Defining new productivity in the hybrid era ..

I always used to think with the impact of Covid prolonging whether we would ever be able to have normal classroom sessions at least for the next two three years. 

In the post Covid age, managers need to focus more on well being, social connections, collaboration and innovation as the four major factors they need to focus on to improve productivity. 

Going thru the article  Lets redefine productivity for the hybrid era, Jaime Teevan HBR, September, 2021 (digital edition) click here. was good reading. 

Manufacturing industries like Toyota have been insisting on their manufacturing employees coming to the factory while only 25% of staff come to factory at any point of time with proper Covid precations in place. 

For the intelligent working community like IT professionals, work from home has been greatly possible as it requires repetitive work and not much collaboration and interaction. The IT employees whom I have come across invariably spend from 12 to 14 hours daily at work and this is the cost they pay for the comfort of WFH. How can we measure the new norms of productivity from these IT professionals or similar employees enjoying a hybrid work environment, some of them attending office and some WFH ?

The above research shows that productivity in the modern sense post covid has the following dimensions.

Well being - the physical and mental well being of the employees, some of them at office and others at home in the hybrid mode, must be ensured to raise employee productivity.

Social Connections -  more work gets completed while most of us are at work than WFH. This is because we keep meeting our colleagues at lunch place or in the bus, in the verandah etc and the points of collaboration gets discussed and reinforced, with proper explanation and clarification possible

Collaboration - both between office coming employees and between office and  WFH employees must be promoted to ensure successful completion of tasks and giving job satisfaction for both groups.

Innovation - is possible when the employees start thinking outside the box, be it on solving a flexing problem or understanding a policy statement or discussing a professional practice. Frequent meeting of the offline and WFH employees to promote brainstorming can help come up with exciting and innovative ideas to promote employee well being and organisational growth.

This thought will enable productivity measurement of iT employes much better.

George