Dear Member, 

Welcome to this edition of the SFA e-zine.

Last week, the SFA team along with our awards partners and the awards judges met with An Taoiseach for the launch of the SFA National Small Business Awards 2020.

The Awards are now open, you can apply yourself or you can nominate a small business that you believe will win Irelands next ‘Best Small Business’. The SFA Awards are open to all small businesses whether you are a member or non-member. Check out what category suits your business best. Members can hear from former SFA award winners at our Back to Business event. 

In this week's newsletter we provide an update on the electrical contracting and construction sectors' pay rates under the new and updated Sectoral Employment Orders. Our Brexit article forces on how the construction sector can get Brexit ready. Both articles are a must read for those in the construction and electrical sectors.

For those with responsibility for health and safety in the workplace, the Health and Safety Authority are running a series of free Ergonomic workshops in October. 

When consulting with our members for the recent SFA Skillnet funding application, many had questions about how to correctly identify the training needs for themselves and their staff. As a result, we have put together some steps on how to assess training needs in your organisation.

Our “Meet the Buyer” event on upcoming commercial opportunities with Irish Water and Gas Networks Ireland takes place on 17^th September in the Gibson Hotel, Dublin, we would love to see many small businesses attend. Bookings are now open for the SFA Annual Lunch on 15^th November 2020. We also provide a summary of our recent press coverage.

As always, we’d love to hear from you about any queries you may have, issues you wish to have raised with Government or other stakeholders and your ideas on how we can improve the business environment for us all. Please contact me on tel: 01 605 1602 or e-mail: sven@sfa.ie or tweet: @SFA_Irl or visit: www.sfa.ie.

Kind regards, 

Sven Spollen-Behrens

SFA Director