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Tag Archive for Productivity
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Britain could get £83bn boost if regions halved productivity gaps
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
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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Labour plan to nationalise broadband ‘will boost productivity by £59bn’
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Labour claims its plan to nationalise broadband and deliver it to 18m premises will boost the UK’s productivity by £59bn.
Currently, one third of small businesses are struggling with broadband speeds that they describe as “insufficient” for their business needs.
UK productivity grew by less than 1pc over the past year and was completely flat in the three months to September, according to the Office of National Statistics.
UK SMEs have cost themselves £1,268 per second in lost productivity this year – the equivalent of over 16 days so far, according to Sage.
>See also: Business rates reform key, says Labour business chairman Rachel Reeves
Only one in 10 premises in the UK has full fibre compared with 97pc in Japan and about 75pc in Spain.
Mike Cherry, national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “Improving digital connectivity should be an urgent priority for all parties vying to lead the next government, so it’s good to see broadband placed front and centre of the agenda in the run up to this election.”
However, the Institute of Directors (IoD) poured cold water on Labour’s plan to provide free broadband to every business in Britain.
Edwin Morgan, director of policy at
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5 things to do before you check your phone in the morning
by Jim Lusty • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Jim Lusty on Small Business
Humans create habits. We love them because we crave familiarity. It makes sound evolutionary logic; repeat the same behaviour in a repeating situation. If it worked last time, it should do again. This limits the need to make a decision and therefore conserves energy.
Studies consistently find that over 50pc of our daily actions are habitual. Our routine habits are the building blocks of our daily life.
The challenge is that habits are typically either very, very positive, or very, very negative. There is little middle ground. And making things worse, it is often hard to become aware of the negative habits that have crept into daily routines unchallenged, because they’re formed unconsciously over time and sap energy.
>See also: Is wellbeing leave a possibility for small businesses?
Get your morning routine right
These are often alluring as they offer instant gratification but have a negative impact on overall energy. It used to be that the appeal of alcohol or the quick fix of a sugar hit topped the naughty list. But topping the modern naughty list is our relationship with digital devices, driven by our fascination with social media. Some studies have shown 75pc of phone users
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Small Business Minister Kelly Tolhurst – ‘Tech is key to solving productivity’
by Timothy Adler • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
EXCLUSIVE: Following on from last week’s announcement that the government has awarded £2m to fund projects aiming to boost small business productivity and tackle late payments, Smallbusiness.co.uk grabbed 10 minutes with Small Business Minister Kelly Tolhurst.
Kelly Tolhurst has been Small Business Minister since July 2018, having been the MP for Rochester and Strood since 2015. Before that, Kelly Tolhurst ran her own marine survey business with her boat-builder father.
>See also: Business rates reform key, says Labour business chairman Rachel Reeves
If you had a magic wand, what’s the one thing you would do to boost small business productivity?
Really, there’s no magic wand, there’s a whole range of things we need to tackle and work with the SME market to boost productivity. There are a whole number of reasons and a whole number of measures that decide whether a business is productive or not, so one of the things I’ve been focusing on is around late payments. We know that technology helps productivity. And we know that late payment we know are a big challenge to the small business sector. That’s why we’ve put out the £1m Business Basics Funding round to encourage business to come
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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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Home Office Supplies You Need For a Functional Home Office Setup
by Holly - The Work at Home Woman • • 0 Comments
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The post Home Office Supplies You Need For a Functional Home Office Setup appeared first on The Work at Home Woman | Legit Work From Home Jobs.
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Skills shortage to cost small businesses £145,000 the the next year
by Anna Jordan • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
The UK’s skills shortage will cost small and medium-sized businesses £145,000 on average in the next year, according to an independent study from Robert Half UK.
That figure is expected to rise to £318,000 in the next five years.
The skills gap – the difference in skills required within a business or organisation and the actual skills the workforce of the organisation has – is part of the reason that the UK has the lowest productivity among the G7.
Macro challenges like a shrinking talent pool due to Brexit, increased digitalisation and economic influences are behind the widening skills gap. They’re also stifling innovation and preventing SMEs from entering new markets.
Essential skills that are needed to help close the gap include data analysis and digital skills as well as softer skills such as resilience, adaptability to change and critical thinking.
The research, commissioned by Robert Half’s 2020 Salary Guide, highlights that SMEs are worried about the potential impact of macroeconomic events on the skills gap in their businesses.
Negative impactPositive impactNo impact
Recession59pc16pc18pc
Brexit47pc20pc26pc
General Election pre-202015pc26pc47pc
IR3515pc18pc41pc
Digitalisation/Industry 4.012pc44pc32pc
Three in five (59pc) said that a recession would negatively impact their business, followed by Brexit (47pc). A quarter of SMEs (26pc) said that
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3 Preparation Habits That Can Help You Be More Productive
by Kate Volman • • 0 Comments
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What small businesses think of the four-day working week
by Anna Jordan • • 0 Comments
Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
Labour announced a raft of proposals during its party conference this year, including a reduction in the standard working week to 32 hours (four days) within the next decade.
The four-day working week isn’t a new idea, but it still sparks as much debate as ever.
Some see it as the panacea to our continuing productivity issues. In Britain we’ve long been lagging behind, which seems unusual as we have some of the longest working hours in Europe. Not by a huge amount, though – 42.5 hours a week versus 41.2 hours across the continent on average.
It then makes sense that most of the country’s workers would like to see a shorter working week.
YouGov research shows that 63pc of British people are in favour; we’re among the most enthusiastic of the seven nations surveyed (Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway). Additionally, almost a third (31pc) think it would make us more prosperous, compared to 19pc who believe the opposite (34pc say it would make no difference). Meanwhile, 45pc believe four-day weeks would make us more productive, compared to 21pc who think we’d be less productive.
The most striking stat is how much happier it