July 24 has been interesting.

The UK has changed Government, and most people seem to be happy about it even though 80% of us didn’t vote for the winners. President Biden has declared himself a lame duck after the felonious ex-President Trump narrowly avoided a teenage assassin’s bullet and the Vice President now carries the hopes of the saner part of the US electorate. The Paris Olympics have begun after an alarming right turn in French politics while warfare in Ukraine and Gaza continues unabated and North Korean diplomacy features excrement delivered by balloon.

Meanwhile our mixing and packing efforts have been rewarded by a profit for the first time in three years. Productivity measured by turnover and profit per head is up and we are looking for a strategy that will deliver both a sustained growth and an exit path for me. The King’s envoys are still trying to understand the business that they have inherited but appear to be enmeshed in a complex web of systems that seem to prioritise compliance over customer service. Time will tell!

In many ways this is a really exciting time in which we have shown that we can make a profit and also find new opportunities to grow. We have begun a new strategic initiative that will bring a clearer focus on our objectives and on fulfilling them. Roles and accountabilities will be more sharply defined and mine will be particularly concentrated on leadership, delegation, succession and my transition out of the business.

My worry, however, concerns sustainability in the face of difficulties in recruiting and training the calibre of people that we need to fulfil both today’s and tomorrow’s production. This can also be said to be a national problem but, in our location, the national success in attracting more technological manufacturing to the area directly reduces our chances of recruiting the people that we need and of keeping those that we have. Some of our recruits come to work by train but two or three times per week their train is cancelled. How sustainable is that?

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