12/24/22, 7:47 AM The Evolving Nature of Workplace Productivity in the New Normal - Proshare

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In the post-pandemic era of hybrid and fully remote work,

employee relationship management has evolved from static
Human Resource (HR) practices to dynamic people relationship
management that is continuously evolving. Continuous and Business | Trade Investment

consistent engagement between the employer and employee

Nigeria’s Sugar
to build consensus on processes, outputs, and outcomes is now
Sector Attracts
crucial to organisational performance. In continuously
USD3.0bn Over the
engaging with employees, employers must consider their
Last Decade
employees' rights and interest and how it affects the
performance and productivity of the organisation.

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12/24/22, 7:47 AM The Evolving Nature of Workplace Productivity in the New Normal - Proshare

Employee rights are those guarantees backed by the

organisation's policies, which are sometimes enshrined in such
documents as HR, Financial Management and Safety, etc.
Rights are often not subject to negotiations as they are usually
fixed unless revised by the organisation for improvement. When
employee rights and interests are managed effectively, it leads Economy | Budget and Plans
to increased work performance and drives productivity.
Nigeria’s Finance
Bill 2022: Critical
Changes You Need
However, interest matters could generate many to Know
misunderstandings and conflicts between the employee and
the employer. When employees, and usually by their
representatives (Unions), consider a matter a pressing issue, Stay up to date
they always want to convert this to rights by seeking avenues
for discussions and negotiations with the decision-makers.
Email address

How rights and interest matters are treated and managed in

the organisation may create the atmosphere for either a
disruptive or effective work environment that may impact the
organisation's productivity level. Therefore, it is important to
understand the nature of right and interest matters in the
organisation, fashion out the kind of interactions that will help
assure rights and decrease areas of conflicts that interests may
degenerate if not effectively managed.

Using data from a recent survey conducted by pcl's People

Transformation Unit, this article explores how employee rights
affect their workplace productivity, which in turn affects
organisational performance.

The Common Goals of Productivity in the Workplace

The concept of employee productivity is a point of intersection

when it comes to the common interests and goals of the
business and its employees for diverse reasons. Employees
want to perform and be productive to enjoy the benefits of
bonuses and promotions. At the same time, the business is
driven to perform for profitability, sustainability, continuity, and
opportunity for growth and expansion. Whether established or
start-up, organisations want to excel and be profitable to
satisfy all their stakeholders.

"œBeing profitable is tied to organisational performance and

employee productivity, and they can be said to be
interdependent: one can hardly exist without the other. In other
words, a company cannot be productive and unprofitable
simultaneously, neither can it be non-productive and profitable.
"

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12/24/22, 7:47 AM The Evolving Nature of Workplace Productivity in the New Normal - Proshare

The concept of productivity is the core of organisational and

individual performance. At a recent MSME Business Global
seminar conducted by MSME Africa, three crucial factors for
productivity were highlighted: People, Finance and Physical
Assets (building, equipment, etc.). People are the heart of the
organisation, and effectively managing them is a key processor
that ensures that finance and physical assets yield profits.

The quality of an organisation's people, motivation level, and

drive for performance impact the bottom line of any business.
Hence people practitioners and business leaders have rightly
dedicated more time and resources in recent years to
understanding and effectively managing employees for better
engagement and effective performance. The challenge for the
21st-century business is how to ensure optimal employee
productivity.

The Changing Workforce in the 21st Century is Changing How

Productivity is Measured

The workforce mix in the 21st Century is multi-generational

(Baby boomers 1946-1964: Gen X: 1965-1980; Millennials: 1981-
1996; Gen Z: 1997-2012) and is impacting employee
management along the employee life cycle: recruitment,
development, appraisal, reward, and exit. The modern-day
workforce composition challenges business leaders,
psychologists, and even HR managers to rethink employee
relations and thereby creatively manage the interactions and
diversity that this talent mix brings to the workplace.

Central to workplace performance and productivity is the case

for motivation; hence, the challenge for the 21st-century
business is ensuring optimal productivity by rightfully
motivating and managing employees.

How Organisations Can Achieve Optimal Employee Productivity

In our survey, we found five factors that affect employee

productivity and performance.

Exhibit 1: Factors driving employee productivity

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12/24/22, 7:47 AM The Evolving Nature of Workplace Productivity in the New Normal - Proshare

1. Fair Treatment: Employers and employees have expectations

when going into the contract, as in any business relationship,
and when these expectations break down, they can impact
performance negatively. Rights are numerous and may differ
across organisations and countries, but some basic ones may
be common to all.

This involves transparent, equitable measures of performance,

reward, discipline, opportunities for growth and development
without favouritism or partiality. According to the Survey, 55% of
the respondents prioritised "fair treatment" as the most 
important factor to define 'employee rights.'

It is critical for processes to be put in place to ensure that

people get fair treatment at the workplace. An employee should
not feel that the organisation lacks equity and fairness in
dealing with issues or people. While some employees would
express their grievances, more introverted employees may
demonstrate passive-aggressive behaviours (withdrawal,
mistrust, etc.) that may be detrimental to themselves or others
and ultimately become unproductive.

Exhibit 2: Fair treatment of employees enhances seamless

workflow

While Covid-19 has changed the way we work and relate with
one another in the workplace, most respondents do not believe
that the pandemic significantly eroded employees' rights in the

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12/24/22, 7:47 AM The Evolving Nature of Workplace Productivity in the New Normal - Proshare

workplace (Exhibit 4). Instead, it is believed that the pandemic

promoted the ease of mutual agreement between employers
and employees for effective human resource management.

Exhibit 3: The impact of covid-19 on employees' rights in the

workplace

A closer look at why employees opined that the pandemic

fosters a better relationship with employers revealed that
employees are now more willing to discuss and introduce work-
related issues that interest them to improve performance and
productivity. For instance, our analysis shows that the majority
of the respondents (54.09%) believe that due to the pandemic,
employees are better able to bring issues of interest to the
table of discussion and reach an agreement for a productive
work environment. Compared to the 24.49% who hold a
contrary opinion and the 21.43% who remain indifferent.

Again, when employees are indifferent to notifying the

employers regarding concerns, it can foster disinterest, lack of
trust in leadership, disengagement, and poor performance. This
is especially important in cases where such employees handle
roles critical to the sustainability of the business.

2. Employee Privacy: From our analysis of the survey, privacy is

one of the top interests of employees. Employees want to have
their life/information protected and safe. Our survey showed
that employees are particular about their privacy protection, as
79% of the respondents agreed that issues around employees'
rights and interests are responsible for distrust and
disengagement in an organisation (Exhibit 4).

Exhibit 4: A privacy policy framework for employees

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3. Hostile Environment: Employees spend most of their day in

the workplace. If an average workday is 8 hours and
commuting time to and from work is between 2 to 4 hours daily,
one can safely say that employees spend almost 50% of the
days and moments of being awake at work. The rest of the time,
they are either asleep or with friends, at movies, gym, etc. Given
the brief description of an employee's average day and the
pressure for optimal performance, it is only to be expected that
employees would have high expectations from employers on
creating an environment that can be next to home: warmlines,
friendliness, fairness, openness, discipline, and fair treatment.

Our survey shows that employees lose trust (Exhibit 5) when

they feel that issues around their interests are not being
addressed adequately. A work environment is considered
hostile when employees feel oppressed, judged, intimidated or
unfairly treated. A hostile environment will hamper employee
productivity. According to the survey, 55% of respondents
agreed that unmet expectations in the workplace negatively
impact their performance. This percentage significantly
increases when one considers the 35% that said it 'sometimes'
impacted their work negatively.

Exhibit 5: Unmet Expectations and rights erosion can make the

work environment hostile and counterproductive

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4. Communication and Collective Bargaining: When employees

and employers can reach conclusions on matters of common
interest, it is usually based on the ability and willingness of the
parties involved to communicate with understanding. Findings
from the pcl. survey showed that 57% of respondents agreed
that the employees' unionisation is beneficial to the workers
due to the ability to drive effective collective bargaining and
improved employee welfare.

5. Periodic Review of Compensation: Despite all the issues and

concerns surrounding employee productivity in line with their
interests in the workplace, the same question was reversed to
pinpoint elements that could lead to the employee becoming
disengaged in the workplace. In the survey, ineffective
performance management systems/practices rank top of the
list of the factors that can lead to employee's disengagement.
Specifically, 66% of respondents indicated that ineffective
performance management practice and non-payment of
salaries are the top two factors leading to employee
disengagement (Exhibit 6).

Exhibit 6: Employees' Disengagement at Work

Most employees perceive performance management,

especially the appraisal process itself, as pivotal to their
progression in an organisation. Another key reason why
'ineffective performance management' ranks top could be
traceable to the fact that it also impacts rewards and
compensation reviews.

Now beyond rewards and compensation management,

employers' actual non-remittance of statutory obligations and
benefits greatly impacts employee engagement. The concept
of compensation, rewards, benefits are all interchangeable in
the minds of employees, so when we asked in our survey if "an
employer should be considered as defaulting in its statutory
responsibilities... when they fail to remit them, whether during or
post-employment", the response was unmistakably clear. Other
factors that can trigger disengagements of employees include
unclear career paths, lack of effective conflict resolution
processes and delayed promotion.

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In conclusion, how the outcomes of the organisation and

individual performance are managed and used to inform
Human Resources actions will have an implication on the
promotion of the culture of inclusion, performance, and
effective productivity.

Credit:

The post The Evolving Nature of Workplace Productivity in the

New Normal first appeared in the Phillips Consulting on
February 10, 2022.

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