Deloitte survey: 9 in 10 UK businesses seek to redesign their organisation

• Organisations are looking to reinvent their internal models to better innovate and compete

• This comes as 80 per cent of UK companies still face lack of employee engagement

• Majority of HR and business leaders highlight challenges with corporate culture

• Almost six in ten say their companies are not ready to meet leadership needs

Ninety-two per cent of UK HR and business leaders see redesigning their organisation as their most important priority, according to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 survey.

As part of this, 42 per cent of UK respondents say they are currently restructuring their organisation and 49 per cent have recently completed the process. Only seven per cent say they have no plans to restructure.

Anne-Marie Malley, UK human capital leader at Deloitte, explains: “The development of technology, the varying expectations and working styles of different generational groups, and the need to cater to the employee in an increasingly competitive labour market, are all dramatically transforming the traditional world of work. After three years of struggling to drive employee engagement and retention, improve leadership, and create an attractive company culture, executives in this year’s survey see a need to redesign the organisation itself. UK organisations are reinventing their internal models to innovate, compete and thrive, but many issues still remain in these areas for the foreseeable future.”

Power to the employee

Lack of employee engagement is an issue currently facing 80 per cent of UK HR and business leaders. Only 36 per cent report that they are prepared to tackle engagement issues.

Despite the emergence of easy to use tools to frequently evaluate employee sentiment, 76 per cent of UK organisations still measure employee engagement only once a year. Forty-two percent measure this engagement through annual surveys and 20 per cent through interviews and focus groups.

Malley continues: “In an ever-competitive labour market, in order to help attract and retain talented employees it is crucial that business and HR leaders focus on enhancing their organisation’s working environment and experience. Whilst UK companies seem to know the issues with employee engagement, they need to step up and do more to address it.”

Importance of company culture

Eighty-seven per cent of UK respondents rate challenges with corporate culture – the values, beliefs, behaviours and reward systems that influence people’s behaviour on a day-to-day basis – as “important” or “very important”. However, almost two-thirds of executives do not feel they are effectively driving the desired culture within their organisations.

Leadership issues remain

For the first time in two years, leadership has fallen from the most pressing concern for UK organisations, to the third most important trend.

However, despite its fall in HR and business executive’s priorities, leadership continues to lag behind in UK companies. Only 13 per cent of respondents believe they are “excellent” at maintaining clear and current succession plans and programmes. Fifty-nine percent say their companies are not ready to meet their leadership needs. Furthermore, over half report having “weak” leadership programmes for millennials.*

Malley concludes: “Whilst leadership has fallen from the top spot of concern, it could be argued that this is only because of the sudden need for UK companies to look at issues such as restructuring and employee engagement, in order to compete in the short-term. It’s clear from this year’s results that the traditional leadership “pyramid” is still not producing leaders fast enough, causing real concern in the medium and long-term.

“Companies need to accelerate leadership development, particularly for millennials. This generation make up more than half the workforce right now, and in less than 10 years, they will make up three quarters. Deloitte’s 2016 millennial survey showed that 71 per cent of those likely to leave their current job in the next two years are unhappy with how their leadership skills are being developed.** If organisations don’t address this issue now, they may lose their most talented future leaders.”

End

Notes to editors

About Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends survey
Conducted among more than 7,000 HR and business leaders in 130 countries, Deloitte's Global Human Capital Trends 2016 survey, published in March 2016, is one of the largest ever global studies of workforce, leadership and HR challenges. 140 UK respondents were involved in this year’s survey. See the full global report here.

*People born after 1982.
**The 2016 Deloitte Millennial survey, see more here.

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country's leading professional services firms.

Deloitte LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee, whose member firms are legally separate and independent entities. Please see www.deloitte.co.uk/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.