5 Hybrid Work Productivity Metrics To Measure Success
The way we work has changed drastically over the last few decades. Many companies are exploring remote work, where people never come to the office. Other firms are sticking to the tried and tested formula of making people turn up at the office. The hybrid work model strikes the perfect balance between working at home and from the office. It’s also something that many businesses plan to use.
While hybrid work might be favored by staff, you need to ensure people working for your company are as productive in a hybrid work environment as they would be in the office. That’s where productivity metrics come in. Measuring hybrid productivity metrics will help you assess staff performance. And then based on that data, you can ultimately determine if following a hybrid work schedule is generating the productivity results you’re hoping for.
Source: Microsoft
Before discussing the type of hybrid work productivity metrics you should be monitoring, let’s get our definitions in order. Just what are productivity metrics?
What are productivity metrics?
Productivity metrics are a means of tracking and measuring how quickly and efficiently employees are completing assignments. These metrics are also helpful insights to track, manage, and improve employee performance. As you would expect, there are various types of employee productivity metrics, including quantitative and qualitative measurements. Let’s look at a quantitative example.
Imagine you are tracking the productivity of your sales team, which generates leads by cold calling or using a cold email tool. To track the productivity of your sales team, you could measure the following:
- Determine a set time frame for measuring productivity—for example, one month.
- Assign a value to a sale—for example, $100.
- How many phone calls are made during this period.
- Track the number of sales generated through these efforts.
Most quantitative metrics link work inputs to outputs. By tracking inputs relative to outputs, you can measure productivity in a framework that aligns with your company and departmental Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and company goals. In this case, dividing the input by the output lets you track overall productivity.
Through tracking quantitative performance indicators, you can ultimately assess employee performance. You can see who is doing a great job and which employees need additional support. While this is one specific example with a sales team, you can apply a variation of this approach to almost any task.
5 Employee productivity metrics for hybrid teams
Now that you’re clear on employee productivity metrics, it’s time to review some common employee productivity metrics you could use at your workplace. Let’s jump into the main section of this guide.
1. 360 Degree Feedback
The 360-degree feedback method is a qualitative productivity metric. It uses feedback from colleagues and co-workers to gauge employee performance. You can only use this performance metric if people are working closely with one another, as this type of feedback is very straightforward. At the end of each quarter, for example, you send an employee feedback form to all personnel. Respondents are asked to give feedback on how an employee has fulfilled their duties. They are also asked how the employee has contributed to achieving company goals.
In addition to feedback from colleagues, you might ask for feedback from customers and other stakeholders the individual engages with as part of their job. Here are some examples of the type of questions you might ask.
The 360-degree feedback method is a good productivity metric for hybrid teams that collaborate. Using this approach, you can see if working from home is perceived to impact employee performance.
You can also gain qualitative feedback about employee performance. These types of insights will help you understand if a person gets on well with work colleagues. Or, you might discover minor issues, like a writer hasn’t mastered writing in the passive voice when all company communication should be in the active voice. You might miss these types of insights in quantitative appraisals.
In fact, you can even use performance management tools to get 360-degree feedback and boost employee management. Based on the feedback survey results, you can build the best development plan for every team member and also measure progress over time by comparing results from different review cycles.
2. Management by Objectives
Management by objectives is a method of measuring how employee output contributes to the achievement of company goals. To apply the management by objectives approach at your organization, you need to have company and departmental SMART goals in place.
For example, a departmental SMART goal for your sales department might be to generate 10 sales per quarter. Assuming you have five employees in your sales department, the goal of each employee would be to secure two sales per quarter. With those targets in hand, you can check the productivity of each member of your sales team.
Tracking results in this way makes sense. After all, you want each person in your team to be hitting minimum productivity metrics. If an individual fails to hit targets, you can try to identify the source of the problem and provide support as needed.
3. Planned to Done Ratio
The planned to done ratio allows you to measure how much work assigned to an individual was completed. To get the planned to done ratio, you divide the number of tasks that should have been completed against what was accomplished. You then turn that figure into a percentage.
The planned to done ratio helps you understand two things. First, you can use this measurement to assess employee performance. If one employee has a 50% planned to done ratio and everyone else in the department has over 90%, you know there’s a problem. The ability to track performance over time is also valuable. You can see who is working more efficiently over time, and you can see when a sudden or sustained drop in performance occurs. Having access to this data is vital for managers.
The second set of insights you can gain from the planned to done ratio is useful for a review of management. For example, if a department has a low planned to done ratio, the team might have too much work to complete with too few staff. Alternatively, the manager might keep changing employee tasks.
So as you can see, the planned to done ratio can provide you with valuable insights about individual and team performance. Using these insights, you can make decisions to ultimately improve business operations.
4. Time Management Productivity
Time management productivity is a means of evaluating and assessing what people do with their time. In a hybrid, remote, or even in the office, time management productivity is generally assessed using time tracking software. The way time management productivity is tracked using these tools (including Hive!) is usually straightforward.
First, you break your job down into its constituent parts. For example, a social media manager might hypothetically spend a day doing the following:
- Creating social media posts
- Engaging with people on social media
- Filling in reports
There are three tasks on this list. You create three categories for your work. You then track the amount of time you spend on each of these tasks. The great thing about this model is that managers can see what employees do during a working day. Because some employees will resent this managerial style, you need to consider how much oversight is too much, and whether this approach is right for your business.
5. Productivity by Profit
The final performance productivity metric you might want to use is productivity by profit. The productivity by profit metric involves measuring how much money the tasks you do generate for the business. Productivity by profit is a useful metric to measure for companies that are looking to grow fast. If you know what tasks are making the most money, you can get people to focus more on the tasks that make the most money and less on tasks that have a limited positive impact on finances.
For example, imagine your media manager generates five leads a day on Pay Per Click advertising and no leads from publishing blog posts. In that situation, it makes sense to ask your manager to spend more time managing paid posts and less time managing the blog. This is a helpful metric, but it usually only works for sales or marketing-related tasks.
Conclusion
Hybrid working and remote work have become increasingly popular over the past two decades. The move to working from home all, or part of the time, necessitates a change in the way managers track staff productivity. This guide discussed five ways you can track employee productivity. We discussed strategies like 360 degree feedback, management by objectives, planned to done ratio, time management productivity, and productivity by profit.
Each of these models provides useful insights into employee productivity. Now, you need to decide which of these productivity metrics would work best for your business.
This is a guest post written by Nicholas Rubright. Nicholas is the communications specialist for Writer, an AI writing assistant designed for teams. Nicholas has previously worked to develop content marketing strategies for brands like Webex, Havenly, and Fictiv.
