A Glance at the Importance of Leadership in Improving the Productivity Levels Having read a policy document about actively making improvements to increase productivity, I started to consider the likely leadership implications, and I thought it would be worth sharing the contents with you. The documented CIPD statement of policy, made in July of this year, seems to endorse a programme that will aid the plight of typical working people by improving their lives and their work. The document contains some very interesting analytical data concerning skills and productivity in the United Kingdom, via analysis of its economic position since the GFC. This policy document should motivate any new government in power. On the first pass, it occurred to me that this could absolutely apply to businesses in NZ. United Kingdom is rated in the G7 in sixth place for productivity, while globally it’s in thirteenth place. It’s perhapseasy for the UK. New Zealand ranks at number 28 globally and has a Gross Domestic Product that is fifty percent lower than the UK. To catch up with other member countries of OECD it will be necessary for things to improve a great deal more in New Zealand. The reason for this is reportedly due to a lack of investment in “knowledge-based” funding and in making connections internationally.
It is also stated that New Zealand policy-makers should be creating 20 percent more GDP on average per person than other countries in the OECD, not 20 percent below the average, as it is now. The people of New Zealand, and the country as a whole, are suffering from the negative affects of this situation. It is my view that there is a very real relationship between productivity and leadership.|It is clear to me that productivity and leadership go hand in hand.|It is my belief that productivity (especially enhanced productivity is actually very closely aligned with leadership.Leaders should be driven to find the most appropriate answers and working towards making things work better. In the UK, the government makes more of a habit of intervening than the government of New Zealand, but in relation to leadership in particular there are some fascinating notions in the report.
Do you wish the impact of your leadership could improve? By taking a look at the report, and the insights it provides, you can apply the same thought processes to New Zealand. • To improve productivity and make better use of skills, begin by reviewing the UK job market , see which skills are most in demand now, and which will be needed in the future. • Tackle the real reasons for lower salaries, instead of accepting that wages are not rising. • Create and promote a policy that will actively help develop more job opportunities for employment in high-salary-potential sectors. • Take a long term approach to corporate leadership with the focus on people rather than practical processes. This will lead to more empowering changes, with greater equality for men and women competing for top roles in the organization, and for handling reports on management of data relating to personnel. • Give young people greater access to better career information and free advice from career specialists, building stronger ties between education and companies and promoting trade apprenticeships, making sure the national curriculum includes tuition about business enterprise. • Prepare all workers well in advance for their retirement, with pension information being available to employers, along with proper support and technological means to enroll workers automatically, offering users the ability to manage a tax-free pension. • Refine the Universal Credit System (UCS so it offers more incentives and rewards, helps those on a lower income to prosper and gives guidelines to employers so they will be able to give more working hours to employees who need the money.
Tax-free allowances should be extended in order to give protection to those working for a minimum wage, which should be made to match the rate of inflation, and no-one on a particularly low income should be made to pay income tax. • Employees should be protected through a more fluid approach to employment regulation, so that businesses are able to be more innovative. Laws must be changed so that employees all have the right to terms and conditions of employment in writing (it is remarkable that this isn’t the case today!), and those on the contentious zero-hours contracts should be able to move onto fixed hours after working for an employer for 12 months, while clauses of exclusivity should be rewritten. Chief Economist Mark Beatson had an insightful quote in the report. “We need, instead, to think about how we can encourage employers to be more ambitious and more demanding – to stay ahead of the competition. Second, we need to recognize that innovation is not just about big science, men in white coats and patenting. We need to recognize the importance of the workplace for continuous improvement and innovation. And, third, we need to challenge preconceptions about employment regulation. Claims that more – or less – regulation will transform the UK’s economic performance need to be scrutinized impartially.” •