Survey of Top Performing Firms Debated at DTI Summit for EU Leaders
LONDON, September 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Cracking the Performance Code, The Work Foundation's research into what makes the UK's top performing firms world beating was presented to European leaders today (Thursday 15 September) at a DTI seminar to mark the UK's Presidency of the European Union.
The Work Foundation's research found that the key to high performance lay in so called' soft' factors of production around management, communication, leadership and culture. Leadership and decision-making were distributed down the organisation. These workplaces are edgy and demanding of high standards while maintaining flat hierarchies. People at the top strive to deliver resources and technology to let their teams get the job done. Although the buzz around leadership currently focuses around the 'transactional' and 'transformational', leaders of top scoring firms are stewards of their organisations rather than visionaries.
Risk taking is encouraged and if things do go wrong, procedures allow changes of direction quickly and easily. Communication in top scoring firms goes up, down and across and it is an organisational objective to confer with unions and works councils and share knowledge with those on the factory floor or out in the field.
Top performing firms have a culture that is characterised by a sense of pride and vigorous determination not to get left behind. Managers have positive self-image, a belief in self-development and encourage others to do the same. Quality not quantity and a focus on the external are exemplified by the way structure and process is subordinated to delivering to the client. Employees have control over how, where and when to get things done.
Cracking the Performance Code uses the Company Performance Index to measure the productivity of over 3000 UK based organisations.
"Our study, Cracking the Performance Code is a unique look at how productivity in the UK can be improved and we were pleased to share our top level findings with the delegates at the High Performance Workplace Conference," commented Stephen Bevan, Director of Research at The Work Foundation.
Will Hutton, Chief Executive adds "It is sensible for us to discuss productivity at a European level though the UK Presidency - improving productivity is important for the UK and for the EU. If 10% of companies at the bottom of the performance league table upped their game and moved into the top third, the Treasury target of increasing productivity growth by a quarter of a percentage point per worker per annum, would be met. This would add value to the tune of GBP1,600 per worker per annum and lift the GDP of the UK by GBP2.5 billion."
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