Your boss has no idea what productivity means

productivityremote-workmanagementknowledge-work

Abstraction: How companies mismeasure productivity by tracking inputs rather than outputs

Key points:

60% of executives track activity metrics (emails sent, hours worked) rather than output, which incentivizes "productivity theater" — workers spend ~1/3 of their time performing busyness
Gallup: low worker engagement cost the global economy $7.8 trillion in lost productivity in 2021; engagement is lowest among mandatory in-office workers
HubSpot found no productivity difference between remote and in-office employees across sales quotas and code revision time
Research is context-dependent: Nick Bloom's pre-pandemic study found remote call center workers more productive; a later study found the opposite
71% of business leaders report pressure to squeeze more productivity, yet companies raked in record profits during pandemic remote-work period
Better management — clear goals, frequent communication, autonomy — matters more than worker location

Connections: Hubspot · Slack · Gallup · Productivity · Remote Work