Productivity paranoia

The mismatch between manager and employee perceptions of productivity when working from home could threaten the viability of hybrid working.

The idea of remote work existed long before the technology that enabled it. The concept of ‘teleworking’ as it was then known was first conceived in the US in the early 1970s and was initially seen as a potential solution to the oil crisis. Scholars and writers have long predicted the rise of remote work, albeit the majority of those predictions proved to be way off the mark. Management guru Charles Handy wrote about the potential for the ‘dispersed’ organisation in his 1984 book on the future of work. Today’s public transport commuters, longing for reliable Wi-Fi, might well raise an eyebrow at his suggestion that British Rail could facilitate working on the move by installing technology on their trains.

Unfortunately, while the technology emerged and diffused through society, adoption and attitudes towards remote work did not evolve at the same speed. Prior to the pandemic-related homeworking mandate of 2020, only around 5% of people in the UK worked from home on a regular basis. For the most part, working from home was an occasional experience for knowledge workers, reserved for just a few roles and industries. As a result of COVID-19, by the end of April 2020 nearly half of the UK working population was working from home.

The shift to homeworking during the pandemic was an urgent one. Few businesses had time to undertake even the most rudimentary preparation, or indeed establish basic levels of governance or oversight. Despite this, many organisations found that they were able to operate effectively during this period, and overall experiences were better than expected. Over the months as the initial crisis passed, organisations adapted and many were able to identify the advantages of new ways of working that emerged during the crisis. Hybrid work, when well implemented, presents a number of opportunities, including the potential to reduce estates and facilities costs, support sustainability initiatives through reduced energy use and commuting, improve employee wellbeing and inclusion, and broaden the talent pool from which organisations can recruit.

Individuals swiftly realised the possibilities and benefits of remote work on a personal level too. Freedom from the cost and time of the commute is a commonly stated benefit, along with increased autonomy and wellbeing. Employees quickly made their future preferences known – they wanted to continue to work from home post pandemic.

The emergence of hybrid work

While some employees seek fully remote work, the majority want what has become known as hybrid working – time in the office with colleagues, combined with time working from home. It is currently predicted that around 25–30% of working days formerly undertaken in an office will now be undertaken from home or another remote location.

A significant number of employers have responded positively to this new employee preference by implementing hybrid work policies, but not everyone is in agreement that the continuation of remote work is a good thing. Headlines have routinely quoted a range of critical voices, including business leaders and politicians, each of them suggesting in the strongest terms that employees should return to the office as soon as possible. There have also been criticisms of employees who are reluctant to return to their offices. Unfortunately, this is not unusual – those working flexibly have long been subjected to stigma and reduced career opportunities.

The preference from some areas for the traditional office setup may have many causes. Some leaders fear that unsupervised employees will fail to be productive or effective. Others believe that culture, innovation and collaboration are all enhanced when employees are working together in person in the same place. Bias is at play here too. We often tend to favour our own experiences and the status quo. Those for whom working in an office is comfortable or has resulted in career success might find it hard to truly appreciate why change is necessary or desirable for others.

Productivity paranoia

Recent research from Microsoft has coined the term ‘productivity paranoia’ to describe the particular fear that employees, unsupervised in a physical workplace, might fail to be productive – or even deliberately shirk their responsibilities. Their survey found that 85% of leaders believe the shift to hybrid work has made it difficult to have confidence that employees are being productive. Microsoft also identified that while 87% of employees say that they are productive, only 12% of leaders have full confidence that this is true. Global usage data across Microsoft products, however, show these concerns to be unsubstantiated, with productivity signals climbing consistently since the beginning of the pandemic. The evidence about remote work and productivity does not necessarily support the belief that office is best – but this has not stopped it from proliferating.

Most employees, whether surveyed before COVID-19, during the enforced homeworking period or since, say that they believe themselves to be as least as productive when working from home as they are in the office – if not more so. This is perhaps not surprising when we consider how full of distractions a typical office can be. Working remotely provides employees with the ability to focus and have control over their working environment, both of which can support effective working and motivation.

Microsoft’s research highlights a long-standing issue: managers have a trust issue when it comes to remote work. The biggest barriers to remote work implementation are not, and have never been, related to the ability to undertake work effectively or the availability of technology, but instead are tied up with attitudes, beliefs and, unfortunately, bias. Other surveys have also suggested that managers want their employees to attend the office much more than employees themselves wish to. This may well lead, to employee disengagement or increased turnover; employees have made it very clear that they are prepared to move jobs for greater flexible working opportunities. The availability of remote work may well be a future battleground for talent.

Some of the fears around employee productivity are perhaps understandable. From a governance perspective, ensuring employee productivity is complex and an actual lack of productivity would represent a clear business risk. There is no standard or agreed definition of productivity and most surveys seeking to assess productivity rely on employee self-assessment. How then can the manager, or the organisation as a whole, be sure that the hybrid employee is delivering in their role? In the pre-pandemic work era, the answer to ensuring productivity was simple; people were physically supervised. Until the pandemic disrupted traditional ways of working, this was the only way that many leaders knew how to manage. In reality, of course, it is obvious that supervision was no guarantee of performance. It did however provide people-managers some level of comfort that they knew what was taking place in their teams – even if this was more belief than reality.

Where leaders have concerns about productivity, it is perhaps unsurprising to see them take steps to ensure employee output and activity, or at least monitor it. Unfortunately, productivity paranoia may lead to undesirable organisational and leadership behaviour. Some organisations have attempted monitoring by mandating a certain level of office presence – usually by requiring employees to attend in person several days each week – but this has proved so far to be extremely unpopular with employees who resent having to commute when there is no clear purpose for their office attendance aside from performing facetime. Other organisations have introduced technology that monitors employee activity when they are working remotely. Such tools have a range of functions, from taking remote screenshots of employees’ devices to checking how often people are clicking their mouse or keyboard. While this provides oversight, such tools are problematic for a variety of reasons.

In the same way that attempts to ensure productivity in an office through physical supervision fail to assess the quality of that work or its contribution, so too do remote monitoring tools. Just as it is possible for an employee to give the appearance of productivity in person, remote productivity can be imitated too – inexpensive ‘mouse movers’, designed to fool remote monitoring systems into registering activity when none is taking place are readily available on the internet. Online micro-management is likely to cause resentment from employees. Generally, people thrive at work when they have autonomy and choice, and excessive control is a recognised cause of work-related stress. It is also a clear signal that leaders do not trust their employees. More effective ways of ensuring productivity therefore need to be identified if we are to overcome ‘productivity paranoia’.

Productivity in hybrid-working environments

In hybrid working environments, organisations need to think about how they monitor and manage productivity in ways that promote a high-trust environment, support employee engagement and maximise the benefits of remote work. This inevitably will require managers to develop a range of new skills – as well as potentially challenge some of their own beliefs and biases. The key is for organisations to find a balance between managing productivity and providing employees with the autonomy and flexibility that they crave.

Hybrid working demands that organisations rethink traditional approaches to performance management, placing a much greater emphasis on outcomes-based performance. In many organisations, the term ‘performance management’ either refers to the management – through policy and process – of underperformance, or the annual performance review process. Too often, traditional performance review processes are ineffective and unpopular with managers and employees alike. Governance and oversight focus on completion rather than the quality of the conversations. A common criticism of the traditional approach to performance reviews is that objectives are set and reviewed far too infrequently.

When working in a hybrid way, performance conversations need to be regular and feedback meaningful. Employees need to know exactly what is expected of them and how their performance will be assessed. Every employee needs to have clear objectives that are updated on a regular basis. In response to their research, Microsoft recommends the ‘OKR’ goal-setting approach, where employees are provided with an objective – what needs to be achieved – along with the key results – how they will be measured and assessed. Every organisation will need to determine the approach that works best for their particular context, but key to all hybrid environments is the principle of ongoing dialogue about performance, outcomes and contribution. This needs to be part of the organisation’s culture, embedded at every level starting from senior leadership.

Microsoft argues that productivity paranoia is a threat to the viability of hybrid work. Hybrid work is in such great demand that this in turn represents an organisational risk around the retention and engagement of talent, and the potential to recruit in the future. In order to reduce these risks, organisations need to be clear on their hybrid-working strategy and approach, support managers to develop the appropriate skills to manage in a hybrid way without reliance on physical supervision, establish appropriate ways for managing productivity and set a clear direction from the top that employees are trusted to deliver. Together, these elements will help organisations to maximise fully the potential benefits of hybrid work, for productivity and beyond, for them and the people that they employ.