Wednesday’s Made in Group Mastermind spoke about where the UK manufacturing sector is now and how business leaders can keep the current staff morale and productivity up.
In the second group of Made’s Masterminds, members included Andy Hodgson from Siemens, Maja Foster from Hexagon, Rowan Crozier from Brandauer and Darren Lightwood from Alwayse Engineering along with Jason Pitt and Charles Addison from the Made in Group.
The group began the conversation discussing how business leaders can keep staff morale up and ensure the level of productivity within the workplace stays. Members agreed that they are starting to see the effects on mental health amongst their staff due to working from home.
Alternatively, all members also agreed that they are seeing changing dynamics within their workforce, and can see the staff are helping each other due to an “obvious collective spirit amongst the staff.”
In response to this, the participants agreed that inducting staff into the business again, once back at the workplace from working from home or furlough, in order to keep staff focused may be a solution to keeping staff morale up.
In terms of where the sector is now, all members agreed that they are starting to see a rise in business now since the start of the pandemic. Some members agreed they are starting to see this more on a global scale, customers and partners within Europe are becoming more willing to trade and start supply chains again. On another note, members are still seeing holts in the supply chain however has decreased since the start of the pandemic.
In conclusion, the members agreed that now is the time to look forward with positivity and by looking at business models and future-proofing to get to the right place in terms of cash flow as quickly as possible.