We cannot solve today’s challenges with yesterday’s practices. One of the zombie people practices that is rearing its ugly head again, especially in these times of economic uncertainty, is trying to measure people’s value by their productivity.
Some companies are going as far as installing software to measure and monitor the time people spend at their computers on the right programs. In fact, according to a 2022 article in The Australian, “30% of all white collar businesses in Australia are using monitoring technology to measure productivity.”
There are 3 main problems with this approach:
First: Time at the desk and/or number of keystrokes has never been a great measure of productivity for the white collar workforce. Is the time spent at the desk or hitting the right keys on the computer adding to the quality of the work? The research says no, and in many cases, it can add to people’s burnout and anxiety – which decreases productivity and performance.
Second: Is productivity something we should actually be measuring outside of the production line? What if we measure effectiveness instead by taking time to identify the outcomes that people are expected to achieve and determining the best measures of success for those outcomes? Doesn’t this give people much more of a sense of autonomy and control? The research says it does, which leads to engagement and better outputs.
Third: The lack of trust shown by measuring and monitoring your teams will negatively impact employee engagement and employee brand, which has a direct impact to your bottom line.
It’s time to kill our zombie workforce practices. It’s time to learn to trust our people to do the right thing and to hold them accountable for outcomes instead of inputs.
