Productivity metrics key to remote work policy

This post is written by Elena Bolbolian, Chief Innovation Officer, City of Glendale

• The problem: An out-of-sight workforce is seen as worrying to bosses.
• Why it matters: The reality is that workers are still working well — but feel mistrusted.
• The solution: Identifying key productivity metrics can accurately measure output.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and stay-at home orders, government agencies dramatically altered how we operated. Remote work, once rare in the public sector, became the norm. For over a year now, many government workers have shown that we can indeed perform our job functions at home utilising new digital tools.

Communication and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, WebEx and Miro allowed me to perform 100% of my work from home. However, as the stay-at-home orders are being lifted, employees are being ordered to go back to the office. As government employees are adjusting to being back in the office, there is a lingering question that is top of mind for us... “If we showed that we can effectively do our jobs from home, is there a way we can continue to do that?”

This question is making government employees wonder about the possibilities of remote work in the long term. And if government agencies are slow to adopt remote or hybrid work policies, then we risk losing talent to the private sector, where remote work and flexible schedules are more common or we may risk losing our staff to more progressive government agencies who have already adopted such policies.

Government agencies should consider developing remote work policies built on productivity metrics to foster transparency, effectiveness and accountability.

Remote work and flexible schedules can be a critical tool for employee retention, especially for workers with caretaking responsibilities, whether that be children or elders. This is particularly true for women in the workforce, since studies show that caretaking responsibilities fall disproportionately on women. In order for government to retain current employees and attract future ones, we must embrace remote working and flexible schedule policies.

Shifting the mindset

Embracing remote work policies does not come easy to government, as it requires a shift in mindset. This shift requires that leaders accept that employees be measured by their output as opposed to an agreed-upon set of hours.

In order to use outputs and outcomes as measures, government needs to develop productivity metrics. But how do you do that for government agencies where job titles vary from customer service representative to plan checker to internal auditor?

Let’s explore each one of these roles in more detail. For the most part, a customer service representative responds to customer inquiries, therefore a productivity metric could be the number of calls or emails answered in a given period. An auditor conducts audits, therefore potential metrics for an auditor could include the number of audits performed in a given period. A planchecker reviews engineering or construction plans, therefore a potential metric could be the number of plans reviewed in a given period. For other roles such as project managers or administrative analysts, public sector managers can consider metrics such as documents reviewed, contributions to projects or closing loops.

As shown with the examples above, developing productivity metrics for different roles in government can be done with little effort.

Data justifies remote work approval

In my organisation, we have a utility customer call center that shifted to working remotely during the pandemic. Anecdotally, the observations from managers were that they were more productive working from home. But our city’s leadership wanted to confirm the observations and rely on more than anecdotes.

To this end, our internal auditors were tasked with conducting an assessment of this operation by comparing output for a one-year period from before the start of the pandemic (March 2019 to March 2020) to the one-year period after the start of the pandemic (March 2020 to March 2021) when staff were sent offsite. Once the review was over, our auditors released a productivity analysis of the call center that showed that the employees were more productive during remote and hybrid periods versus 100% in the office, prior to the pandemic. Armed with this data, our city’s leadership has allowed this group to continue working remotely as long as the metrics are maintained. If the metrics drop to pre-pandemic levels, the employees will be required to return to the office.

As illustrated in the above example, one way to ease productivity concerns of employees not physically being in an office is through the collection and use of data. Tracking and documenting the number of phone calls and emails answered, audits performed or plans reviewed can prove that government employees can be productive regardless of their working environment.

Developing productivity metrics also builds accountability and transparency. Elected officials and the voters that elect them require assurance that tax dollars are being used effectively and that government workers are held accountable. For some in the public, remote work may create a perception that government employees are not being productive or being held accountable. Productivity metrics can address this concern by providing a measurement tool for elected officials, government managers and the public to measure the effectiveness of employees’ performance in remote working conditions. Thus, government agencies should consider developing remote work policies built on productivity metrics to foster transparency, effectiveness and accountability. — Elena Bolbolian

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(Picture credit: Unsplash)