Employees are working harder, but not smarter, according to research from The Smith Institute, a think tank based in the United Kingdom.
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The Institute’s new survey, “The Productivity Puzzle: A View from Employees,” of almost 7,500 workers across all occupations found that 68% of employees say they are working harder than 2 years ago, but less than half (49%) say they are being more productive in their work.
In other findings from the survey, 92% of respondents say “productivity is a familiar concept,” and 89% are “fairly or very familiar with the term. In addition, 89% think productivity is “important” or “very important” to their employer, and 79% think that their employers measure workers’ productivity.
Paul Hackett, director of The Smith Institute, said the survey showed businesses need to do more to focus on the human element of productivity and engage better with workers.
“All the focus on solving the productivity puzzle is on short-term cost savings, robotics, and system change,” he told the Insights blog. “These factors obviously have a role to play, but a big part of the answer lies with the workforce itself and making it work better.
“Our survey shows that employees not only understand the need for productivity improvements but want to share in the benefits. The vast majority are currently working harder not smarter. Their frustration is being ignored and excluded from the changes that affect their work.”
The vast majority of respondents said that their productivity could be improved if management listened to workers more and engaged with them over job design, team working, hours, and workload.
According to The Guardian, less than half of employees associated higher productivity with better pay and condition, and report said, “There is a clear message that employees feel that they should receive a fair share from delivering higher productivity in pay terms, but they feel pessimistic that this will be the case,
Sir Professor Cary Cooper, one of the lead authors of the report, told Insights that the ‘long hours’ culture is very worrying and that “he fears for the workers that drive it.”