Productivity efficiency report examines leading organisations

Global engineering and strategic, technical and environmental consultancy, Ricardo plc, which has a Technical Centre in Shoreham, West Sussex, made a valuable contribution to the report. Chief Executive, Dave Shemmans, firmly believes that employees should be rewarded for what they do to improve efficiency as this is key to improving productivity.

Shemmans said: “Encouraging ideas for improving productivity is as valuable as any customer service programmes and this is fundamental to any business to ensure sustainability. With today’s price pressures, productivity gains are the way to remain competitive.”

"Continually achieving cost reduction is a real challenge for an already efficient business, so a company needs to find new things to sell that it can charge more for and improve productivity," according to Shemmans. "IT can deliver some efficiencies in terms of maximising time as work can be passed across departments or from one country to another to achieve 24 hour working when it is required. And with technology continually changing, processes can be improved indefinitely."

Shemmans is also quick to point out that when there’s a compelling need, such as an emergency or wartime, it’s amazing how quickly things can be done as bureaucracy takes a back seat. Deadlines can really drive productivity.

With 3,000 staff in the group worldwide, each division of Ricardo has its own productivity plan and improving productivity has to be everyone’s goal. The company’s awards scheme recognises back office and productivity-related functions and not just front-end activities, as Shemmans said: “Without the HR and finance functions, we would not have a business.”