Manufacturers in the UK are losing more than £4bn* annually in middle managers’ wasted time, according to new YouGov research.
The fifth annual Feedback from the Field report, commissioned by workplace operations platform SafetyCulture, found that of the five frontline sectors studied, manufacturing suffers most from workplace inefficiency. This is followed by retail (£3.3bn), construction (£2.4bn), transport & logistics (£1.9bn) and hospitality (£1.5bn).
Those in middle management roles in the manufacturing sector spend, on average, an estimated 7.74** weeks every year picking up low-value or unnecessary tasks.
Dealing with email overload, attending unnecessary meetings and correcting others’ mistakes are the top three tasks managers say take up most of their time and distract them from more important duties.
This unproductive time equates to an estimated £4bn*, taking into account managers’ wages and the size of the UK frontline workforce.
Alex Brooks-Sykes, SafetyCulture’s UK and Ireland Site Lead, said: “Most middle managers in manufacturing aren’t set up for success. Too many are stuck firefighting daily issues or buried in admin instead of driving efficiency on the factory floor.
“Managers have a unique vantage point – they know the strategic plans of senior leadership and the realities on the production line. This makes them a hugely valuable source of business insight, but one that’s often overlooked.”
Much of the inefficiency problem lies in manufacturing leaders’ approach to improvement programmes, according to the study. More than nine in ten managers (93%) have ideas that could improve their organisation, but only half (50%) have actually had these ideas implemented. One of the leading reasons for ideas being rejected is that “senior leadership aren’t receptive to ideas from managers” (40%).
Instead, manufacturing managers say top-down improvement programmes in their organisation “feel like a senior-level tick-box exercise” and are “driven by people who don’t understand how the work is done.”
Where managers’ ideas are taken forward, they report positive impacts such as more efficient operations (61%) and reduced costs (51%).
Brooks-Sykes added: “Managers are full of ideas for improvement, but they need the right systems and tools to identify issues and make recommendations based on the data.
“Real improvement starts with clear insights. What’s happening, why, and what can be done about it? With these insights, managers can go beyond fixing the symptoms to solve the root cause and ultimately improve the bottom line.”
Read SafetyCulture’s Feedback from the Field report, The $90 Billion Opportunity.
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