Workforce productivity was a top priority for C-suite leaders in 2024, with departments from IT, HR and other areas aligning on the need to foster a more productive and engaged workforce. As businesses continue to set their priorities and expectations for the year, there's little doubt that productivity will remain a key focus in 2025.
As businesses look for ways to improve their productivity, technology is increasingly turned to. In fact, highly digital-intensive companies recognize its impact, with nearly 59% agreeing that technology will transform their operations over the next five years.
But while technology holds immense potential for boosting productivity, its implementation needs to be strategic to ensure it’s actually helping as opposed to unintentionally hindering.
The Productivity Paradox Debate
Take the common scenario where organizations quickly adopt new technology solutions like AI tools and SaaS applications in a bid to boost productivity. Instead, all too often, employees feel overwhelmed by it, struggling with how to use the tools and how to integrate it into their work. In this case, rather than boosting productivity, the overload leads to confusion, stalls workflows and ultimately productivity suffers as a consequence.
This situation is a perfect example of the productivity paradox – the observation that productivity slows down as technology rapidly advances.
Many businesses fail to see productivity gains, not because the technology lacks potential, but because it’s often misused or misunderstood. Some business leaders assume that more tools automatically lead to better results, yet the reality is more complex. If employees don’t receive proper training or if the systems aren’t integrated effectively, these tools can create distractions.
The Ripple Effect on Productivity
The unintended consequences of new technology can impact employees in several ways: Lag time.
Employees need time to familiarize themselves with change – whether that be new processes, systems or technology. Despite the significant initial investments, the productivity gains in most cases will not be realized immediately.
Where we can see this happen is the lag time – the time it takes to fully integrate new technologies due to the unexpected complexities and challenges that come with the integration.
If the technology isn’t integrated smoothly or employees aren’t equipped with the information to get past these initial complexities, frustration can set in which in the long-term may reduce the motivation toward learning and getting to grips with the tech.
Context Switching
Constantly switching between different apps and platforms, known as context switching, can severely impact productivity. Each time you shift between tasks, your brain takes longer to process information and adjust to the new context.
The semantic context, layout, and purpose of each task often vary, requiring additional time to adapt which is cognitively taxing. Excessive context switching also increases the brain’s production of cortisol, the primary stress hormone, making it harder to focus and as a result, work can stall, and productivity therefore declines.
A Harvard Business Review study followed 20 teams across three Fortune 500 companies and found workers toggled approximately 1,200 times each day. With the necessary time taken to reorient after switching applications or platforms, this equates to around four hours of lost productivity each week. When multiplied across the whole organization, the impact on the organizations productivity as a whole is staggering.
The Shift: Harnessing Technology for Productivity Gains
The key lies in how the technology is integrated. While poorly integrated technology can hinder, the right solutions – designed with employee experience in mind can become a driver of productivity.
Make adoption a priority
We previously discussed lag time - the period employees need to learn new technology which often leads to workflow inefficiencies and delays. But why is this the case? Is it a lack of skills, or simply the challenge of adapting to new systems? Either way, it doesn’t need to be a productivity blocker.
Gartner reports only 14% of planning organizations have a digital adoption rate above 75% - meaning that more needs to be done to aid digital adoption in most organizations.
Organizations can ease this transition by implementing digital adoption tools, which provide in-app guidance to help employees navigate new software without feeling overwhelmed. Through directly integrating into applications, it becomes an overlay making it both mentally and physically easy for learning, eliminating the need for cognitively taxing, context switching.
Prioritizing digital adoption ensures that employees are equipped with the necessary support needed to learn a new technology and reduces that initial productivity dip often faced with new tech.
Harnessing what automation has to offer
Being unproductive doesn’t always stem from an inability to complete a task, sometimes it’s the nature of the tasks themselves. Manual, time-consuming tasks can drain valuable time and resources, leaving employees bogged down and unable to focus on higher-value work.
A solution to this is automation. By automating routine tasks, employees are freed up to focus on higher-value initiatives. More than 90% of workers reported that automation solutions make them feel more satisfied with their productivity, and 85% said these tools enhanced collaboration across their teams, proving that automation not only streamlines workflows but also drives greater engagement among employees as well.
According to a Duke University study, 60% of businesses have already implemented automation solutions, and with automations growing role in keeping employees productive, the organizations that have yet to adopt will likely struggle to keep up.
Know where your inefficiencies lie
Improving productivity starts with identifying where the inefficiencies and bottlenecks exist. Without a clear understanding of where technology is causing friction, addressing the root cause becomes very difficult. Organizations are left wondering, which tools are creating the friction? And why is this the case? Without the concrete data to show this, these questions go unanswered.
Full visibility into the IT environment is essential – without it, teams are left in the dark, uncertain about the real factors impacting productivity. By gaining a clear view of the IT environment, targeted solutions that drive productivity and improve the experience for employees can be rolled out.
The Bottom Line
As we can assume that operational efficiency and productivity remain a top priority for C-suite leaders, it's inevitable that technology will play a role in achieving these goals.
However, it’s important for leaders to understand that the focus shouldn’t be on adding more technology, but instead on how employees use it. The focus should be placed on providing teams with the appropriate tools, training, and support to ensure that technology serves its purpose, whilst being used in a productive manner.