For their growth plans to succeed, the UK Government must be clear on how they’ll support businesses in managing these costs. It’s concerning that so many employers (19% of those surveyed) plan to cut back on investment in skills development at a time when skills shortages are widespread. Evidence shows that training and development has a positive impact on productivity, so we’re calling for faster government consultation with employers on the new Growth and Skills Levy, alongside changes to skills policy that will incentives and enable to upskill their workforces.
Shaping key debates on employment trends
Our quarterly Labour Market Outlook is an influential indicator of employment trends in the UK, which helps drive evidence-based discussions about the changing world of work. The highly respected report regularly makes the news headlines, and the latest findings featured prominently across major news outlets including the , and . Our data, insights and calls to action were reported alongside other influential business bodies – including the and – whose research also shows that employer confidence is falling.
What can employers and people professionals do to boost productivity and offset increased employment costs?
Some employers in our survey are taking a longer-term view and responding to the increased employment costs in more positive ways:
- 37% plan to improve efficiency and raise productivity,
- 21% plan to introduce or increasing automation, such as AI.
The CIPD’s advice to people professionals is to avoid knee-jerk reactions and take a proactive, long-term approach to workforce planning – assessing both your current and future skills needs. This is a big opportunity for HR, L&D and OD professionals to champion the power of a people-centric business strategy – and demonstrate how a robust people strategy can contribute directly to business success.
In particular, we recommend that you:
- Invest in developing your workforce and prioritise continuous learning and training to enhance adaptability, productivity and employee retention, particularly if your organisation has to make do with less.
- Take advantage of technology and use it to empower your workforce. Embrace automation and digital tools including AI to improve efficiency, streamline processes and operations, to augment and extend the capability of your workforce.
- If downsizing is unavoidable, follow our redundancy guidance to ensure fairness and legal compliance, and consider alternative solutions, such as redeployment, job-sharing, short-time working, and so on, where possible.