Short on time? This toolkit gives you quick, practical steps to work smarter and improve the performance of your business.
We know you’re busy running your business – but what if just a few small changes could unlock the hidden potential? This toolkit is designed to help Welsh SMEs like yours quickly assess, plan, and improve productivity.
Productivity is about creating more value from your existing resources. These resources may include buildings, land, labour, machinery and equipment. Productivity growth can be achieved through increasing the volume of sales of existing goods or services, but also through producing higher value products.
Regardless of business size or sector, productivity growth is key to generating profit. By creating more from the same resources, productivity growth provides the opportunity to reduce prices and gain market share, invest in the future, increase employee wages, as well as retain greater profit. In short, whatever the specific aim of your business, productivity growth is a key to achieving it.
At a national level, if labour productivity in Wales was as high as the UK average, residents would be able to work nearly one day less each week and achieve the same results. Isn’t freeing up resources something worth exploring in your business?
Measure your labour productivity using just three numbers. The annual value of turnover (sales), purchases of inputs (excluding labour) and the number of people employed.
Business productivity is calculated as: 
For example, if your business has a turnover of £500,000, purchases £200,000 of inputs (excluding labour), and employs 10 people:
Value added=£500,000 – £200,000 =£300,000
Labour productivity=£300,000 / 10 = £30,000 per worker per year
Benchmark your performance
See how you compare by using the Office for National Statistics interactive tool to benchmark your productivity against businesses within your industry. Understanding where you are in the distribution can help you identify opportunities for productivity growth. How far is your business from the most productive firms in the industry?
Importantly you can also track and monitor your business productivity over time to assess the impact of the changes you make.
Within a business, productivity depends on the skills, wellbeing and management of the workforce and the effective use of equipment including machines and technology. However, every business is unique, and the most effective changes are likely to be best developed within and by the business. By regularly taking just a small amount of time to think about productivity, research shows that you can make the changes required for sustainable growth in the future.
Take a quick productivity health check by asking yourself:
Reflect on the opportunities you have identified and make proactive steps to capitalise on these. Start to address any barriers to productivity growth you identify. Most importantly, maintain your focus on productivity by setting some regular time aside each month to revisit our health check and concentrate on productivity growth within your business.
Learn the basics of business productivity in just two minutes with a short explainer video from The Productivity Institute:
We understand that business leaders need support to maximise their productivity potential. Fortunately, there are lots of sources of advice and guidance. From finance to training, these expert organisations are ready to help:
Are there external barriers to productivity growth in Wales which could be addressed through policy?
The Wales Productivity Forum aims to enhance productivity in Wales and is keen to hear what needs to change to make Wales a more productive environment for business. We would welcome your comments at Walesproductivityforum@cardiff.ac.uk.
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We are always looking for business pioneers in Wales to share their good practice. Interested? Then please get in touch at Walesproductivityforum@cardiff.ac.uk
In our first case study, Tom Wilkinson, Group Operations Director at Barcud Shared Services, shares how a shift to a four-day workweek helped the business unlock new levels of efficiency.
By streamlining processes and encouraging more focused work, the organisation achieved a 15% increase in productivity. The change not only improved time management but also supported employee well-being-contributing to a more engaged and effective team.
The Barcud experience shows that well-designed changes in working patterns can deliver meaningful business gains without sacrificing quality or output.
In our second case study, Jane Wallace-Jones from Something Different Wholesale reveals her plans to reconfigure her warehouse layout and let out excess warehouse space to enhance productivity and profit within her business.
The company intends to streamline workflows and achieve significant productivity gains by adding pallet racking, moving to narrower aisles, and relocating stock closer to picking zones. By leasing underutilised space, Jane also plans to develop a new revenue stream and reduce property costs. This more efficient use of physical space aims to deliver powerful productivity gains and financial benefits.