Calculate your business labour efficiency

Self-assess your company’s labour performance and identify training and resource needs

What is a Labour Efficiency Calculator?

Our Labour Efficiency Calculator will score your organisation’s Lean and performance management skills.

The calculator will give you a bird’s-eye view of your labour needs and generate a report highlighting areas that need focus. It will link you to relevant tools and guidance to support areas that would benefit from improvement.

Why should I assess my labour efficiency?

Assessing the needs of your workplace labour requirements is crucial. It will help you retain current staff and help recruit the right people for the future. You will also identify where training might be helpful to plug skills gaps.

With labour costs rising and the difficulty in recruiting affordable labour with the right skill sets, it is more important than ever to make sure your workforce are working efficiently and effectively.

How do I use the calculator?

Access the Labour Efficiency Calculator.

The calculator is easy to use and should only take around 20 minutes to complete.

Use the calculator to find out where you can make improvements to your business labour needs. 

We recommend you use the calculator every year to compare your progress. 

You can create separate assessments for different areas of your business, from harvesting to the packhouse.

Understanding your labour efficiency results

The questions will assess your organisation in eight key areas of Lean and performance management:

What is Lean management and why is it important?

Lean management is a tool to make businesses more efficient. It helps you to add value to processes in your business and reduce any wasted activity.

1. Communication
   • People, in general, perform better and more consistently if they know why they are being asked to do something
2. Workplace organisation
   • Untidy and disorganised workplaces waste resources – imagine how much time is wasted looking for the right tools for the job
3. Continuous improvement training
   • Always ask yourself, ‘what can we be doing better?’
   • What skills and training do we need to support change?
4. Management training
   • The best worker does not necessarily become the best manager or supervisor. Ensure your front-line managers have the right skills and training

What is performance management and why is it important?

Performance management looks at making sure the right tools, skills and evaluation methods are in place to help your business meet its goals.

1. Productivity
   • Accurately monitor your business performance and understand the reasons for failure
2. Standards
   • Standardised process management ensures that work is performed in the most structured and cost-effective way
3. Planning
   • Good planning means ensuring your resources are used effectively
4. Reporting
   • Make sure all stakeholders have the information they need to make improvements

Look out for further activity, training and resources from the Business, Insights and Skills team: ahdb.org.uk/skills