Picking up beer kegs, pallets, and Microsoft Office skills

The UKs leading forklift attachment company, B&B Attachments have received support from Business Northumberland to enable the staff to stay connected during the pandemic.

The Cramlington based business has been going strong for over four decades with 70 employees and turning over millions every year, but with restrictions put in place and employees told to work from home, B&B Attachments sent 10% of the workforce to work from home, with the sales team already partially working from home.

The long-standing company has had a relationship with Advance Northumberland after they received support when moving to their premises back in 2015.

It is through Advance Northumberland that B&B Attachments were informed about Business Northumberland and the catalogue of business support available to them.

Business Northumberland provides support to small and medium enterprises across the North East who are looking to sustain and grow their business online. The fully funded support programme is funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Advance Northumberland, so there is no cost to eligible businesses when accessing the support.

The company prides itself on a strong workforce that communicates well, however with remote working becoming the norm, B&B Attachments reached out to Business Northumberland to enrol staff on Microsoft Teams training.

“The online training events for Teams have been very beneficial to the business. This has enabled us to use teams to transform the operation of our business and increase safe home working due to COVID. We have seen operational savings and improvements in efficiency due to using Teams for our communications.”

Teams has many collaborative features, such as document sharing and a chat function meaning teams can continue to work together despite their location.

“Microsoft Teams has benefited the business, and provided our employees with the ability to keep communication and collaboration effective and centralised, while also meeting security and compliance needs”

“Video calling keeps us connected, Teams also offers document sharing, which many of our employees were not fully aware of this function. Our employees now feel confident using Teams to its fullest capacity.”

Trainer, Lara Mellor from Lara Mellor Training and Consultancy says ““Many businesses are not aware of the full capability of Microsoft Teams and by utilising the collaborative side of the software like B&B have they gain huge efficiencies in their business and ensure that remote communication can still be effective.  That B&B can see such huge advantages from the sessions they have attended is brilliant news.”

As well as attending online workshops, the B&B Attachments team have received support with Excel, the Excel courses start from beginner to advanced enabling skills and confidence rise to a high standard when using the programme.  

“We highly recommend other Northumberland businesses to join the Business Northumberland programme. If your business is clear about its objectives, Business Northumberland has the guidance, advice and support available to help achieve your goals.”

For more information about Business Northumberland, please email business@advancenorthumberland.co.uk or visit www.businessnorthumberland.co.uk