Employee Productivity: How We Have It All Wrong

One thing every company shares is a desire to improve productivity. Yet for many, doing so has remained elusive. The problem isn’t necessarily the workforce, but the way we think about productivity. Employees work differently than they did a century ago but employers still rely on definitions and measurements that were established during the early 20th century. To really boost productivity, employers first need to update how they think about productivity and how they measure it. 

Why Improving Productivity Is Such a Big Deal

The way employees work has changed, so much so that productivity has taken a hit. While the workforce is logging more hours than ever, less work is getting done. That doesn’t mean employees aren’t working. Rather, they aren’t able to focus on valuable work and instead their time is being monopolized by busy, menial tasks.

And businesses are suffering for it. Only 5% of employees are fulfilling their productivity potential. So what’s getting in the way? There’s two things to consider: the types of work employees perform and the way companies define and measure productivity. 

How Employees Spend Their Time

Modern employees are responsible for two types of work: valuable work and busy work. Valuable work are the tasks that employees perform which progress company goals and work toward increasing revenue. Busy work is the opposite. Previously, we considered busy work as paper pushing, filing and the likes. But in today’s work culture, busy work also includes the endless emails, too-long meetings and quick but frequent side chats that happen throughout the workday. 

This type of busy work accounts for a majority of an employee’s day. Today’s employees spend more time doing work upkeep than actual valuable work. While both types of work are necessary, this becomes a problem when we attempt to define, measure and improve productivity for today’s workforce. 

What Productivity Means Today

When employers think about productivity they typically consider the general idea of output (revenue) and input (employee work.) But the types of work employees perform has evolved away from these broad-reaching and vague labels.

Measuring productivity also relied on those basic labels. Divide revenue by your input of choice--hours worked, labor costs, or number of employees-- and get a productivity measurement. Today, this measurement means little and isn’t useful for gaining insights into how to improve productivity. 

To really understand employee productivity, measure it and make room for improvements, employers must take a more granular look at employee input. 

How to Update Productivity Metrics

These four metrics tell us more about modern employee productivity than traditional productivity equations: 

• Time Spent: How much time is spent working on value-added tasks?
• Completed Tasks: How many tasks are being completed that move the company forward and increase revenue?
• Work Efficiency: How is the work being performed? Are employees working hard or smart?
• Work Quality: Are the valuable completed tasks serving their purpose? Is the work adequately performing?

When productivity is assessed using the four metrics above, then productivity can truly be measured and improved. Individually each metric explains how an employee is performing and when used together, they portray and deliver a meaningful value of productivity that pinpoints areas which are lacking and can be improved.

Collecting Measurements & Improving Productivity

Going from a simple equation to analyzing four separate metrics in order to measure productivity may seem like a daunting task but SaaS tools on the market help with that. Employee monitoring and task management apps are useful for not only measuring productivity but improving it too. These same tools also help employees organize their own work. 

When equipped with the right tools and measurements, the goal of improving productivity isn’t so far off. Taking a more nuanced approach to defining and measuring employee productivity will then lead to improvements and both employers and employees will be better informed and better performing.