People Power: Why you must invest in your staff [New Future Forecast insights]

27 January 2017 -

Resolute managers are aiming to revitalise their organisations to brace for the potential economic and political rigours of 2017 by investing in their workforce’s productivity

Managers are looking at 2017 as a year in which they will focus internally on how their organisation and their teams functioned, and what they, as professional managers, could do to extract ever greater productivity, according to CMI’s 2017 Future Forecast.

The survey of 1,180 managers found that improving the productivity of employees is a clear priority for this year.

Productivity was regarded by 90% of respondents as a medium or high priority for their organisation, despite the majority of managers already stating that their company are reasonably productive. Some 23% of respondents stated their organisation is highly productive and a further 58% said it was quite productive.

What Type of Investment?

Managers appear to see an answer in technology, with more than a third of managers (36%) planning to invest in IT in 2017. And investing in the right technology was rated as the most important action employers can make to improve productivity, with 29%  of respondents voting for it in the study.

But The Future Forecast reveals it is not all about technology. Almost three quarters of respondents (74%) agree that investing in skills is more important than ever post-Brexit, although one fifth of managers said they did not receive the training and development needed to perform their jobs as a manager in 2016.

Some 28% of the managers surveyed said one of their three most important actions to invest in boosting their organisation’s productivity is to improve management and leadership skills, while 23% of managers also reported that a reduction of bureaucracy, a change in organisational culture and investment in people and skills is a vital factor.

Backing up the findings of the CMI study, the latest productivity research from OECD found that quality of management and leadership is the number one factor in determining productivity. But management training, such as that delivered by CMI, can teach these softer skills and improve the overall quality of management in an organisation – boosting productivity.

Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute, said: “Although it’s clear that there are significant challenges posed by the UK’s decision to Brexit, as a country we need to move forward and harness pragmatic positivity. UK business will play a vital role in making this a success.

“In 2017 we have an opportunity to stand together and tackle longstanding issues like the productivity gap, currently 21% lower than other G7 countries.

Read the full 2017 Future Forecast findings