Knowledge, Information Sharing and Support

 

Sharing business knowledge

The Congleton KISS Group - Knowledge, Information Sharing and Support aims to enable local businesses to share skills, knowledge and information about learning opportunities in order to improve performance, develop local businesses and raise skills in the community.

The Knowledge Information and Sharing support is supported by Congleton Borough Lifelong Learning Partnership - an active network of organisations and individuals working together to develop all kinds of learning format and informal, for people across the Borough to access throughout their lives.

 

Breaking down barriers

We are a group of people made up of employers, government agencies, educators service providers, which was formed following researching the barriers that businesses face in providing training, learning and development for their employees. The findings of the research were that many businesses don't have the time, finance, in-house expertise and often don't know what learning and funding opportunities exist.

Visit the Congleton KISS website

 

Added value, no cost

So the idea was born, we get together every month in a timely manner, with no cost involved, to share knowledge and experience for mutual benefit. We invite guests to come along to help us to understand what kind of support, learning, training and funding is available to help us to improve our businesses. The group is growing and is attracting interest from a wide range of sectors.

 

Some benefits of being part of the group, cited by members, are:

• I'm back at my desk by 10.30 having learned things, had a good time, with no cost involved.
• Introduced me to networking in an easy way, I now attend other networking events.
• I get to know what is out there to benefit my businesses.
• It's good to share knowledge and experiences through informal disucssion to benefit our businesses.
• The group members are building good businesses relationships and we enjoy getting together.

 

What do you hope to get from the meetings?

• To meet like minded local businesses with whom I can offer and get assistance with problems running a company in the borough
• Create a borough wide networking group with the help of the Chamber and Sece.
• Getlocal businesses talking to each other.
• Get new ideas on how to train people.
• Find out where we can get funding from and help in finding appropriate providers of the training.
• Informative, knowledge sharing sessions, letting us know of any available training in the area, any funding that may be available at any given time.
• Help and advice for schemes such as the IIP.
• The information on National Minimum Wage was of use - this kind of information that is beneficial to us all.
• Investor's in people support.
• To be able to use the Government systems available.
• Change attitudes to learning.
• Identify companies whom we can exchange ideas/learning with (visting each other's workplaces).

 

What do you hope to get from the perspective of your business?

• To know about funding for training locally which we as a company can take advantage of.
• For our workforce to pass on advice to the future school leavers or employees requiring retraining in the borough.
• To raise the profile of our company in the borough getting more involved with local schemes.
• Help in general on training in order to have better trained employees.
• To be able to say that we have put something back into the community Business Development.

 

What do you hope to get from this network of people?

• Local contacts with a wealth of knowledge to call upon for answers to problems I might encounter (x2)
• Friends.
• To share my skills and knowledge with others.
• Support - to be able to bounce ideas off others before I perhaps present an idea to the company I work for.
• The "Conflict Handling Workshop" is an example of an excellent benefit to us all for attending.

 

Kongleton KISS website