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DEBATE PRODUCTIVITY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
A PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATION
A University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) report has examined the productivity issues facing our economy. We brought our panel to the university’s Foster Building in Preston to discuss some of its findings and to look at action needed to improve the performance of the county’s businesses
PRESENT: Richard Slater
Lancashire Business View (Chair)
Debbie Chinn Boost
Sara Gaskell Lancashire Skills Hub
Martyn Jones Institute of Directors
Adrian Leather Business Health Matters
Louise McArdle UCLan
Caroline Rayner Baines Wilson
Professor Andrew Schofield North West Aerospace Alliance
Adrian Wright UCLan
What are our productivity issues and do they cut across the sectors?
AW: Lancashire has some world class and high performing areas in terms of productivity, for example some areas of manufacturing. But there are disparities across sectors in terms of skills levels, lower earnings, in comparison to the North West and the UK. All of these are related to productivity.
Our report focused on subjective measures of productivity, around areas such as autonomy, job security, long hours, but also health and wellbeing. These arose as possible challenging areas in terms of productivity and where intervention is possibly needed.
MJ: Productivity issues do cut across the sectors. We have a very large manufacturing base within Lancashire, but we do see it everywhere we go.
CR: In terms of the issues, the report highlighted mental health. We’ve certainly seen that coming out of Covid and I believe that impacts on productivity.
The other issue which impacts directly on productivity is the level of engagement with employees. We know that engaged employees are generally productive employees. Where people aren’t engaged, we need to look at what we can do to resolve that.
We’ve seen a lot around ‘quiet quitting’ and that is going on a lot within organisations. It doesn’t actually involve people leaving their job, it is people who are not engaged, doing the bare minimum. Rather than resigning they are turning up and putting in minimum effort.
LM: If you perceive yourself to be in a job which is poorly designed, which doesn’t give you a sense of satisfaction, which is perhaps low paid, you’re less likely to be motivated and that impacts on productivity.
It’s very much about the nature of the work that people are doing but also the individual’s perception of how they fit into the overall organisation.
What’s relevant within the report is how people perceive their own position, in terms of their contract or the precarious nature of that contract, the kind of work they are doing. Technology is often seen as a saviour within organisations, but it can have a negative impact on people’s motivation and productivity.
DC: It depends how invested employees are in the business or how invested employers are in the people. It is a big issue.
I talk to business owners who have that investment in their people. They’re looking at potential career paths, they want to engage with their employees and then you’ve got the old
school mentality, where it seems to be a them and us type attitude, ‘I’m the boss and you’re the employee. If you don’t like it, there’s the door.’
They really don’t understand how detrimental that attitude is to the business, not just on profitability and productivity but also the additional costs. Because if that person does walk it is very difficult in the environment that we are in at the moment to find people. Changing that attitude is very important because of its dimension within productivity.
AS: The whole ‘Made Smarter’ initiative is about increasing the productivity of UK manufacturing and Industry 4.0 starts to bring in a whole series of things such as digital skills, automation and robotics.
There are the more cultural aspects of engagement - leadership, environment, processes that employees are given, the toolsets they’re given, the feedback, the recognition.
I see lots of companies very traditional in the way they do things and, if I go back to the start of my career in the aerospace industry, increasing productivity was done with a ‘big stick’ but times have changed. It is a lot more about feeling valued and engaged but, also, being given the right tools and techniques to succeed.
When it comes to the introduction of digital and the barriers to that, it is not about leadership,
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