Most companies still measure productivity using metrics that were designed for an industrial workforce. Hours logged. Tickets closed. Deliverables shipped. The metrics worked when output was visible. They break down when output is creative, collaborative, or asynchronous. On this episode of Reimagining Company Culture, Susan Russo walks through how HR leaders define productivity in modern work and why the old metrics are misleading the way teams are evaluated.
Susan's perspective comes from years working with companies trying to update their performance frameworks for knowledge work. The pattern she describes is that the companies that get it right have moved away from input metrics and toward outcome metrics, even though outcome metrics are harder to measure and easier to argue about.
Here is what defining productivity in knowledge work actually looks like and why the work is worth doing.
Why Old Productivity Metrics Mislead Modern Teams
Hours logged is a poor proxy for output in knowledge work. The same hour produces wildly different value depending on what is being worked on. According to Gallup data on US employee engagement, US employee engagement is at a ten-year low, and one of the underreported drivers is that employees can feel when they are being measured by the wrong thing.
The mismeasurement creates two problems. The first is that high performers feel like the measurement misses what they actually contribute. The second is that the measurement creates incentives to optimize for the metric, not for the outcome. performance management cycle conversations cycles run on outdated metrics produce reviews that nobody believes.
How HR Teams Build Modern Productivity Definitions
How do you measure productivity when the output is collaborative?
By measuring the team's outcomes, not just individual ones. Some of the most valuable contributors in knowledge work are the ones whose individual output is moderate but whose effect on the team is large. performance management practices systems that ignore this end up rewarding individual performance and punishing collaboration, which is the opposite of the intent.
How do you measure productivity for creative or strategic work?
By measuring the right time horizon. Creative and strategic work compounds over months, not days. The review cycle has to match the cycle of the work, or the measurement just produces noise. The companies that get this right have multi-horizon performance frameworks.
What Actually Works in Defining Productivity
Anchor on outcomes, not inputs
Inputs are easy to measure and misleading. Outcomes are harder to measure and meaningful. The shift requires more management time, but the trade is worth it because the measurement starts producing real signal.
Match the measurement to the work
Different work needs different measurement. Sales output is measurable in cycles. Engineering output is measurable in features and quality. Creative output is measurable in impact over time. One framework will not fit all of it.
Use the data to coach, not to rank
The companies that get the most out of modern productivity definitions use the data to coach managers and individual contributors, not to generate rankings. Rankings drive gaming. Coaching drives growth.
The pattern the guest describes on this episode lines up with broader research. The Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report reinforces the operating-model lens and gives HR leaders a useful reference for grounding the conversation in numbers their CEOs and CFOs already trust. It also surfaces the same gap between stated culture priorities and how People work actually runs inside most organizations.
Where Employee Relations Fits
Modern productivity definitions show up in performance management. performance improvement plan tooling processes, performance reviews, and compensation decisions all run on the productivity definition the company has chosen. When the definition is misaligned, the downstream cases get harder to defend.
employee relations operations teams see the second-order effects of misaligned productivity definitions in performance disputes, retaliation claims, and termination disagreements. Cleaner definitions produce cleaner cases, which is part of why the work upstream matters.
How does AllVoices support performance and productivity work?
AllVoices supports the documentation, communication, and case management around performance work. HR case management workflow keeps the workflow tight when a performance issue escalates into formal action. performance improvement plan tooling tooling supports the upstream conversation before it escalates.
The pattern across AllVoices customers is consistent. ER teams that operate on a single workflow handle more cases at higher quality with the same headcount. The structured intake reduces the time between an employee raising a concern and the case being triaged. The case management layer keeps the documentation tight so investigations hold up to legal and audit review. The reporting layer surfaces the patterns leadership needs to act on structural issues rather than handling each case in isolation. That combination is what lets People teams treat ER as a strategic function rather than a reactive one.
Frequently Asked Questions About Defining Productivity
How should HR define productivity in knowledge work?
By focusing on outcomes rather than inputs. Hours logged and tickets closed do not capture the value of creative or collaborative work. Outcome-based definitions are harder to measure and produce more useful signal.
What productivity metrics are misleading?
Hours logged, time online, and meeting count are the most common offenders. They measure activity rather than output and reward the wrong behavior at scale.
How do you measure productivity for hybrid teams?
By measuring outcomes regardless of where the work happens. Location-based metrics like attendance or activity tracking miss the point and erode trust. Outcome-based measurement holds up across hybrid configurations.
How does productivity definition affect manager workload?
Outcome-based measurement requires more manager time because the manager has to engage with the actual work. The trade is worth it because the measurement produces meaningful conversations rather than noise.
How does productivity work connect to ER cases?
Performance disputes, terminations, and retaliation claims all hinge on the productivity definition the company is using. Clean definitions produce defensible cases. Vague or misaligned definitions produce contested ones.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Productivity in knowledge work is harder to measure than productivity in industrial work, which is why so many companies still use the wrong metrics. The companies that update their definitions get sharper performance conversations, less gaming, and better retention of the people who actually drive value.
Susan's framing in the episode is that the work is worth the effort even though it is harder. The companies that hold on to outdated productivity definitions will spend the next decade losing their best people to companies that figured this out.
For HR leaders working through this from a broader operations angle, the AllVoices reference on employee engagement work covers the adjacent ground in more depth. It is a useful companion to the conversation in this episode.
The conversation in this episode underlines a pattern AllVoices has seen across hundreds of People teams. Programming alone does not move the operating model. The structural work, the manager development, the ER infrastructure, and the listening cycles that close visibly are what produce the outcomes the company can actually measure. That is the work the function will be evaluated on over the next several years, and the People leaders who do it well will keep earning bigger seats at the table. For HR teams looking to start, the move that pays off fastest is usually the operational one. Audit one process this quarter. Pick the structural change with the highest impact. Build the documentation around it. Close the loop with employees so they can see what changed and why. The compound effect of doing that consistently across a year is bigger than any single program initiative. The People teams that take this approach end up running cultures that hold up under stress and operating models that the rest of the C-suite trusts. That is the standard the function is moving toward, and the AllVoices customer base is full of teams already getting there.
If you want to see how AllVoices supports performance and ER work tied to modern productivity definitions, you can request a tour. Book a tour of AllVoices.
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