SMALL businesses grappling with challenges posed by the coronavirus crisis are being offered free support.

A new series of more than 40 online support sessions will focus on topics such as tourism, marketing, PR, social media, leadership, employment law, mental health and business development.

The York & North Yorkshire Growth Hub has teamed up with industry experts to deliver the programme, following a successful pilot in summer. This will run from Monday, November 9, to March 2021.

Highlights in November include the Visitor Economy series fort hospitality and tourism businesses, delivered by Susan Briggs, director of The Tourism Network.

It will start on November 16 with the event, ''five must-do marketing activities for a quicker post covid-19 bounce back'.

The Leadership series, delivered by York-based employee engagement expert, Michelle Mook, of Pro-Development, starts with‘leading your team with purpose’ on November 26.

York-based Intandem Communications will deliver the Marketing and PR series, with search engine optimisation (11 November) and content marketing (18 November).

The Employment Law series starts on Monday, November 9, with ‘how to manage staff remotely’ followed by ‘how to conduct a fair redundancy process’ on 24 November.

Andrew Raby, of the Growth Hub said the pilot had shown 'a real appetite' for online support for people looking to pivot their business and develop new skills to help them survive and thrive in challenging times.

For details visit www.ynygrowthhub.com/events/

The webinar programme also includes both a Business Development and a Business Start Up series which will be delivered by Gareth Allen, performance coach.

Sam Alexander, CEO of Your Consortium, will be delivering a webinar on authentic leadership on 21 January with the University of York and business management consultancy, CDI Alliance, also delivering webinars in the new year.

To register and find out further information about the individual webinars visit: https://www.ynygrowthhub.com/events/