Study Found That Britons Work Longer, Yet Worse


03/28/2016

The majority of British workers spend a lot of time at work, yet their productivity growth is either small or non-existent, according to the study, which results were published in British The Guardian.



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More than two-thirds of the workers said they spend at work more time than two years ago, but only 10% said that they have become more productive.

The study was conducted by the British research organisation Smith Institute, which found that more than a quarter of British workers feel that their productivity has decreased over this period.

This study stirs concern that British business relies on a cheap labor force that works more hours, and is expected to show improved performance.

The results of the study also revealed that 9 out of 10 workers believe that performance is an important parameter, and almost 80% said that employers measure their performance at least sometimes .

At the same time, they stated that leaders typically seek to increase productivity by reducing jobs or simply perform the same amount of work at a faster pace.

Only a small part of the staff associated productivity growth with improvements in pay and working conditions.

Here's what the report said: "The staff talked openly that they would like to receive a fair payment for the increase in productivity, but they are pessimistic about that is ever possible in their case."

Productivity is based on the number of hours spent at work to perform a certain amount of work.

In the last quarter of 2015, productivity has fallen after 9 months of continuous growth, said the Budget Committee.

In the opinion of the committee, economic recovery in the UK will be delayed without the constant growth of productivity per hour of work.

The government has promised to increase productivity, but its latest plan has been criticized as a "cloudy collection of existing policy measures" by members of the parliament.

The Budget Committee, which issued its own independent outlook, said that wage growth will be less than 2.2% over the next five years, an average of about 2%.

Smith Institute's respondents said that the quickest way to increase productivity is to strive to listen to the staff. However, managers usually ignore this advice from their colleagues.

At the same time, experts note that the productivity is difficult to measure.

More than 7 400 employees in the public and private sectors responded to the Institute's questions that were asked in the survey conducted for Unions21 (a research institutes, the aim of which is to provide an "open platform" for discussions on labor issues).

Employees of stores made up  the largest share of the respondents, also there were many respondents  in the energy sector, the media and communications.

The study found that 82% of workers believe that the technology is "necessary and inevitable", despite the fact that a third of respondents believe that advances in technology could make their work unnecessary.

According to official data, productivity has increased slightly since 2006, yet rate of growth in the UK remains the lowest among the G7 countries.

source: theguardian.com