Like many elements of business, scholars and academics have, long ago, created a formula to measure efficiency and productivity.
Labour productivity is the function of total outputs over total inputs.
The figure derived from this formula can be a useful number to quantify the work your people are doing. However, like many business theories, the formulaic approach to people often fails to account for the human side of business.
In more simple terms? Reducing people and their output to generalised figures has the potential to gloss over the real-life factors that influence how we work.
People are complicated. People tend to be inconsistent. People have lives, with all sorts of strange and unusual, ever-changing circumstances that influence their mindset.
When we bring up workplace productivity, we need to bear in mind that each person is a unique case - what works for one may not work for the other. In saying this, productivity is not a conversation to ignore altogether - rather, we need to understand some of the key psychological processes occurring when we work (including those that bar us from working at all). The productivity debate should centre around understanding how to optimise our minds to harvest our most abundant energy and relish in our work with unparalleled vigour.