Brexit might be new, but uncertainty isn’t

As the reality of Brexit looms ever closer

how can we give our people the confidence to navigate through the chaos?

The choice to leave the European Union is perhaps the biggest political event to occur since the decision to join the very same Union in 1973.

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With the ever-changing political climate, comes uncertainty in large quantities. And with uncertainty comes slowing investment, reduced hiring and a decrease in output. Recently, the Bank of England (BoE) reported that a no-deal hard Brexit would see an output drop between 2.5 and 6.9 percent from firms in the United Kingdom. 

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Ambiguity in the political landscape leads to detrimental effects on the value of the Pound. As investors look to shift their capital into safe havens, the demand for sterling, and in turn, the value of the currency will depreciate. 

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A reduction in the value of the pound will result in decreased buying power for UK-based businesses and for businesses that import goods as part of their production process this could be extremely damaging, for instance the food-service industry will be particularly hard hit. Mark Carney, the Governor of the BoE, was recently quoted saying that food prices will see a 10% increase following a no-deal Brexit – and in a market where margins are so slim, efficiency gains and cost cutting is essential.

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The more worrying thing is the lack of planning in the market, an agent’s report produced by the Bank of England to determine the amount of planning for Brexit in different industries found that just under 70% of those surveyed had ‘no change planned’.

The future is uncertain, yes. But that isn’t necessarily new. 

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What also isn’t new either, is our typical approach for helping people to navigate these changes. In other words, preparing people. We haven’t yet agreed on a method that adequately and effectively enables people to make the changes we are asking of them, under pressured circumstances. The best we have come up with is classroom based training, in most cases. 

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That means, when we introduce initiatives that fundamentally change our businesses, that require urgent change, we leave our people ill-prepared.  

Brexit will no doubt bring about major shifts in our businesses, in ways that are not yet clear. Our belief at Profitability is that your strategy becomes reality, when your people make it their own. What we mean by this is that in order to understand how they can make the best decisions for your business, they need to have experienced the reality for themselves. Seeing it in PowerPoint just doesn’t cut it. 

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As the reality of Brexit looms ever closer, we need to give our people the confidence to navigate through the chaos, with solutions that reflect the precise challenges, pressures and conditions that our people are going to face.  

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