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The UK is close to the bottom of the pile on workplace welfare and employee engagement according to the latest Gallup poll, ranking 34th of 40 countries. Outcomes can be expensive. Staff churn is minimal where the culture is engaged - where the culture is toxic, people will leave soon after joining. In this day and age, it's counter-productive to view people as 'low-hanging fruit' or disposable collateral. Leaders might have got away with that 100 years ago, but this kind of

If we really want to start a groundswell movement towards real-time sustainability, first we have to face some seriously seminal facts. Regardless of the industry you work in or the niche of which you are part, progress can be made in; 💎 Sustainable materials 💎 Waste management 💎 Engagement and innovation 💎 Advancing productivity The first two are specialisms that others can advise on - the net-zero deliverables. It's the people-centric aspects of your business that every

"I haven't got time," is the No.1 reason why people rebuke what it would take to set things straight on employee welfare. The longer a company leaves its culture in dysfunctional mode, the more likely you are to hear it said that "nothing's going to change around here." You'll find a lot of links below backing up these fiscal assertions, and if you'd like more proof that this situation is unsustainable, see what Harvard and Gallup have to say. "The need, in a post-pandemic wo

"Left unchecked and unpruned, every company drifts into complexity over time, and the longer an organization has been around, the harder it becomes to locate the good, clear, coherent strategy that once existed inside the riot of organic growth, abandoned ideas, and dead branches. Over time, the strategy becomes an orchard with a hodgepodge of okay trees instead of a single beautiful specimen heavy with fruit. Ironically, complexity can be hard to let go of because it seems m

Were I sitting before you right now, would you tell me that you don't care what people think as long as they come in and do the job every day? Were I to ask if you'd take your dog to the vets following a seizure, would you say, "Maybe, but I'd just leave it there"...? Leaders often tell me, completely unsolicited, that they're very comfortably off, heading for retirement and very disinterested in the thoughts of their employees. And another thing they invariably tell me, havi

With the world as it is now, with the baton being passed to the next generation firmly in your hands - well, I hope you cherish the thought of transforming while you can. Perish the thought that you might leave it to the incoming youngsters. Sorry to be blunt; I'm hoping that any desire to lean on the mantlepiece for a couple of years while the young bloods sort it out is battling with an inkling that this is your watch, yours to own, and generational progress has never been

As a leader looking to secure a future for your company, it's going to be necessary to look beyond the bottom line in order to evolve. You might stare at it hard every day - but be assured, the only thing that will set profit spinning ahead of the exponential curve is the mind-set of the people you employ. Many CEOs believe they can hire a consultant to take the whole thing off their hands and deliver an engaged culture without any effort on their part, to find themselves mis

I once met an Operations Manager who seemed on the phone to be heartily in favour of workplace engagement. During discussion, an idea surfaced that major players in the sector such as JLR and JCB could be encouraged to sponsor projects; improvements in the culture of small firms has an automatic knock-on effect of better productivity, reliability and customer focus. I was interested to see where our dialogue would go. Outcome After a long one-way conversation about his backgr

Remember blue-sky thinking and dolphinism? Executives found themselves in the Dinosaur camp if they didn’t host brainstorms and give way to innovation, but soon innovation gave way to inertia; before too much time had passed, along came the Low-hanging Fruit; pour foodie Fridays into the mix with a newsletter and a summer fete and when that didn’t elevate performance maybe toolbox meetings would? But no, they're relegated to once a month now and if anyone doesn’t air grievanc

The UK is close to the bottom of the pile on workplace welfare and employee engagement according to the latest Gallup poll, ranking 34th of 40 countries. As this summary attests, the outcomes are expensive. Staff churn is minimal where the culture is engaged - where the culture is toxic, people will leave soon after joining. In this day and age, it's not productive to view people as 'low-hanging fruit' or disposable collateral. Leaders might have got away with that 100 years

Intrinsically connected, at this point in time industrial companies are thinking about how to address expensive people-centric issues, with a number of challenging factors creating apparent blocks; 1) The majority of shop-floor workers are on minimum wage, or close to it. How do you motivate people in this situation? 2) Skilled workers are hard to come by, and the sector has a shortage of people coming in to the talent pool with knowledge behind them, so most operators are se

Since starting out 25 years ago on a mission to change lives for industrial companies, I've found that fewer and fewer people offering solutions to disengagement are prepared to venture into the workplace, let alone engage with the shop floor. When I delivered the first record-breaking programme in 2002, no-one else was doing it in the Midlands. Some London consultants would come on-site at a cost few SMEs could afford... £10,000 for a developmental leg-up considered cheap! M

I spoke at SubCon to a senior exec in a top-line trade association. He told me that he sees predominantly positive cultures, but having been on a fair share in my time I quietly question what he's actually experiencing on site visits. Leaders will say that their culture is great; walking the shop floor may tell a different story. If, that is, the guest is clued up to signs that 'all is not well' beyond seeing people doing their jobs at their workstations. Managers usually tal

Engineers are among the most likely socio-demographic groups to take their own lives. Engineering workers are 3.7 times more likely to die by suicide than the national average. This sobering statistic SHOULD act as a wake-up call to sector leaders while the engineering industry sits on the fence regarding employee welfare, continuing to invest heavily in emergent technology while ignoring the needs of its human workforce. Not all industrial companies are being complacent - so

Kathy speaks out on employee engagement at MACH2026 There are two kinds of workplace - commercial and industrial, often characterised as white-collar and blue-collar. That differentiation implies a colonial bias that sticks around even in today’s age of diversity, inclusion and equality. While recent years have seen white-collar communities shift towards remote working and flexibility, skilled engineers tied to production lines are pushed harder to compete with foreign powers

With the world as it is now, in these years of holding the baton to be passed to the next generation - well, I hope you cherish the thought of making changes while you can. Perish the thought that you might not! Some Leaders are Leaning Back Sorry to be blunt; I'm hoping that temptation to lean on the mantlepiece for a couple of years while the young bloods sort it out is fighting against some inkling that this is your watch, yours to own, and shift handover has never been m

Yes, they are connected. At this point in time, it's becoming more apparent that industrial leaders are thinking about how to address the gap between attitude and performance, with challenging factors creating apparent blocks, such as these; 1) The majority of shop-floor workers are on minimum wage, or close to it. How do you motivate people in this situation? 2) Skilled workers are hard to come by, the sector has a shortage of people coming in with knowledge behind them, so

Surprisingly high numbers of CEOs won't entertain the idea of a people-centric strategy that could help their business grow and sustainably develop. They fear looking hard at their own method of management, and often just don't know where to start moving away from the blocks. (This has led to 90% of the British workforce quiet-quitting or looking for roles elsewhere.) Attractive Distractions Perhaps the most popular ready-meal for industrial decision makers is new machinery.

Despite proof of its importance from Harvard, Gallup and Deloitte, employee engagement has been slow to gain favour in the industrial community, while a £4-to-£1 is known to be the standard return on investment and the UK loses around £300billion a year to disengaged workforces. Last year a major manufacturing exhibition nevertheless refused outright to cover the subject on its speaker platforms. On April 22nd I talked about the effects of engagement on skills retention, pro

Why Young Interns are Hard to Keep The shop floor can be a harsh place, fraught with fire-fights and repetitive issues. For someone working there, it can be pretty stressful, but hey, a job is a job - they say you're lucky to have one. Young interns come in with no idea what they will be facing, having a vague notion that engineers pop up to fix things like in the adverts - often the aspiring talent leaves the industry for good. They know that jobs are there to be found. Is t