Should Leaders be Focused on Productivity?

Productivity is a hot topic among leaders lately.??

Most experts agree that it’s notoriously difficult to get an accurate read on productivity growth at high frequencies, but there is a widespread consensus that the fluctuation over the last two quarters has been noticeable. ?

Productivity reached record heights during the pandemic. During the lockdowns, researchers surmised that the increase was due to the absence of commutes, less time spent getting ready for work, and the opportunity to work in a more relaxed environment than an office. But in the months since the lockdowns were lifted, and employees were asked to return to the office, productivity has been in decline. ?

Is there a productivity slump??

According to some experts, this loss of productivity could simply be a side-effect of changes in working conditions. The rapid evolution of the workplace from pre-pandemic norms, to remote working, to now returning to the office in experimental stages, maybe throwing employees off their rhythm.??

Many employees insist that remote and flexible work models help them work more efficiently but employers are also equally insistent on returning to pre-pandemic work patterns. New trends have also been emerging in the workplace—quiet quitting, quiet firing, working from vacation, to name a few—which indicate that our usual work patterns have been fully disrupted and are unlikely to ever return to pre-2020 norms?

Thanks to the incredible advances in communication and networking technology these last two decades, many of us have the ability to be more flexible with our work than ever before. The idea of working from your home, via the internet and in real-time, on a project being conducted on the other side of the globe would have been fantastical just ten to twenty years ago, even in IT. The lockdowns have made this the norm for many industries and they’ve established—to some degree—that there may be no need to work any other way. It’s no wonder employees are rapidly redefining the status quo around the workplace. ? ?

Do employers need to be worried??

Business leaders who are feeling the pressure of returning to pre-pandemic levels of productivity have begun to institute measures to try and check the downward slide. No doubt some of these measures are also the result of the economic downturn that experts say is on the horizon.?

In tech, Sundar Pichai of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta have both made public statements about the need to boost productivity, asking their employees to do more. Google recently announced a ‘Simplicity Sprint’ to solicit ideas from its 170,000-odd employees on how they can improve efficiency and productivity. Mark Zuckerberg, over a Q and A session with staff, announced the cancellation of Meta Days, a lockdown-era initiative aimed at giving employees time off to better cope with the pandemic. Industry leaders are tightening the more relaxed corporate culture.?

There is another side to this equation, however. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had an alternative take to the issue, where he proposed that worrying over a possible loss in productivity could cause managers to overestimate the issue, because of what he calls ‘productivity paranoia.’ Conditioned to pre-pandemic workplace norms, leaders may feel they have to monitor their employees better, in order to ensure efficiency and productivity. Managers may also feel the pressure of showing results to their bosses, further increasing the demand for employee scrutiny.??

One such tool for scrutiny is the activity trackers that have found widespread use among employers who work with remote/hybrid teams. What was initially meant to be a tool to help employees stay on top of targets resulted in a loss of trust, lower employee engagement, and a glut of anti-tracking devices that entered the market for employees looking to game the system. ?

According to Nadella, “The only way a business is successful and productive is if employees feel that sense of empowerment, that sense of energy and connection for the company’s mission and are doing meaningful work.”??

Nadella has suggested that staff subjected to excessive scrutiny would lose trust in their managers and employee engagement would suffer leading to more turnover. ? ?

How do we change the paradigm??

?“Thriving employees are what will give organizations a competitive advantage in today’s dynamic economic environment,”

- Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft.?

Microsoft has proposed three 'pivots’ leaders need to make to ensure high levels of productivity while simultaneously keeping up engagement and trust.??

Combat productivity paranoia?

People are working as hard as ever while leaders, with an eye on the oncoming recession, are worried about any potential decline in productivity. This has led to more scrutiny of employee activity, increased oversight to ensure task completion, and less employee autonomy and ownership. Hybrid and remote work has only exacerbated the feeling of a loss of control among management.?Productivity paranoia makes flexible work models unsustainable.?

The solution is that leaders need to realize that the focus has to be less on the quantity of work being done and more on the importance of tasks completed. Instead of relying excessively on activity metrics, create clear communication and feedback looks between managers and staff. This ensures that employees are fully aware of goals and deliverables while managers are able to track progress without having to track activity. The key is to prioritize and reward impact over activity. ?

RTO should be about people, not spaces ?

Employers need to understand exactly what they hope to achieve by bringing back RTO. The best arguments for returning to the office will have to be built?around interpersonal interaction and employee engagement.? ??

Many organizations are struggling to convince employees to return to offices. Understandably, the flexibility that employees experienced during the lockdowns is not something that can be easily abandoned. We have all experienced a new way of working and many of us have created new and efficient practices that are incompatible with the old way of work. What’s the best tool employers have to encourage RTO? Each other. ?

Microsoft’s research has indicated that the social connection that colleagues build while sharing a physical space might be the best reason for asking everyone to come back. By making a concerted effort to rebuild the social capital of shared workspaces, employers will be able to offer recalcitrant staff a better reason to RTO than just “policy” or “think of the rent we’re paying” or “because we’re telling you to!”?

Pay attention to employee growth?

Across the board, employees are hungry for growth opportunities. People are making it clear that if they can't learn and grow on the job, they will leave. Moonlighting, job hopping, and other gig economy work models are on the rise because employees are happy to abandon traditional career routes and adopt alternative paths to success. Businesses operating in a tight labor market need to take these trends seriously by prioritizing learning and development opportunities.??

The best way to capitalize on this demand for growth is by making learning and development a core employee experience. Give employees the resources and experiences that will help them expand their skills while performing in their roles. Make lateral movement within the organization easier to allow employees to apply their skills while building new ones. Give employees the opportunity to align their personal goals with that of the organization so they can contribute to the larger group even as they work on their own growth.?

Conclusion?

The debate about productivity is misaligned. Productivity is essentially a pre-pandemic metric when you could get a sense for the work being done by taking a walk through the office and checking in with people. Impact is a far more accurate metric for the post-pandemic era of work. ?

As we grapple with the economic downturn, leaders need to reframe perspectives around productivity and understand that the best way to achieve optimal performance is to address employee needs. Incorporate robust engagement solutions into organizational processes. Give employees opportunities to learn and grow. Prioritizing impact over productivity will give businesses a competitive edge. ?

Author

Pranav Ramesh

(Head Writer)