Productivity has been the hot topic in business and workplace strategy for decades. The first person to figure out how to design a workplace that can guarantee higher productivity would win as much work as their heart desired. Yet, somehow, no one has figured it out.
Why has productivity failed to fall into a definable realm? There are many reasons, but the main one comes down to defining productivity. Sure, it’s easily defined as the cost per unit of work output. But in a typical business, what does that mean? If you sell more without hiring new staff, did your productivity suddenly enhance? What if an office is all back-office functions, do you really want to measure the number of invoices processed per person? Wouldn’t that create an incentive to generate more invoices?
On some level, we know that workplace design impacts productivity. If you make everyone work with a 13″ monitor at a 2-foot wide desk, morale and productivity will plummet because you’ve made it difficult to work. However, there’s some tipping point where you make work easy and any improvements/investment above that level may not add any additional value.
Having people work more hours or “work smarter, not harder” does not usually improve net productivity – especially over the long-term. Productivity is a function of:
- Business model effectiveness
- Back-office process design
- Culture and employee morale
- Effective tools and work environment
- Alignment of skills to roles
Real estate and workplace can only impact parts of two of those bullets. The rest fall squarely under business operations. Having people put more effort in, sometimes decreases output.