Every small business owner in Thanet knows the cost of losing a good member of staff – not just the expense of replacing them, but the pressure it puts on those left behind.
With the district’s economy running largely on small and micro businesses in hospitality, care, retail and the trades, staff retention remains one of the most persistent challenges facing local employers.
Youth unemployment in Thanet was recorded at 12% in December 2025, the highest in the south-east, and Job Centre staff have repeatedly highlighted recruitment difficulties across the same sectors that struggle most to hold on to the people they find.
A free Lunch & Learn for Thanet’s employers is taking place in Broadstairs this Friday that will tackle these issues head-on, with practical, low-cost shifts that busy employers can start using straight away.
Keeping Good People & Making Work Easier is being delivered by local non-profit Neurodivergent Friends in Thanet as part of the Thanet Business Support Programme, commissioned by Thanet District Council and funded by the UK Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
The session focuses on why good staff disengage or leave and what small adjustments make the biggest difference in how teams run day to day. It is designed to be relevant whether a business employs two people or 20-plus.
Lux Chiocchetti, Co-Director of Neurodivergent Friends in Thanet (NDFT), said: “Most employers we work with are already doing a lot right. They care about their teams and they’re working hard to keep things running.
“What we’ve found is that the things that make the biggest differences are often surprisingly small – how expectations are communicated, how feedback lands, whether managers have enough breathing room to actually lead rather than just firefight. Those are the shifts that tend to keep good people, and they don’t have to cost anything.”
Thanet has higher than average rates of neurodivergence and long-term health challenges in its working-age population.
“That’s not the problem to solve,” says Louis Palfrey, also Co-Director at NDFT. “It’s just the reality of who lives and works here, and it means that attempting a one-size-fits-all approach to managing people is likely to create even more friction. We see first-hand that employers who recognise this build a genuine advantage when it comes to keeping their teams together.”
The session is led by NDFT’s Co-Directors Lux and Louis, who between them bring over 20 years’ experience across business strategy, government employment programmes and hands-on facilitation with organisations.
The session is designed to be interactive and will offer a space for attendees to share their own challenges and to leave with concrete actions relevant to their business they can implement straight away.
A light buffet lunch is included.
Friday 13 March, 11am to 12.30pm, Pierremont Hall, Pierremont Park, Broadstairs CT10 1JX. Free to attend — booking required.
Book via Eventbrite at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/keeping-good-people-making-work-easier-thanet-employers-lunch-learn-tickets-1982684704323
Grifters gonna grift! Especially when most of a political regime in charge have never run a business (I have). They get taken for a ride easily by charlatans.
Branson, Sugar and Musk are neuro divergent.
Looking at Companies House it doesn’t appear to be making any money, but strangely it is registered in & the correspondence address for those mentioned here is in Suffolk & not Thanet.
But yes-another ‘social/culture’ money drainer-like the Urban Cookie Dem Margate Collective with their black hair lectures, graffiti etc & the never ending ‘art hubs’ rubbish.
Like the old Woolworths building stick things on walls & ceilings & call it art place that was saved by a benefactor after the grants finally ran dry a year or two back, this place despite money from the NHS & KCC had to fundraise less than two years ago to raise 26k to stay open.
As we have seen recently with places down in the centre eventually that well runs dry as well-this is Thanet after all, not London, Brighton or Paris, despite TDC pretending it is for the last 15 plus years & now wanting it to be a city of culture!
In most of the sectors named minimum wage has now become the accepted norm. I can’t understand why employers paying the minimum would be surprised to only receive minimum effort and minimum commitment in return.
Yes, they are still bemused why treating people like dirt, hounding them while they are at home to come & do another shift, or do reports in the evening like schoolkids being given homework assignments & often expecting them to do it for free-while ensuring they can never relax & leave the job when they clock off, paying them as little as possible to do so-while the bosses are raking in millions & billions & threatening their jobs will be lost to AI etc would lead to poor morale & people leaving for something else-even a job cleaning out toilets. litter picking etc-where they can just do a 9-5 shift & go home.