Productivity Loss… or Opportunity?

But when we were thrown into a global pandemic and remote work became the new norm, I began to see that working from home may not be the luxury I thought. Over time, my motivation began to stifle, and my productivity declined. And I was sure I wasn’t the only one.

I wanted to learn how other people were staying on top of their game while working from home, so I took to the internet and started reading up on work life, remote work, and office culture during the Coronavirus era. I came across the concept of “productivity tax,” or the drop in productivity resulting from long-term remote work. While this concept seemed to validate what I was experiencing, the article chalked up this decline in motivation to remote environments significantly lagging behind professional offices on critical factors like technological capabilities. When I took this lens to my own work life, I saw that I already had all of the technology that I needed. This wasn’t the solution I was hoping to find; I kept digging.

As I read more, I learned that the productivity loss I had been experiencing largely comes down to a much more fundamental aspect of the human experience: we are creatures of habit. We rely on structure; we work best when we have a routine to follow. I—along with lots of other folks around the world—was simply more distracted at home because I had lost my daily routine.

Research into how to stay successful in this new work-from-home era points to routines and goal-setting as meaningful ways to curtail productivity loss. When I took this lens to my own work life, I saw that these were exactly what I was missing. And in my case, getting them back really only required small but intentional changes—getting out of bed at the same time each day, only working from my desk, eating meals at normal times, setting timeframes for specific tasks, etc. These little pieces of structure not only provide comfort in my daily schedule and give me things to work towards, but they also allow me to enjoy some of that luxury that I always imagined remote work would have. We may be creatures of habit, but if we’re mindful, we’re also pretty good at finding opportunity in change.  

As a people-first company, my experience has prompted us to be more intentional about how we can best support all of our employees during this challenging time. As the first step, I’ll be leading a roundtable discussion with a few colleagues to hear their stories and brainstorm practical solutions to try out. But my experience has also gotten us thinking beyond ourselves and about workers, parents, educators, caregivers, and other providers across the world who are also experiencing productivity loss due to any number of reasons—insufficient technology, loss of routine, loss of goals, increased stress, health concerns, etc. There’s no shortage of new problems for innovators and brand marketers to work on.

So, what do companies need to know about people to address these fast-growing unmet needs in the workforce?  How can brands meaningfully connect with people to demonstrate their empathy with workers’ new challenges in the face of the pandemic?  To help address these questions, we’re embarking on some new consumer research about “The New World of Work” with our friends at the USC Annenberg Communication School’s Center for the Digital Future.  Just like the research I found helped me address my productivity loss, we’re excited for this research to help brands and innovators develop new solutions for workers around the world. Again, if we’re mindful, we as humans are pretty good at finding opportunity in change.

- Kevin