What We Learnt From Productivity Forum 2023

26th September 23

On 14th September, ReThink hosted over 100 operations, productivity and workload planning experts for the Productivity Forum 2023 conference at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham. 

With its biggest turnout to date, the day was an opportunity for attendees to network, share ideas and discuss business challenges amongst people with the same agenda. We were delighted to host a series of insightful talks from expert key speakers including Diane Wehrle, Dr Iain Price, Dulcie Swanston, Sally-Ann Hall-Jones, Jez Tibbetts and Steve Young.

There were so many fantastic ideas and key insights discussed on the day. Some of the key things that cropped up included:

• Saturdays have become the key shopping day once again
• How can you build trust in your employees so that productivity doesn’t take a hit when challenges arise
• What does a 5% loss of productivity mean to your business in terms of sales figures? Could it be as much as £1,000,000?
• How investing in the right technology can save your business time and money
• Taking a look in detail at how to improve the daily tasks in the workplace to save time and make employees’ jobs easier, resulting in higher productivity
• The surrounding challenges regarding recruitment and optimum productivity
• What is the optimum number of weekly hours for a part time contract?

We enlisted the help of a brilliant illustrator, Andy Gray, who, alongside Dr Iain Price, visualised the topics and ideas that were discussed by the speakers and the attendees. The duo invited individuals to share their ideas to contribute to the illustrations throughout the conference which were then displayed for everyone to take a look at and discuss afterwards. It was a great opportunity to invoke additional ideas and thoughts from everyone present. 

We have received lots of great feedback from those present. Take a look below to see what people had to say.

“Even better than last year, great to get together with likeminded people.”

“Very insightful and informative, great for networking.”

“It was good last year, and this year better again. Really insightful, colourful and provoked lots of thought.”

Simon Hedaux, ReThink CoFounder, said: “It’s great to see so many of our clients in one room, sharing ideas and expertise and then letting us know how valuable they find the session. At ReThink, we set out to surface insights that help people make positive changes in their business and the forum is one of the very enjoyable ways we do that.“

Finally, the day was made extra special for ReThink as we officially launched our new book, ‘Every Second Counts’ – our advice on how to achieve business excellence, transform operational productivity, and deliver extraordinary results. We also unveiled ReBudget – a game-changer in online labour budgeting.

If you weren’t able to make Productivity Forum, listen to our latest podcast where Simon and Sue share their insights, takeaways and reflect on the event’s triumphs.

And if you want more, the date for next year’s event has already been announced so save a place in your calendar for 12th September 2024.