Workplace leaders reveal how they judge the productivity of staff
You can measure a worker’s output but judging whether someone is productive is not so easy. And the question of value is even more complicated when you can’t even see your staff.
Whether they’re working in the office or at home, your employees appear constantly busy, responding promptly to emails and calls, rapidly crossing tasks off their to-do list, juggling several projects, and meeting their deadlines.
So they’re obviously productive, right?
The abrupt extraction of their workforce has left managers questioning how they should assess the productivity of employees who remain largely unseen.
One could argue that employees working from home should be powering through a greater workload. After all, they’re spending less time wandering over to their colleagues’ desks for a chat, venturing out for coffee or lunch, or commuting to and from the office.
But does that extra time and lack of distractions enhance or stifle creativity? Even if workers resist the temptation of Netflix and complete all their work, should productivity be judged on quantity or quality?
The Deal asked six executives to explain how they define productivity during this era of unprecedented workforce disruption.
STEPHEN RUE, NBN co-chief executive
What does productive work look like to you?
The old days of measuring productivity by the amount of time you put in at the office are long gone. If the COVID-19 crisis has taught us anything about the nature of work and productivity, it is the importance of focusing on how we work and not where we work.
As we enter this new phase of work, where businesses rely far more on distributed workforces than they did in the past, collaboration will be the defining feature of productivity.
This, of course, means we will require the right services and infrastructure to support these new modes of work.
Today, thanks to the ubiquitous connectivity of broadband networks such as the NBN, workers have the infrastructure to allow this — now they just need the support from their employers to thrive in this “new normal”.
How do you judge the productivity of a staff member?
While solving problems and progressing your business’s goals will always be important markers for judging productivity, I think it is just as important to focus on how you get to those outcomes.
To me, this is all about focusing less on hierarchy and more about creating a company culture that can deliver success no matter where it originates from.
At NBN, our company culture is driven by four core values. They are: we are one team; we are fearless; we care; and we deliver.
When we break down silos and work together, when we have the courage to challenge and question assumptions, when we care about what we do and who we serve, and when we deliver on our promises, we will achieve success.
Organisations will always need structure and processes to operate, but strong workplace cultures that emphasise creativity, collaboration and a focus on solutions will always trump those that rely too strictly on the rigours of structure to get work done.
KYLIE BISHOP, Medibank Private group executive, people and culture
What does productive work look like to you?
When people think about productivity, there is a tendency to associate it directly with output, for example, how much have you produced today that can be measured.
I believe there is great value in taking a broader, more progressive approach in the way we think about productivity. There should be more emphasis placed on valuing the generation of ideas and creativity.
This is not only about the quality of thought people bring but also about creating a work environment where this can thrive. What’s important to being productive is the energy, the focus, the passion you bring to something and, more importantly, how we make that sustainable. When people feel connected to something bigger than the task they are working on, a purpose, this makes them want to give that little bit more and they’re able to do that on a sustainable basis.
With most of our 3500 people now working from home, we have continued to see monthly increases in engagement, productivity, team connection and collaboration over the past four months.
How do you judge the productivity of a staff member?
One of the strongest predictors of productivity at Medibank is health, engagement and wellbeing. I find some roles are easier to measure productivity than others, but at its core we know that employee engagement is the key.
If people feel energised by the values and purpose of our business and have a sense of pride in working with us, then we know this translates into a higher discretionary effort.
It does go deeper than this too. Workplaces must have a sense of inclusion — where people feel they can be who they are at work, are connected to and live our purpose and values and, importantly, have complete clarity of what success looks like in the work they are doing. Within those parameters, most of our team have the autonomy and flexibility to determine how they structure their days to achieve their outcomes.
DIDIER ELZINGA, Culture Amp chief executive and co-founder
What does productive work look like to you?
I think of two different extremes when I think of peak productivity. One is totally in the flow, focused work. It is turning everything off and focusing on one thing for a solid period. The current environment has created an opportunity to do this more easily for some. There are the constant challenges with home life, kids etc, but there is also the opportunity to turn all your notifications off and no one can walk up to you and disturb you.
On the other side I think of peak productivity as really effective meetings. Not efficient but truly useful. Meetings where you walk in with trepidation and a lot of competing interests, and you hammer out a solution that no one walked in with — and everyone feels invested in its outcome. These are hard to make happen and take a lot of work to build trust and norms. But when it happens, you are left with the feeling that if you could all just get enough time together you could solve some big problems.
How do you judge the productivity of a staff member?
When I started life as a film compositor I worked alongside a more experienced compositor. We were both using a new software package and I remember wondering why he got paid more than me because I was faster on the tools. When he finished all his shots before I got my first one finalised I tried to work out why he was more effective than me. I realised that I was faster … but he didn’t make many mistakes. He checked things before he did them, he measured twice and cut once. Meanwhile I was blazing ahead going down dead-end after dead-end. So, productivity is not just about how fast you can go but about the quality you build in as you do it.
As people get more experienced my observation is that the value they create condenses into smaller and smaller units of time. For a senior hire, much of their value will come down to a handful of decisions they have to make. So productivity comes down to if they understand this or not. Do they know when to step in and when to let go?
KATRINA TROUGHTON, IBM Australia and New Zealand managing director
What does productive work look like to you?
Productive work comes down to measuring outcomes. While business results, meeting KPIs, delivering successful projects on time, and other performance metrics remain an indicator of productivity, what has radically reordered with the current overlay of pandemic context is the importance placed on how we deliver on our outcomes.
Work will increasingly become about outputs and value, rather than time and activities. The onus will be on businesses to adapt new measures of success and new methods of organisation to succeed in a world with a renewed focus on working remotely.
Work will increasingly become about outputs and value rather than time and activities. The onus will be on businesses to adapt new measures of success and new methods of organisation to succeed in a world with a focus on working remotely.
With such a rapid transition to remote working, maintaining the same level of productivity requires us to rethink not just where we work but the way we work as well. And this can’t be achieved in isolation or with an internal orientation only. Working differently needs to be co-designed together with clients and partners with a clear focus on their outcomes and ambitions.
There’s no doubt change can be disruptive. As leaders, our task is now to consider how we can enable and support our people to continue the momentum of driving new ways of work as this will shape the nature of productivity in a post-COVID world. Recently the IBV (IBM’s research department) surveyed 25,000 people across the US and one thing was very clear in the results; return to the workplace is not cut and dry. Most employees indicated their employers are not adequately meeting training needs, enabling remote work arrangements and supporting their physical and emotional health. These factors will ultimately separate businesses that thrive in a post-COVID world from those who don’t.
How do you judge the productivity of a staff member?
In a time when the global workforce is somewhere between working from home or working part-time in the office, being productive and assessing productivity will now need to be based on outcomes which are then applied against an environmental and welfare context.
Organisations must ensure their people have access to the right tools and environment which enable them to adapt and achieve those outcomes. This is why the role of the manager has never been more important. It is the role of the manager to ensure the focus on outcomes continues to be balanced with an understanding of the current health and wellbeing of employees.
Also, in this new digital environment, organisational structures and hierarchies are ‘flatter’ as everyone has the universal experience of adjusting to new ways of working. One of the results of employees connecting back into the organisation via digital channels is that “new voices” are now more easily “heard”, allowing great ideas to surface throughout an organisation – not just in boardrooms and executive meetings. And in a time like this, new ideas and diversity of thought can make a big difference!
JONATHAN JEFFRIES, Think & Grow partner
What does productive work look like to you?
Productive work is quality time spent driving the company OKRs (objectives and key results) while leaving enough time to think, challenge the team and have fun.
The OKR framework was created by Intel’s Andy Grove and then popularised by venture capitalist John Doerr in his New York Times bestseller Measure What Matters.
Companies from Google to Adobe have rolled out OKRs to accelerate growth and drive innovation by helping teams see how their work fits into the overall company’s objectives.
But environment also has an influence on productivity.
We establish new working environments for businesses that create innovation and think labs to help enable new ways of thinking. These environments include spaces that give all employees the freedom to create; calm, quiet spaces that have easy access to technology, light-filled, green spaces and pods for teams to work collectively.
In our experience, the businesses that create great products and have engaged staff also have strong cultures, spaces to relax and exercise, mindfulness rooms, lunch areas and great coffee.
How do you judge the productivity of a staff member?
We run a very simple OKR model. The OKR methodology helps teams and organisations reach their goals through identifiable and measurable results.
By design, the OKR framework works across teams to create a standard the whole company can adopt. OKRs give purpose to teams and organisations while allowing staff to track against personal and work goals. We also regularly sit down with our staff virtually or at a coffee shop to check in how they are coping with work and how they are coping personally.
VIONA YOUNG, Eftpos chief people and culture officer
What does productive work look like to you?
Productivity is about meeting objectives rather than just doing work — all the work we do should be heading towards a small or large objective. So while being productive is the responsibility of individuals, it is actually the responsibility of the organisation to be clear on objectives in the first place.
Any organisation that isn’t clear on its strategy and what needs to be done to achieve that strategy will find that employees, even though they may be “working hard”, are not productive as such.
How do you judge the productivity of a staff member?
My preference is always to hire good people, be clear on what the organisational strategy is, agree on individual objectives and then let them get on with it. Trust them to do the job they were hired to do. It’s also important to have regular conversations, check-ins and two-way feedback.