Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Britain would boost its economy by £83bn if regional productivity gaps were just halved.
Only London and the South East outperform the national productivity average, with Wales, the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber the lowest-productivity areas.
If the 10 most under-performing regions could each make up just half their productivity gaps with average UK productivity, then UK GDP would be 4pc larger, according to PwC.
>See also: Small Business Minister Kelly Tolhurst – ‘Tech is key to solving productivity’
Employees working in small businesses account for 99.9pc of all business workers, while SMEs account for 99.3pc of all companies.
British output per worker though is between 10pc-15pc lower than it is in Germany, France and Sweden and more than 30pc behind the United States, PwC said.
Matching Germany’s average productivity would boost the economy by £180bn. per year.
Companies need to invest in staff training schemes, especially whe it comes to digital skills, PwC urged, while the next Government must invest in transport infrastructure.
John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said: “We find, for example, that a 1pc increase in skills is associated with a 2pc increase in productivity in a local area.”’
Britain has suffered a lost decade when it
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Ed Vaizey on productivity: ‘Network with other businesses. It’s what MPs do all the time’
by Anna Jordan • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
UK SMEs have cost themselves £1,268 per second in lost productivity this year – the equivalent of over 16 days so far.
These startling figures comes from Sage’s second annual productivity tracker, which investigates the amount of time sacrificed to administrative tasks.
At an event co-chaired by Ed Vaizey MP, key industry figures talked about the issues affecting efficiency in business today.
Overall it seems that our productivity is getting worse. We’ve seen £40bn of lost economic value in the UK in the past 12 months, an increase of 0.9pc compared to the year before.
Sabby Gill, Sage MD for the UK and Ireland, said: “With less than a third of those small businesses surveyed in the UK currently using cloud technology for administrative tasks, compared to one in two large businesses – there is a clear gap that must be closed, so that the benefits can be felt by all.”
The economy has grown 3.3pc in the past year while productivity has grown by less than 1pc. “If you could automate admin activities, it would contribute to that 3.3pc,” said Gill.
Businesses say that the admin tasks which take most time are accountancy, generating invoices and human resources.
Productivity
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Poor tech slows productivity – and leaders are partly to blame
by Anna Jordan • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
A substantial 39pc of SME decision makers would consider leaving their role if they didn’t have the right tools to do their job properly.
What’s more, almost a third say that their leadership team isn’t moving fast enough to keep up with the evolving technology requirements of their staff.
These figures come from the 2019 Digital Business Report from Advanced, investigating whether employees are being given the right tools to improve their productivity. The firm concluded that leaders need to work with their staff to find out which issues could be resolved with updated technology.
It’s not that easy, though. In a separate survey from Advanced, one in five SME leaders said they felt under pressure all the time – 48pc of these respondents said that a lack of time caused much of this work pressure.
Technology is one of the best ways to boost productivity
“The fact that just 31pc of respondents say productivity is triggering the purchase of new technology in their organisation will raise alarm bells,” says Gordon Wilson, CEO of Advanced.
“Surely this should be a critical factor? Technology is one of the best ways to boost productivity and treat a work-life imbalance. It can
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70% of businesses put investment on hold because of Brexit uncertainty
by Anna Jordan • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
The UK’s waning productivity levels won’t improve any time soon, according to the latest Small Business Index (Q2) from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
Political uncertainty is the key barrier in business expansion and boosting productivity levels.
Finding staff is also proving difficult, with 35pc of small businesses struggling to find appropriately skilled employees. That’s the largest proportion since Q3 2015. The net balance (the proportion of those hiring new staff minus the proportion reducing their team size) is at a three-year low at -2pc.
A massive seven in 10 businesses (72pc) are not planning to invest in their own companies over the coming three months – the highest since Q2 2017. What’s more, ONS figures reveal that business investment fell over four consecutive quarters for the first time since the financial crash in 2008.
Mike Cherry, FSB national chairman, said: “It’s impossible for small business owners to invest for the future when we don’t know what the future holds.
“We urgently need to see both prime ministerial candidates spell out their plans for supporting small firms and securing a pro-business Brexit – one that encompasses a comprehensive deal and a substantial transition period. Fast and loose
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Why boosting productivity means innovating small business technology
by Partner Content • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Partner Content on Small Business
Solving Britain’s productivity puzzle is vitally important if the UK is to compete against other, stronger economies, experts agree. Small business technology is key to unlocking this puzzle – especially as we move towards a screen-based attention economy.
Productivity in Britain has been flat over last 10 years, partly because of low wages, which has weakened the business case for technology investment.
Figures released in May 2019 by the Office for National Statistics revealed that British productivity has improved by just 0.5pc per year since 2008 and lags 15pc behind other G7 countries.
According to a Small Business survey sponsored by Dell Small Business, nearly two thirds of small business owners are losing sleep over their company’s lack of productivity.
Lesley Giles, director of thinktank The Work Foundation, says: “Part of the UK productivity problem is that our employment levels are high, and they’re divided between high-value roles but also low-value jobs.”
However, given the talk about extending the living wage, and if Brexit turns off the supply of low-cost labour, The Work Foundation argues that the business case for automation and digitalisation becomes more compelling.
In any case, argues Richard Blakesley, co-founder of tech fund Capital Pilot, trying
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Flex space: why your office is the key to boosting productivity
by Tom Carroll • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Tom Carroll on Small Business
A gym on the roof. Extensive gardens with areas to relax and unwind. Employees bringing their dogs into the office. This might sound like a modern, cutting-edge workplace experimenting with measures to boost engagement, but it actually describes the US Department of Justice under Robert Kennedy.
And just as modern businesses are discovering now, these measures had a huge effect on morale, according to Larry Tye, Kennedy’s biographer. Ultimately, Kennedy demonstrated that he trusted his staff to let them use their time effectively; to step away from their desks regularly during the working day. The lesson is clear: flexibility and trust create loyalty and engagement.
The lesson is similar for productivity. Empowering employees with the choice to work from a range of locations provides a real fillip to productivity. Research from HSBC, for instance, has found that nine in 10 employees feel that the ability to work remotely has the greatest effect on their productivity.
And where Kennedy may have been something of a workplace pioneer in offering flexibility in the working day, nearly 60 years on, remote working is all the rage. The traditional desk-based nine to five is giving way to a remote, flexible
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Nearly two thirds of SME owners lose sleep over lack of productivity
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Nearly two thirds of small business owners are losing sleep over their company’s lack of productivity.
Sixty-five per cent of SME owners surveyed by Small Business said that their business productivity — or lack of it — keeps them awake at night.
Productivity has been dire in the UK since the financial crisis, sitting around 16pc lower than peer economies. The outlook remains grim, with a recent US study predicting that Britain will be the only advanced economy to experience falling productivity growth in 2019.
Finding and retaining the right staff is the overwhelming factor holding British SMEs back. Forty per cent of small businesses say that not having the right staff is hampering growth. When asked what was the one thing they’d change to improve their company’s productivity, one respondent groaned, “Hire a few more assistants” while another said they wanted somebody to help with sales and marketing.
Old-fashioned processes (28.4pc), out-of-date computer systems (16.2pc) and cramped offices (15.3pc) were also cited as other factors reining SMEs in.
Lack of cash flow to expand is seen as the biggest business challenge over the next 12 months (63pc) followed by finding and retaining staff (15pc), late payment from
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7 ways to improve the output of your small business
by Dan Matthews • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Dan Matthews on Small Business
Flexibility
Half a century ago workplaces were static uninspiring floors with bosses metering out hard and fast rules. We’ve come a long way since, but some businesses are evolving faster than others. Allowing people to work in their own way will drive up loyalty, productivity and retention rates.
James Lintern, Co-Founder at RotaCloud:
“At RotaCloud, we recently formalised and extended our flexible working policy, with our core hours now set to 10-3:30pm.
“In other words, most staff can start their eight hours of work at any time from 7:30am to 10am, whatever works for them. Early birds and night owls both benefit, with an extra productivity boost first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening when the office is a little quieter.
“We’ve also been able to extend our support hours as a result of this policy, offering an improved service to our customers. A member of our marketing team has even written an article on the benefits of this policy.”
Agility
Agile has been a buzzword for some time, but a business’ capacity to adapt in the face of change – whether threat or opportunity – is a key ingredient in its ability improve revenues
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How to make your office technology work for you
by Dan Matthews • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Dan Matthews on Small Business
For more than a decade, the UK has been mired in a “productivity puzzle”. Ever since the so-called credit crunch and the financial crisis which followed in 2008, businesses have struggled to become more efficient.
As you might expect, economic growth, employment levels and total hours worked all slumped during the recession; but within a few years they returned to near-trend levels. Productivity got left behind.
According to the latest official figures, UK output per hour fell 0.1pc in the final quarter of 2018 compared with the same three-month period in 2017. It was the second consecutive decline and further evidence of an unprecedented stagnation.
That’s despite all the astonishing office technology advances that have taken place in recent times, including software as a service (saas) and cloud computing, plus ever-more sophisticated smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops, not to mention the constellation of new online services designed to power businesses forward.
“UK small businesses are not as productive as they could be,” says Shaun Shirazian, UK head of product at Intuit QuickBooks. “The gap in productivity between the top and bottom 10pc of firms is 80pc larger in the UK than it is in the US, France
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20 free apps to improve your business productivity
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Lloyds Bank has revealed that British SMEs with low digital capability could unlock up to an additional £84.5 billion turnover if they were to embrace technology. However, many entrepreneurs baulk at having to buy expensive software packages outright or license Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) when the bill could run into thousands of pounds each year for small