Workplace Trends // Redefining Employee Productivity Metrics in The Hybrid Era

Workplace trends // Redefining Employee Productivity Metrics in The Hybrid Era

In the new hybrid work environment, managers will be forced to adopt a few employee productivity metrics that will help their teams stay engaged.

Instead of focusing on being present as a measure of employee commitment, companies are now more likely to evaluate the effectiveness based on an individual’s output. 

From an employee’s perspective, they would probably prefer it if employers simply trusted them to do their job but, from the point of view of a business, measuring productivity will be a logical next step in the hybrid revolution.

With cloud-based workflow tools such as Quixy, Hive and Nintex integrated into company operations, it will become much easier to monitor, track and assess who is doing what and whether or not deadlines are being met. Reams of real-time data will soon give rise to new productivity metrics that will be used to build highly efficient organizations.

Of course, there are certain aspects of employee performance that can’t be measured. For companies, it’s essential to give people the space they need to do blue-sky thinking, as well as offer them hubs in which to come together and collaborate with colleagues.

All in all, there is a thin line between working from home and in-person and its important for managers to know what best works for their teams but if you also opt for the hybrid work model, here are some ways that managers can embrace to get a  more expansive view of productivity in a hybrid world as they promote their teams’ well-being, collaboration, and innovation.

On Well-being

If there is something most organizations have learnt through the pandemic is how important the employee well-being is.

Remote and in-person work has distinct advantages and disadvantages, and rather than expecting the same outcomes from each, we can build on what makes them unique.

When in the office, prioritize relationships and collaborative work like brainstorming around a whiteboard. 

When working from home, encourage people to design their days to include other priorities such as family, fitness, or hobbies. 

They should take a nap if they need one and step outside between meetings. Brain studies show that even five-minute breaks between remote meetings help people think more clearly and reduce stress.

Likewise, as a manager also is on the lookout for the risks each type of work carries with it. 

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The trick is finding what works for each individual. A key theme in research by Havard Business Review showed that there are enormous individual differences in whether and how remote work can be effective. 

People have different experiences depending on their tenure at a company, where they live, and their gender, race, or role.

Over the next few months, ask people to take the time to reflect on when and where they feel the most or least productive. 

Here are a few questions you can ask: 

• Do I seem to work better in the morning or evening? 
• When I work from a certain location, are there fewer interruptions? 
• Do I feel more focused?

Collaboration

Under the old definition of productivity, coordinating team collaboration around individual workstyles and thinking hard about whether your team should change its meeting practices might have seemed unnecessary, high maintenance, or even awkward. With the new definition of productivity in mind, these activities are essential.

Over the period, studies have also shown that one major reason why employees want to go back to the office is collaboration and social connections. 

But if someone goes into the office on a day the rest of their team works from home, they won’t get those in-person interactions. 

A key aspect of making hybrid work productive is finding a compromise between individual workstyles and team needs.

One way to do this is by making team agreements. Teams can establish meeting-free days or plan regular in-person team meetings.

To avoid one person’s flexible working hours becoming another person’s after-hours messaging, managers can set norms around the times of day responses are expected.

It’s also important to ensure hybrid meetings are as inclusive and intentional as possible. For example, remote workers can always use a hand-raise feature to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak during virtual meetings.

Other things we’re experimenting with include asking in-person attendees to join meetings as soon as they arrive at the meeting room so remote participants are included in the pre-meeting chat. 

In-person attendees may also want to join on their individual laptops so remote participants have a better view of them.

Innovation

In the simplest sense, innovation often requires people getting together to exchange and prototype ideas and brainstorm solutions, balanced with time for individual focus and reflection. If done right, hybrid work can create exactly those conditions.

If done wrong, those important social connections can erode and impact innovation. Thinking of productivity more expansively by optimizing for the conditions that spur innovation can help hedge against those risks

.First, consider what work should be done remotely versus in-person. Remote work is great for individual productivity and routine tasks, while tasks that depend extensively and dynamically on other people and creative tasks like brainstorming and problem solving are where in-person collaboration thrives. 

For example, the start of a big project is a great reason to get together in person, but once problems are formalized, workstreams standardized, and responsibilities settled, many projects shift into a loosely coupled mode, where remote work can be more effective.

Likewise, meet new people in person. Coming together when a team is established and encouraging new hires to spend time in the office can create foundational social connections that fuel innovation and serve them well in the remote work that follows.

Finally, encourage your team to build relationships with people outside their immediate circles at work. 

These weak ties are critical to innovation because they’re how we best access novel information, whether that’s a new idea, access to a potential collaborator, or a new opportunity to make an impact. 

While in the office, create opportunities for your team to chat with and learn from people they haven’t worked with before. 

You can proactively build weak ties while working remotely, too, by encouraging small talk at the beginning of meetings, asking people from other teams to share learnings, and seeking diverse feedback.

In the end, we’ll know we were successful if work is better than it was before not just in terms of short-term metrics, but in helping people, teams, and organizations be productive and achieve their goals in a way that also supports well-being, collaboration, and innovation.

In conclusion, many experts agree that, in the new hybrid world, the focus for employers should increasingly be on outcomes rather than output. Without the predictable 9-to-5, office-focused working cadence, successful companies will stop trying to measure hours worked and units produced and instead focus on customer satisfaction, revenue and time to market.