I was lucky enough to be invited to a directors’ conference organised by executive recruitment and assessment practice Ashley Hoyle.

Entitled “No Hiding Place on the Board” it featured speakers from the London Stock Exchange, Heny Boot (the property compamy), Mazars and Pannone.

Of particular interest was James Lister of Pannone talking about redundancy.  Even though employers can bemoan the weighting of employment law as being against them it is in many ways strongly for them.

If a company is restructuring it can effectively make its staff redundant with good cause for instance and not suffer any undue penalty.

James touched on the cynical way some lawyers make senior staff redundant but bring in junior staff at the same time: the job has been made redundant and the law recognises that a legal professional with two years’ experience is not doing the same job as a partner, even if it looks like it is a cost cutting exercise.

I had an enjoyable talk to Craig Slater of Altitude and Corgi Groups about social media and he made a resolution to ask his staff if they twitter.  Pannone was quick to pick up my twittering about James’ talk from the confernce and is now following me. (I wonder if they will pick this up with 24 hours, please leave a comment if you do?)

Once again thanks to Ashley Hoyle for being invited and being such good hosts.

I have been given the opportunity to talk about PR on Salford City Radio 94.4 FM today at 2-3pm. Most of the hour is a selection of my tunes based on my superlative taste – no irony intended.

But what are the benefits and how do you measure them?

Well there is RAJAR, which stands for Radio Joint Audience Research Limited. This produces research that shows reach, share of possible reach, average listening time etc.

But being surveyed is not cheap, it can run into the thousands. So many local stations will be a mystery concerning their success.

I was told that previous guests had gained new business as a result of their appearance, including a toast master that secured two new bookings. Perhaps the best measure.

Anyway whatever the result, it is worth going through the process to see what clients go through as I dismissively tell them not to be nervous.

Thanks to Jon Monks of Chapel Street Business Group for settling my nerves and setting up the opportunity.