King Communication featured recently in an 'Work in Newry Supplement in the Irish News.
King Communication is approaching its second anniversary as a leading communications consultancy servicing the Newry, Mourne and Down Region. It was established by Deborah Loughran LLB MCIM at the start of the pandemic, following more than 16 years in leading communications, public affairs, and marketing roles in house and in agency.
The team at King Communication is passionate about promoting Newry, south Down and south Armagh as a great place to live work and do business.
King Communication works with a wide range of businesses and organisations to support with internal and external communication; marketing and business strategy; stakeholder and community engagement; public affairs and event hosting services.
Many of the clients that King Communication work with have synergies and similar objectives with cross overs between driving culture and strategy, skills and recruitment, and business promotion. The team at King Communication pride themselves on becoming an extension of the senior management team of their clients, often supporting with a wide range of business agendas, beyond the realm of communications.
Deborah Loughran, Managing Director explains, “We love being based in Newry and working with businesses who share our passion for the area. I sit on the Board of Newry Chamber of Commerce and Trade as well as supporting Newry BID (Business Improvement District) with a number of activities. This gives us exposure to many different companies and an understanding of the opportunities and challenges local businesses are facing.
“The availability of skilled people and people who want to work is presenting as a major blocker to business growth right across the region. On the other hand, we are working on a project where we are interviewing job seekers and many of them are telling us they can’t find suitable roles.
“We believe that the ‘job matching’ process needs to change. Many of our local businesses are now offering incentives such as the four-day working week. This may not be the complete solution but taking a people centric approach helps. We work with many companies on improving their culture and communication to help give that sense of ‘team’ which is essential in any workplace building for the future.
It is important for us, as a business community in Newry, that people know what we have to offer. We have a great quality of life. Just this week a study using ONS well-being data to analyse levels of happiness and life satisfaction ranked Newry as the second most chilled out place to live in the UK. Those of us who work here already knew this, but it is great to see it verified. We have so many fabulous parks, mountains, and beaches on our doorstep. We too, have many great companies currently recruiting at all skill levels. While we are only touching on some of them here, we know that there are at least 1,200 vacancies with local businesses in the district.
There are fantastic opportunities with global companies such as First Derivative for both graduates and experienced hires. There are other financial opportunities with organisations such as Warrenpoint Port currently recruiting for an assistant accountant and Ashtree Financial Services regularly recruiting for roles as they continue to grow. There is a great company East Coast Coaches who also run the busestoconcerts website. They are recruiting for drivers with great flexible opportunities; the Canal Court Hotel and Spa and Killeavy Castle Estate are recruiting in the hospitality sector, while our construction companies are constantly looking for skilled tradespeople. There are real opportunities in Newry in the manufacturing and engineering sectors. The water industry is a particular specialism in the greater Newry area. To name but a few Pronto Automation Systems and sister company LMP Controls based in Camlough, south Armagh have fantastic opportunities for software engineers and other skilled and unskilled capabilities.
We are also very lucky in this area to have a strong educational sector with great schools and a fantastic asset in Southern Regional College. This offering is supported by the Community sector with fantastic organisations such as Clanrye Group and Bolster Community offering not only career choices and opportunities for people with disabilities or additional needs; but also for those who need community support. Clanrye Group delivers a range of programmes including ‘Work Ready Employment Services’ for people who may need support to re-enter the labour market.
Newry is ready for growth. It is poised for regeneration with planned public and private investment including the city centre regeneration scheme, city centre park and southern relief road. Our business community is welcoming and supportive and we at King Communication encourage anyone thinking about where to locate their business, or making their next career move to ‘think about Newry’. We know you won’t regret it.
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