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Regardless of the sector of business, productivity growth is vital in ensuring sustained business growth. Unfortunately, the UK currently faces a strong productivity challenge in a rather disappointing labour productivity performance. While many experts blamed the drop in productivity on the 2008 global financial crisis, the goal of successive governments to close this productivity gap has seemed elusive. But not anymore, as entrepreneurs and business owners can take steps to tackle the UK productivity challenge.  

First of all, what is the productivity gap? It refers to the fact that the productivity of UK workers fall behind that of the country’s leading global competitors. The reasons for this problem range from the concentration of markets to inefficient monopolies. The UK maintains its leading position on the world stage regarding its attractiveness for investors and entrepreneurs. However, productivity issues continue to be a significant problem for both business owners and policymakers. This is why entrepreneurs need to step up to the plate. 

So, how can entrepreneurs and business owners improve productivity? A great place to start will be to focus on output-based metrics. Over the past decades following the industrial revolution, many businesses focused on an input-based metric system that measured work time linearly. That means, once you clock in at work as expected and clock out, you earn your wages. But what happens in between the time you clock in and clock out of work? How productive are you at work during this period? What value do you add? A more efficient system will focus on output metrics, which is about productivity rather than time.

A second solution is to hire the right people. This may sound pretty obvious, but you’ll be surprised to know how many business owners still fall short here. Not only should you hire people qualified for the job, but you should consider what innovative solutions they bring that will improve productivity. 

On the topic of innovation, it’s necessary to create an innovative work culture that inspires creativity. Innovation is now the engine behind many business successes around the world. Strict adherence to the old ways of doing things does not cut it anymore and even hinders quick progress in most cases. A considerable part of creating a culture of innovation has to do with hiring the right people.

Hiring the right people also means hiring the services of the right professionals. For example, facility management services can help boost productivity by integrating people, place, processes, and technology to ensure the functionality of any built environment. 

Business owners can also reduce the time their workers spend commuting to work. The logic here is pretty simple. An hour commute to work means you can waste two hours in a day (to and from work). This adds up to 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month; you get where this is going. Remote working offers a great solution to this problem. Instead of requiring all your employees to be at the office, encourage them to handle some business tasks from home.