MPs have attacked the UK’s productivity plan as a ‘vague collection of existing policies’. Comment from Tom Castley, VP EMEA of Xactly, on the importance of employee engagement to improving productivity.

A committee of MPs has attacked Sajid Javid’s productivity plan for lacking clear objectives and original ideas. This is not a surprise. While the productivity plan has highlighted this important challenge to the UK economy, the strategy doesn’t really address a huge and rather glaring issue: many UK employees are under-motivated and disengaged with the organisations they work for.

In fact recent Xactly research on UK productivity has found that a third of employees wouldn’t work if they didn’t have to, highlighting the fact that employees simply don’t feel close enough to their business to drive it forward and seek to increase their productivity. This has to change. No amount of strategy as laid out in the productivity report will make a difference if a third of the UK workforce is not motivated to want to go the extra mile. To do this, we must address the elephant in the room – many businesses are failing to take advantage of financial incentives to motivate their employees.

Financial incentives tie an employee’s remuneration into the company’s performance and give them a stake in improving productivity. Smart bonus schemes can link employee behaviour into company objectives – helping the business justify and afford financial rewards. Productivity isn’t just an issue for the government; every single UK company will benefit by improving employee motivation and output. Smart, performance-based financial reward must be utilised to help the UK to pull itself out of the productivity pit.”