UK Business leaders urge new approach

UK business leaders, attending the launch of The Work Foundation tonight, heard that their failure to take organisational issues seriously is at the heart of the UK's inability to close the productivity gap.

The Industrial Society was founded in 1918 to campaign to improve the quality of working life. Its successor, The Work Foundation was launched today with a modernised constitution, a new board of trustees and chairman, a new research capacity, a new service to its members and a new business model.

At the launch event three of the UK's leading business voices - Peter Ellwood, group chief executive of Lloyds TSB, Will Hutton, chief executive of The Work Foundation and Gail Rebuck, chair and chief executive of Random House spoke to over 800 members of the business community. They were joined on the platform by Gordon Brown MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Ellwood, Rebuck and Hutton argued that employee autonomy, empowerment and entrepreneurial commitment are at the heart of organisational success. They said that to describe these as 'soft' issues is to undermine their central importance to the productivity debate.

In his speech Will Hutton said: "The UK has too few visionary companies and too few high performance workplaces - and this deficiency is at the root of our continuing productivity deficit, not just with the US, but with mainland Europe. What are seen as "soft" issues are in fact "hard" - and need to be at the centre of business and organisational strategy."

"The accepted solution to the productivity challenge has been to focus on Britain's deficiencies in investment - but that is only half the story. We believe the poor productivity and workplace organisation which produce disaffected workforces are different sides of the same coin. Companies are never going to achieve the creativity and performance they aim for unless they can inspire their workforce with a common vision.

"Some British employers are exploring ways of liberating their workforces through innovations over balancing work and domestic life, or delegating decision making downwards, but they do so against a hostile background. One of The Work Foundation's objectives is to reinforce their instincts and persuade others to join them."

April 8th, 2002