With just a few days to go until Easter, quickly followed by the Royal Wedding on 29 April, latest research from BDRC Continental shows that the mood of the UK’s small businesses as we approach two four day weekends in succession is upbeat.
While 45% of those surveyed told BDRC Continental that they expect the two consecutive Bank Holiday weekends in April to cause some disruption to their business, just under one third (30%) said that the disruption will be outweighed by the positive lift it will create. Over half of bigger businesses (52% of those with turnover above £1m) anticipate a disruption to their business while small businesses were more likely to see their business benefit from the bank holiday bonanza – 17% of businesses with less than £1m in turnover compared to 11% of bigger businesses (turnover £1m+).
The service industry emerged as the sector most likely to feel the positive lift will outweigh any disruption to their business (36%). However, businesses in the Midlands emerged as the party poopers of the survey, half as likely to expect their business to benefit from the double Bank Holidays (9%) as their counterparts in the South (18%) and far less than businesses in the North, at 24%.
Vicky Whiting, Associate Director at BDRC Continental believes the results indicate that the mood of staff has the greatest uplift in the smallest businesses. “It would be easy to assume that two long weekends in succession will be hard for businesses to cope with, but the lift those breaks give to employees clearly has an important impact on small firms. Interestingly, it is the larger businesses, with more staff and a higher turnover that expect the holiday weekends to be disruptive to their business, and who are less likely to expect to reap a benefit from the upheaval