Skills commission to investigate how to maximise staff potential

A major project investigating how employers can make the most of the skills of their workforce has been launched by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (CES).

The Skills Utilisation project aims to identify how employers can maximise the potential of all their staff, gaining improvements in performance - practices commonly referred to as high performance working.

The project consists of three elements a literature review a set of case studies outlining and detailing good practice in high performance working and a review of policy interventions.

Chris Humphries, CES chief executive, said: "I believe that many organisations vastly under-use the talents and skills of their staff. A huge range of techniques can be employed to help maximise the contribution of employees to achieving business benefits, including job rotation, self-directed team working, family-friendly policies and many more.

"This piece of research aims to identify exactly what practices work best, in what combination and in what context."

Humphries said the CES would be making policy recommendations to all four UK governments to help encourage the take-up of high-performance working practices.

Research conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and manufacturers' organisation the EEF in 2003 found that companies that introduced high performance working could expect to achieve a 20% increase in productivity and profitability.

Findings from the CES project are expected to be published in Spring 2009.