Stop whingeing and sort out your productivity

We had a presentation at our networking group from our accountant, who analysed the recent budget.

As you might expect from a group of business owners there was considerable unhappiness about the NI increase on top of the minimum wage increase.

Like my business-owner clients, they are all incredibly hard-working and none of them have a yacht or a private jet, as far as I know.  They are feeling hard done by.

I don't think my view that they should stop whingeing and sort out their productvity instead made me very popular.  Nevertheless I stick by it; one of the reasons this countries productvity is low relative to our peers is access to cheap labour and another is a relatively low corporate tax rate. These things don't drive low productivity but they let organisations survive and even thrive despite it.

One consequence is people having low-paid, often precarious, jobs.  These people are less likely to engage at work or in society - and are less likely to buy what you sell.

Another consequence is under-funded infrastructure, education and societal fabric in general, which drives huge, hidden costs for business (and produces a low-skill, poorly-educated, demotivated workforce).

More broadly, we are now starting to realise that unfettered global capitalism results in a small number of increasingly wealthy people and a very large number of increasingly poor people.  This is not sustainable and will result in revolution in non-democracies and the rise of extremist-led governments in democracies (who will then dismantle those democracies as inconvenient to their pursuit of further power and wealth).  If we don't do something to reverse this then perhaps democracy will one day be seen as a short aberration between various forms of autocracy.

This may seem something of an extrapolation from a discussion in a small networking group, and irrelevant when you are worried about £100k or £1m being added to your business' costs this year.  However, to avoid the fate described in the previous paragraph, the UK must find a way to achieve sustainable growth whilst reducing inequality.  The budget was a first small step. 

So, what can you do to improve productivity in your business in this brave new world?  That's a big question to answer in a short blog; can I suggest that you contact me and we can discuss it.