Having read a policy document about actively making improvements to increase productivity, I began to think about the likely leadership implications, and I thought it would be worth sharing the contents with you. The CIPD policy documentation, dated July 2014, strongly supports a program designed to make optimisations to the working standards and living standards of those in employment. The output and efficiencies of the British economy, after the GFC, have received some indepth analysis in this fascinating document. This report should be taken as a call to action by a new government. It struck me, while reading it, that the findings could easily refer to New Zealand. Globally, the United Kingdom comes 13th from the top for productivity, and in the G7 it is 5 positions from the top spot. It's not so hard for the United Kingdom. Productivity in New Zealand is half that of the UK's GDP, and NZ is 28th in the global ranking. If New Zealand is to keep up with the other OECD member countries, it will have to perform much better than demonstrated by its recent improvements. The reason for this is reported to be a lack of investment in "knowledge-based" funding and fostering global relations. While the GDP of New Zealand, per capita, is 20% lower than is the average for other OECD countries, it's on record that current policy setting should actually be generating 20% more than the other countries. The affect this is having on New Zealand is not a positive one, for the general population on a whole and the outlook for the country. I believe that there is a strong relationship between productivity and leadership.|It is obvious to me that productivity and leadership go hand in hand.| is actually very closely aligned with effective leadership.The sole focus of a leader should be to make things work better by finding a solution. The UK government does seem to be more in favour of getting involved than the NZ government, but it is interesting to take a look at leadership in order to gain further insight.
Do you hope to improve the impact of your leadership? You can apply the same insights from this report to New Zealand, after taking a closer look at them. •
The first step in improving the use of skills and general productivity is to study the recruitment sector for jobs in the UK and take a look at the skillsets required now, and the skills that will be in demand in future.
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Discover what really lies behind lower wages in the UK, not just the obvious signs.
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Create and promote practices that will actively help develop more job opportunities for employment in higher paying sectors.
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Take a long term approach to corporate leadership with the focus on people rather than practical processes. This will allow for greater diversification, with more equal opportunities for both genders in top jobs and better methods for reporting how employee data is managed and compiled.
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Make information about business and career opportunities more available to young people, by including business enterprise in the school curriculum and building links between business and educational establishments, with more advice on apprentice schemes and career guidance.
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Make sure that workers are fully educated in the steps required to retire with a pension suitable for their financial needs, by building the means to allow employers full access to everything they need for the management of a pension that is tax free, including the technology for automatically enrolling employees and providing full support.
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Implement a more rewarding welfare system with greater incentives in the Universal Credit system that helps people on a low income, by issuing guides for employers and helping them to offer more hours of employment to their workers.
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Make the minimum wage tax-free and extend the tax-free allowance, so that the total income of anyone existing on a low wage will remain tax-free, and protect the minimum wage by keeping it instep with inflation.
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Businesses should be allowed to be innovative, and their workforce protected through a more flexible approach to employment regulation. Finally, it is critical that everyone in employment has the right to a contract in writing including the terms and conditions of their employment. And, if it's a zero-hours contract then there should be no exclusivity clauses and the worker should go onto fixed hours after a period of one year with the same employer.
The report also quoted Chief Economist Mark Beatson, who had this to say. "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."