Jabra, one of the market leaders in modern communication solutions, recently revealed a new report on workplace productivity. The research suggests that business leaders lack the appropriate strategy to boost productivity in the workplace.
While improving efficiency and business outcomes is essential in any organisation, the Jabra report reveals that C-level leadership don’t know how to address these issues in their companies. Not only do businesses struggle to decide how to deal with the problem of measuring productivity, but they don’t know who’s ultimately responsible for managing those measurements.
The Jabra study came from interviews with 688 C-level executives and CEO across the US, UK, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and France. According to the report, although 31% of CEOs believe measuring productivity is the board’s responsibility, 52% of C-level executives said that the task belonged to the CEO.
The Problem with Measuring Productivity
Jabra’s research found that 7 in 10 businesses (71%) feel that measuring productivity is crucial. However, 56% of C-Suite executives also said that tracking productivity is hard. Commenting on the research, the SVP of Enterprise Solutions at Jabra, Holger Reisinger, said that improving productivity is one of the biggest challenges facing companies around the world. However, the recent research reveals that organisations are no closer to solving the problem strategically.
The report also found a significant disconnect between employees and C-Suite executives when it came to choosing the most productive working environment. Around 61% of C-level respondents said that working in the office improves productivity. However, previous Jabra research found that an open office is one of the least productive places for today’s employees.
Around 44% of knowledge workers said they prefer to work in single or private offices. Only 17% of respondents identified open offices as a valuable environment for productivity.
Noise, Technology, and Distraction in the Workforce
Jabra’s previous research into the Knowledge Worker also uncovered information about the obstacles to productivity that can appear in the open office. For instance, colleague interruptions were cited by 56% of respondents, along with colleagues talking (55%), and noise levels (45%).
The research also found that technology may be contributing to the productivity problem for some employees. Around 11% of the respondents from the knowledge worker study said that interruptions from digital devices was damaging their performance. Many felt distracted by messages from their softphones and audio devices. This contrasts with the fact that 62% of C-level respondents believe that multiple communication platforms improve productivity.
According to Reisinger, business leaders already know that evaluating productivity in the workforce is challenging. However, Jabra believes that the best way for any company to improve productivity is to listen to the needs of their knowledge workers and address their most common concerns. Unfortunately, the research reveals a huge gap between what knowledge workers say, and what the C-Suite believes to be true.
For instance, the C-Suite appears to be committed to the idea that additional technology will lead to improved productivity for their employees. However, while this is true for some employees, the opposite is also true for others. The only way to make workers more productive is to engage with them and find out what they need.
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