lost income quickly and create a continuous new revenue stream.

Stampede gift cards is a fully managed service, which means that a traditional pub or small local café with no ecommerce functionality can launch a website, create and issue gift cards to their customer database, and start accepting payments immediately through Stampede. The buy now/use later vouchers are designed to be a more sustainable alternative to crowdfunding options that have proved popular during the pandemic, giving business owners a new way to boost revenues and improve cash flow issues during this time of uncertainty. The service also helps businesses stay in contact with customers and provides them with more security for the future – guests are certain to redeem their vouchers after the shutdown ends and likely to spend even more money when they visit.

Crowdfunding campaigns have become a popular way for restaurants, pubs and bars to recover lost income while closed, in a bid to avoid job losses and bankruptcy. However, these kinds of campaigns are often a short-term solution and do not fix the longer-term cash flow issues created by COVID-19. Stampede gift cards allow businesses to compete in the market once again and tailor offers and services for their local customers. Stampede believes that this is a more dependable solution to cash flow issues in the long term, rather than being solely dependent on charitable donations via sites like GoFundMe.

Stampede gift cards are powered by fin tech services Stripe and Connect, meaning that Stampede clients need no technical expertise to launch their gift card campaign and start taking payments. The fully managed journey was an important consideration for Stampede, who understood that hospitality businesses do not have the time and resources required to build extra online/payments functionality during such a difficult time. The gift card service was created by the team in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and follows discussions with hospitality customers about how best to recover their lost income.

“Businesses that make their money by bringing people together have been hit hardest by COVID-19 and social distancing policies,” said Stampede founder, Patrick Clover.

“Many businesses are struggling to survive, and while donations via sites like GoFundMe are a great quick fix, no business owner wants to be dependent on charitable donations as their main source of income. We know that the general public want to support their favourite local businesses during their hour of need, but they don’t want to get takeout every night, nor can they order a pint for delivery from their local pub. We wanted to create a solution that would let people give their financial support to struggling local businesses, while empowering those businesses to start taking money again on their own terms.”

Engagement, HR News

COVID-19 emergency response engagement survey templates bring informed decision-making to any organisation free of charge

To support organisations through the COVID-19 outbreak, Culture Amp, the people and culture platform, has launched free emergency response employee engagement survey templates so that businesses can assess employee morale, make informed decisions and do the right thing by its people.

The survey templates will enable organisations to assess employee sentiment and understand how people feel about the company’s response during these uncertain times.

Collecting the right information at the right time will help inform the next steps the organisation should take. For example, which, if any, benefits should get cut first, whether sacrifices are being fairly distributed and if adjustments need to be made to any new ways of working.

“Employee experience is one of the most important business considerations during tough times, when an organisation’s commitment to its employees is laid bare,” explains Didier Elzinga, CEO and co-founder, Culture Amp. “It’s crucial that leaders listen to the concerns of their employees at this time. How they decide to face these moments of trauma will set the behaviour patterns for the future so it’s important to do the best thing for employees now and over the coming days, weeks and months.”

Culture Amp has launched two survey templates addressing areas such as company confidence, communication and awareness, business continuity, well-being and health.

The Emergency Response – COVID-19 Pulse Survey is designed specifically for the current situation and is intended to be an ongoing shorter survey to check-in with employees regularly (eg, weekly) and track trends over time.

The Emergency Response – Extended Survey Template is intended to gain a full understanding of how employees feel about any fast-changing and / or emergency situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It contains additional questions for most factors including leadership, role enablement and communication, providing a wider pull of questions to select from.

The survey templates can be found at Culture Amp’s Community hub – https://www.culturefirst.com/resilience – where there are also curated and crowdsourced COVID-19 resources to support HR teams through testing times.

Marketing, PR and SEO, South East

Free creative advice for Sussex businesses

Restaurants offering delivery services, fitness venues giving online classes and wholesalers starting to deal directly with consumers are just a few examples of how businesses are getting creative to survive in these fast-paced changing times. To help local companies, Billingshurst-based marketing agency PMW Communications is offering a free ‘creative surgery’ where owners can receive professional advice and guidance.

It could be that a company would like to tap into a new market, change the way it trades, spread a message, or offer something different. Whatever the requirement PMW would like to help with a creative approach.

Peter Sutton, Managing Director of PMW Communications, commented:

“Whilst the government announcements have given some relief in helping ensure much-valued staff will continue to earn a living, for any business owner this is still an extremely scary time.

“Now more than ever local companies need to work together and offer support. We have a team of 36 marketing professionals, so what we can offer is free advice and a creative way to help owners ensure they have a business once the crisis is over. It’s not about developing an idea to rake in the money, but to protect the strong Sussex business community so it can once again thrive.

“Sometimes you are too close to a situation and can’t see what to do, or you know you want to try to reach a new audience but you don’t know how to do it – if this is you, please get in contact and we will be happy to help and give you some guidance.”

Businesses that would like to receive advice from PMW Communications can call 01403 783400 and speak to Peter Sutton or Gina Hollands.

Health, Healthcare News

EQL helps alleviate Covid-19 pressure from GPs in Bedfordshire and Greenwich

In a move designed to reduce the strain on GPs and the wider healthcare system, NHS Bedfordshire CCG and NHS Greenwich CCG (covering a total population of over 700,000 patients) have implemented an innovative software solution capable of triaging patients with MSK related issues such as bad backs and sprains determining the severity of their condition and recommending next stages without the need for a doctors’ appointment.

Phio is EQL’s physiotherapy assessment solution providing an agile triage tool that signposts users into suitable MSK care pathways. This approach reduces the need for human intervention thereby alleviating pressure on GP’s already under pressure from COVID-19.

Jason Ward, CEO of EQL, who along with Peter Grinbergs co-founded the company, said:

“At this time it is imperative to alleviate pressure on Primary Care and the wider NHS. We are committed to radically improving clinical pathways through technology and are thrilled to be working with NHS Bedfordshire and Greenwich through Circle Health the specialist healthcare provider. We hope to see other Clinical Commissioning Groups follow suit in the future. ”

Accessible 24/7 and available in any language, Phio can complement existing services and is a strong alternative for many telephone-based and remote physiotherapy services. It also offers dramatically improved customer journeys and has the potential to radically improve health outcomes.

Law

How Covid-19 impacts on Contractual Obligations

Conexus Law, the specialist advisory firm that provides legal and commercial advice to clients who work in sectors where the built environment, technology, engineering and people converge, is launching a range of fact sheets on the legal implications of the Covid-19.

The first one provides legal analysis alongside some valuable, practical steps that may be taken by parties who find the impact of Covid-19 affects their ability to meet contractual obligations owed to others (upstream), or who find that their trading partners can no longer meet the obligations owed to them (downstream).

Ed Cooke, Founder at Conexus Law, explains:

“In the modern commercial world, businesses are often heavily reliant on trading partners and long “just in time” supply chains in order to fulfil their contractual obligations. The impact of Covid-19 could significantly upset those finely balanced arrangements and the relationships between parties may be tested in ways they had not previously contemplated.

“As trading relationships are now often global, a complex interplay of laws from different jurisdictions may also be in play, some of which are potentially in conflict. For example, English law may govern your contract with your customer, but Chinese law may govern the law of your contract with a critical supplier enabling you to perform your customer contract.”

The Conexus Law fact sheet advises that organisations identify whether there are any express provisions written into the contract which might be relevant to the Covid-19 situation. For example, there is a large section on force majeure and whether it is applicable. Other areas include certain insurances and the importance of following all relevant procedures in the policy related to claims notification and submission of claims.

“The Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak is already having a significant impact on many individuals and businesses and it is becoming clearer that the impact will likely be more significant and longer lasting than we may have imagined at first. We hope these fact sheets provide helpful guidance during these challenging times,” concludes Ed.

To download this fact sheet, free of charge, click here: https://7aee0ab1-94f5-4d7e-9556-9f9a01df3265.filesusr.com/ugd/b58c63_71a397aa9f414609913e82fc89d9417a.pdf