Hard work failing to solve UK's productivity woes

Employees are working harder, but a "fundamental rethink" of skills strategy is needed to improve the UK's productivity problem , the professional body for human resources managers has said.

Staff surveys show people are working more intensely because of higher workloads and tighter deadlines, even though they are not working longer hours, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

It said that while this was not necessarily damaging, pressure could lead to problems, including poorer performance, dissatisfaction, high turnover and sickness absence.

In a report out in the next few days, the CIPD cites research showing that the number of people who strongly agree that "my job requires that I work very hard" increased from 32 per cent in 1992 to 45 per cent by 2012.

It said 41 per cent of employees felt under excessive pressure at work at least once or twice a week, and 13 per cent said they were under excessive pressure every working day.

British workers' perceptions of workload and deadline pressures are above the European average. One survey found that only in Ukraine did people feel they were working harder.

Mark Beatson, the CIPD's chief economist, said some of the pressure had been caused by the recession, with staff having to take up the slack in places where there were job cuts.

A longer-term factor was technological change, which meant work processes were more efficient.

"If you are [working harder] because you are motivated and you have control over your work, the effect on your wellbeing may be neutral or even positive," said Mr Beatson.

"Whereas, if you are doing it because you have to and you have no sense of autonomy over your work, the results are pretty bad in terms of work performance, stress and illness."

He said employers could help by not piling too much work on to people, designing jobs better (particularly when more technology was introduced), involving staff in making decisions and giving them "freedom and space" in how they did their work.

Mr Beatson said the increasing work intensity over recent decades was not the result of longer hours.

Average hours worked per year have been falling for decades in the UK and elsewhere, as productivity has improved.

However, labour productivity fell sharply during 2008-9 and is still almost 4 per cent below its pre-recession level. In terms of output per worker, UK productivity is well behind the average in the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations.

Mr Beatson said sales staff, for example, may have found themselves working harder to sell goods and services, but less successfully than before the crisis.

He said the UK needed to rethink its skills system, which had focused on trying to improve the supply of skills while ignoring the demand side - that is, whether employers were ambitious enough in chasing high-value work that could use staff skills better.

Despite skills shortages in some areas, 30 per cent of UK workers believe they are overqualified for their jobs, a level second only to Japan. The CIPD wants a Workplace Commission created to research and tackle the problem.

"It is difficult to see how you are going to get a significant improvement in labour productivity until you see investment, both in people and in capital and machinery," said Mr Beatson.

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