https://www.wired.co.uk/article/techs-productivity-obsession-is-toxic Skip to main content Open Navigation Menu WIRED Tech's Productivity Obsession Is Toxic * Long Reads * Business * Culture * Gear * Science * Security * Video More * Subscribe Search * Long Reads * Business * Culture * Gear * Science * Security * Video * Search * Events * Jobs * Consulting We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site. Learn more. Uneven bar chart made of up rolls of paper Photograph: MirageC/Getty Images Megan Carnegie Business 23.02.2023 03:43 PM Tech's Productivity Obsession Is Toxic Workers are getting fired on the basis of metrics that don't make any sense. * * * * * * In November last year, managers at Meta were asked to identify members of their team to "move to exit," as the company prepared for its first mass firing in its 21-year history. Managers were given a day to identify, on gut instinct, the staff that were performing poorly and fire them. The wave of layoffs resulted in a 13 percent loss of the company's workforce. Those left behind have been told to work more "productively" than ever. An obsession with productivity is deeply entrenched in knowledge work, even though the idea that a worker's worth is based on their output per day, not the quality of that output, is a hangover from pre-industrial times. The need to further codify and measure productivity in the work-from-home era has meant that workers are now experiencing tougher, more arbitrary productivity pressures than ever before, along with a creeping paranoia that their every move is being tracked with automated time-tracking software and productivity surveillance software. Workers have even internalized this desire to be productive. A survey of 1 million people by edtech company Headway in late 2022 found that productivity is most people's number one priority in life. Some 65 percent of Britons, 63 percent of Americans, and 58 percent of Australians rank productivity above having a healthy body, more money, or being happy. But the science of productivity is inexact at best, and at worst, leads to disastrous outcomes for workers and companies. "It's been assumed that the amount of time staff spent at their desk was a measure of productivity. However, that's not so easily measured now we've entered the hybrid working era--measuring effort is not the same as measuring productivity," says Kevin Albertson, an economist at Manchester Metropolitan University's Decent Work and Productivity Research Center. "It has to change." The idea that workers have become unproductive in the remote work era seems one that comes mainly from managers. Microsoft's September 2022 Work Trend Index, a survey of 20,000 employees across 11 countries, found that 87 percent of employees say they are productive at work, but 85 percent of managers say they're not confident that's true. The video conference device company Owl Labs' European State of Remote Work, published in October, found that 26 percent of managers believe their teams have become less productive since the shift to flexible working. The discrepancy could be because managers are struggling to monitor where their staff are and what they're doing as directly as they would have been able to pre-pandemic. To compensate for not being able to see when people are at their desks, some organizations have moved toward measuring outputs instead. Companies use a broad range of metrics to track productivity, which vary wildly depending on the team and job function. Some track employee time, some track task progress and completion, and some track performance against set objectives and deliverables. It's the tracking of output, divided by time, that proves most contentious in the hybrid era, because using this formula to measure a knowledge worker's performance ignores the quality of that output and the results it led to. Most Popular * chicken nuggets Fat, Sugar, Salt ... 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With rumors of more performance-related layoffs to come at Salesforce, the company is pushing hard for productivity tracking and metrics on all levels, including code check-ins for engineers, where engineers have to upload code to a master branch for admins to check their work. Tesla is notorious for its complex, opaque web of productivity metrics. "Some employers have adopted sophisticated monitoring software, such as keystroke trackers, in an attempt to ensure their staff are 'doing their bit,'" Albertson says. "But that doesn't necessarily mean the keystrokes are of high quality." As he explains, in any creative sphere, a lot of the work that goes into creating a product arises from having time to think, and "it can be inhibiting for people to feel as if their every move is being spied upon." That hasn't stopped employers though. According to internet security and digital rights firm Top10VPN, the demand for employee surveillance software was 57 percent higher on average in 2022 than it was in 2019, with Hubstaff, FlexiSPY, and Time Doctor being the most popular software programs. "Work today is more siloed than it's ever been before, taking place in different physical and virtual spaces and through different workflows and technologies," says Rebecca Hinds, head of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, a software company known for its SaaS-based project management platform. "In a world where collaboration is more important than ever before, too many leaders are clinging to productivity and output measures to assess work effectiveness--measures that give an incomplete picture of how work is happening." The desire for measurable metrics is understandable. Around the world, companies are grappling with high inflation, cost-of-living crises, and supply chain disruptions. Having hard data can give managers a sense of security and give them cover when they make difficult decisions. "In this macroeconomic environment, there's a tendency for business leaders to want to return to those comfortable modes and control what they can," says Colette Stallbaumer, general manager of Microsoft 365 and Future of Work at Microsoft, who led the Trend Index report. However, intensifying the focus on productivity for the sake of productivity--including calling employees back to the office five days a week--could be short-sighted. "A reliance on simple output measures has been shown to reduce staff morale and may well even reduce motivation and productivity," Albertson says. Most Popular * chicken nuggets Fat, Sugar, Salt ... You've Been Thinking About Food All Wrong By Matt Reynolds * Photo illustration of a stop sign with stickers that say "The Great Reset," "#climatelockdown," and "socialism" Conspiracy Theorists Are Coming for the 15-Minute City By Peter Guest * Silhouette of one person taking a picture with a smartphone next to a large shadow of another person's head A New Kind of Bug Spells Trouble for iOS and macOS Security By Matt Burgess * Metal gavel with blue lightning shooting off of it against an abstract, multi-color background Generative AI Is Coming for the Lawyers By Chris Stokel-Walker * "Studies have shown that while a focus on hard metrics can improve productivity in the short term, in the long term, you risk employee churn or worse, burnout, which will negatively hit the bottom line in the long run," says Jen Montague, vice president of growth for Danish software startup Onomondo. Pre-pandemic, Onomondo equated productivity with hard output, using project management software to track targets. Since July 2022, it has been using a hybrid of hard output and soft metrics, such as employee happiness and motivation. This, along with a new WFH policy, meeting-free Thursdays, and work sprints, has led to greater satisfaction among employees and better output. Tasks completed on time in the company's project management software have increased by 20 percent. Experts say that with work happening in more digital and physical places than ever before, and through countless workflows and technologies, the parameters that were previously used to measure what a worker is doing are simply unfit for purpose. Instead of often arbitrary and opaque measures, companies need to develop more thoughtful, tailored approaches. "Companies of all sizes need to move beyond flawed and overly simplistic measures of productivity--like tasks completed, emails sent, or other raw outputs," says Hinds. "Companies need to measure an individual's overall impact on their business's most important outcomes--goals can be set by company leadership, but then individual goals and key results can be set by the individuals and teams that are responsible for executing them." But with economic pressures building, many companies are likely to push more retrograde measures of productivity and try to shorten the leash for employees, whether by measuring more or bringing them back to the office. Cheney Hamilton, CEO of consultancy firm Find Your Flex, says it's important that workers make sure that their voices are heard as new--or old--policies are put in place. "Challenge leadership in their organizations to offer incentives for great ideas, for different ways of doing things, and demand to break the ceiling that a cost and budget model always creates," she says, recommending that workers consider joining a union. "It's on the owners to rip their heads from the sand and find another way to operate their business." More Great WIRED Stories * Russia's ransomware gangs are being shamed * Nike's most popular racing shoe is getting a reboot * Schizophrenia drugs are finally getting an overhaul * The Last of Us' original Joel was skeptical of the show * Big Tech jobs were a golden ticket. Not anymore * The generative AI race has a dirty secret TopicsWIRED Hired More from WIRED UK Illustration of a person tipping over a table with a laptop, baby carriage, washing machine, and vacuum on it Ideas The Workforce Is Failing Women. Business Leaders Can Stop It Workplaces must undergo huge structural changes if they are to stop the exodus. 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