British businesses are wasting more than £13 billion a year in lost productivity as middle managers spend weeks dealing with avoidable, low-value work, according to new research from YouGov.
The findings – published in the fifth annual Feedback from the Field report by workplace governance platform SafetyCulture – reveal that middle managers lose an average of 7.3 weeks per year to unnecessary or repetitive tasks, including unproductive meetings, email overload and correcting others' mistakes.
The cost of that inefficiency is staggering: when managers' salaries are combined with the scale of the UK's frontline workforce, the total wasted time amounts to £13.2 billion annually, the report estimates.
Of the five sectors surveyed, manufacturing has been hardest hit, with almost £4 billion of managers' time wasted each year. This is followed by retail (£3.3 billion), construction (£2.4 billion), transport and logistics (£1.9 billion), and hospitality (£1.5 billion).
Ronan Kirby, managing director of SafetyCulture, EMEA, said the results highlight the persistent underutilization of management talent in frontline industries: “Middle managers are the backbone of operational success, yet too often they are held back by inefficiencies and administrative overload. When equipped with the right tools and visibility, they can be catalysts for real, lasting improvement.
“The reality is that they are one of the most underutilized sources of insight in any business. They are close enough to see where things break and experienced enough to understand how those issues impact the bottom line.”
The study also highlights a disconnect between middle managers and senior leadership. Nearly nine in ten managers (88%) said they had ideas to improve their organization, but less than half (43%) said their ideas were ever implemented.
More than a third (37%) blamed senior leadership for being “unreceptive” to suggestions from below. Many described company-wide improvement initiatives as “tick-box exercises” driven by people “who don't understand how things get done.”
In contrast, where managers' ideas were adopted, the impact was significant: 57% reported more efficient operations and 46% saw cost reductions.
Kirby said the findings revealed a “two-way gap” between operational insight and executive decision making.
“Managers' ideas often struggle to gain popularity, and leadership strategies don't always reflect day-to-day challenges. The opportunity lies in bridging that gap with the systems and visibility that turn good ideas into lasting improvements.”
The report highlights examples of middle management-led innovation that is already paying dividends. Mowi Consumer Products UK, which operates the UK's largest fish processing site with approximately 1,000 employees, cut its paper-based records by 90% and more than doubled its product and quality audits after introducing SafetyCulture technology.
Senior quality manager David Bate and then-production operator Anna Giusti led the project, which has since helped to digitalize operations at the site.
“The company is full of passionate people who invest their time and careers in improving processes, and we are reaping the benefits of that,” Giusti said. “The Digitalization program has also enabled me to progress in my career to become a business data analyst.”
The report concludes that empowering managers to lead change is key to improving operational efficiency in the UK's leading sectors.
“The most effective organizations empower everyone to contribute to change,” Kirby said. “With the right systems in place, managers can stop fighting the same fires every day and start pursuing the next opportunity.”
Amy Ingham
Amy is a newly qualified journalist specializing in business journalism with responsibility for news content at Business Matters, the UK's largest print and online source of current business news.
