The freshly elected UK government rode to power on the back of radiating positivity about the economy. One of David Cameron’s key messages throughout the election campaign focused on the growth in British jobs and the promise of more to come.
However, just days after the election result the Bank of England blew some cool air on the red hot optimism by publishing forecasts that suggested UK productivity is showing no signs of improvement. In fact, amongst the G7 countries, only Japan has a worse productivity record than the UK. This is cause for concern in terms of long term economic prosperity and competitiveness.
A key reason constantly cited amongst many commentators is that lack of investment in technology, especially during the downturn, is the root cause of this problem. I don’t agree. The problems are more cultural, than technological. Blaming investment is an easy choice that avoids the real challenges UK companies face.
It’s a cultural thing: are UK companies embracing Agile?
By far the biggest barrier to UK productivity is cultural rather than technical. Software is now core to almost every industry and sector but do enough UK firms have the right skills, tools and approach to take advantage? It’s often not even that the wrong methodologies are being pursued, it’s all in the execution.
For instance, it’s encouraging to see ever more UK companies adapting agile ways of working. Taking their cues from software development, agile allows companies to break down projects into smaller chunks, work more effectively in teams, respond quickly to change and operate in development cycles of weeks, rather than months or years.
But companies too often view agile as a series of steps rather than a change in mindset. This is critical. If agile is viewed simply as a process it is easy to stray from the key principles and resort to traditional working methods under pressure or develop a split between staff trying to adhere to agile and those favouring old habits.
Running an agile organisation requires high-levels of buy in – from senior management down to junior staff. Too many companies start new working methods with the best intentions, but don’t embed it into their DNA. Initial improvements in productivity will fall off over time if buy in is only superficial.
Firms must be ruthless when it comes to sweeping away old practices. It has to be a complete cultural buy in.
We need an ‘agile’ Britain
Acclaimed business leader John Neill, chairman and chief executive of Unipart, recently told the Financial Times the reason the UK lagged so far behind the US in terms of productivity (an astounding 39% gap as recently as 2011) was nothing to do with a failure to invest in IT, but because of British ‘attitude to change’.
To be globally competitive, the UK PLC needs to view itself as part of a global working culture, open to the best ideas and tools, wherever they may emerge from. They need to learn the lessons of successful global organisations – able to collaborate across time zones and geographies, discard silos and hierarchies so their best talent works on their biggest challenges and opportunities.
New tools for a new mindset
From agile workflow and collaboration software to team-based communication platforms and data analysis packages, technology has never been so affordable or powerful as it is now. Even the smallest startup can equip itself from day one with an array of tools that put them on an even keel with the world’s largest corporations.
The rise of team communication and collaboration software such as HipChat, Skype, Confluence, Yammer, JIRA and Slack enables a way of working that is better suited to today’s fragmented and globally dispersed workforces. These platforms are eliminating the morale-sapping bottlenecks created by tools such as email. They free up teams to spend more time hands-on with projects and less time filtering out information that has no relevance to them.
But technology is only as good as those using it. It’s only relatively recently that the aforementioned collaboration tools have become commonplace and just as a new mindset is needed to adapt to new methodologies, so it is needed for working with new tools.
Partial or incorrect application of technology is too commonplace. Even if it is the right technology for the task, poor implementation will hamper productivity just as much as using the wrong tool entirely. With tools so accessible, resources can be dedicated instead to training staff to maximise their effectiveness. A new mindset with new skills is a powerful combination.
A united kingdom of productivity
Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, said recently that the UK needs to ‘do more with less’. This isn’t about ‘cost cutting’, downsizing or having to push workers even harder. It is about making sure everything a firm does is done better, smarter and more effectively.
Productivity is a global issue, but there’s no doubt the UK needs to focus on improving in this area. Technology to increase productivity is already being embraced. The challenge is to match the power of that technology with a deeper change in mindset.
