Report
Unpicking the productivity narrative in UK manufacturers
The aim of the project was to move the productivity conversation forward, away from the
economists, politicians and statisticians, and into the workplace by engaging with employees in
manufacturing companies. The project was undertaken between September 2018 and July 2019
and funded as a Pioneer Project by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
through the Productivity Insights Network Programme (Reference ES/R007810/1). The overall
aim of the project was to understand productivity from a different perspective by discovering
what productivity conversations were actually taking place inside UK manufacturing companies,
if at all. In so doing, the project contributes to addressing the gap in understanding, highlighted
by Boys (2019), who advocates the need to “continue research into firms’ attitudes and
awareness of the issue.”
The main project objectives were as follows:
- To understand how productivity is perceived by UK manufacturers.
- To explore variances in narratives within and across companies and sectors.
- To identify how companies are measuring productivity.
- To identify productivity drivers, constraints and enablers.
- To explore whether there is a perceived productivity problem.
