Why should firms care about productivity? How does it add to the bottom line? What exactly drives productivity? And how can you get better at it? This episode is a conversation with three current and former business leaders talking about how they think about productivity, what it means to them, and what practical productivity measures their firms use.
Host Professor Bart van Ark is joined by:
- Katy Davies, Managing Director of Evolve Your Future.
- Lou Cordwell, Special Advisor to the Office of the President and Vice-Chancellor at The University of Manchester and Professor of Innovation at the Alliance Manchester Business School.
- Greg McDonald, Founder and Executive Chair of Goodfish.
For more information on the topic:
- The Productivity Institute, (2024) Productivity Primer: Why productivity matters for the economy, business and places.
- Kate Penney and Jim Pendrill (2022) Strategic Productivity for the Leadership Team, The Productivity Institute.
- The Productivity Institute, Business Dynamism: is turbulence good for productivity?, Productivity Puzzles Podcast, March 2024.
- The Productivity Institute, Government policy and business productivity: does it help or harm?, Productivity Puzzles Podcast, April 2024
- The Productivity Institute, Should we be worried about business dynamism?, blog.
- The Productivity Institute, Government policy and business productivity: does it help or harm?, blog.
About Productivity Puzzles:
Productivity Puzzles is brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research body involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight Regional Productivity Forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government. It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Productivity Puzzles
Join Bart van Ark, Professor of Productivity Studies at the University of Manchester, and the managing director of The Productivity Institute as he brings you discussions with leading minds from the UK and abroad about how to improve productivity for almost everything: from health care to car manufacturing, at national and regional levels, for business and for your own personal productivity.
This podcast series investigates why UK productivity is lower than in many other countries and why are there such large differences in productivity across and within the regions and devolved nations. We’ll also get the best insights from research on smart policies and effective business practices to increase productivity and find out how this will drive prosperity, wellbeing and inclusive sustainable growth.
Productivity Puzzles is brought to you by The Productivity Institute, a research project involving nine academic institutions across the UK, eight regional productivity forums throughout the nation, and a national independent Productivity Commission to advise policy makers at all levels of government.
Find out more about at www.productivity.ac.uk
The Productivity Institute is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. To find out more, visit: https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/strategy-and-priorities/productivity/