HR leaders share best practices on how they drive and measure productivity.
By Simon Kent
The value of human resources has frequently been misunderstood by the idea that the function exists strictly for compliance and administration purposes only. While other functions can lead and instigate new initiatives, it is HR’s role to help make them happen. However, it cannot be denied that what HR does has an impact on how well an organisation fares. How employees are treated, engaged, and managed always has an impact on productivity. So, is now the time for this overall influence on the workforce and the business to be promoted and made more apparent?
Omowunmi Adewusi, HR director at Nigeria-based AXA Mansard Health Limited, cites research from McKinsey which shows that HR initiatives can improve organisational productivity between 20% and 25%. She lists talent optimisation, work design, capability development, and cultural enablement as effective levers for delivering impact. Making the most of these means HR can shift from being a cost centre to a productivity multiplier that compounds across the organisation.
Interestingly, Adewusi says her team has broadened how productivity is defined and measured. “We have monthly productivity reviews where we examine both our internal efficiency and our impact on organisational productivity,” she says. “We track metrics like time to fill critical roles, employee time to proficiency, span of control ratios, and what we call ‘friction indicators’ like how many approval layers exist for common decisions.”
As can be seen from this, HR can increase productivity in two ways:
- by improving the areas which will increase how well the business performs; and
- by reducing the areas which slow everything down.
Adewusi gives one example of a time when the company’s engineering leaders were frustrated that productivity seemed flat despite hiring more developers. “The surface metric suggested a people problem, but when we dug deeper, we found that cognitive load from context switching, unclear requirements, and technical debt were the real constraints,” she explains. By working together and redesigning the planning stages of the process along with other areas of the work, deployment frequency among the engineers increased by 40% with the same team size.
HR’s Impact
Oli Fletcher, executive director of talent acquisition and onboarding at Saudi Arabia-based Red Sea Global, believes HR has influence over the productivity of each employee from the first contact as a candidate through to the exit interview.
“Culture is king,” he says. “A good HR team plays a pivotal role in creating and managing a positive workplace culture that fosters collaboration, respect, and inclusivity. In turn, this can provide employees with a supportive environment and good morale, which are crucial for productivity.”
The use of flexible and hybrid working models has helped increased employee satisfaction, and improved engagement and therefore productivity, argues Fletcher. However, these structures must be underpinned by a robust and clearly defined performance management system and a feedback process that gives on-going support. Regular, honest, and timely feedback is critical to ensure employees don’t get unwanted surprises if their performance drifts between longer-term reviews. “Set clear targets and monitor progress regularly, providing real-time feedback, whether positive or highlighting areas for improvement when opportunities arise,” he advises.
“HR’s impact on productivity is often underestimated precisely because it does not look like a direct lever. There is no ‘+15% productivity’ button.” – Tahmina Qodiri, Chief People and Business Support Officer, Beeline KZ
For Qodiri, productivity is not about how much people do; it is more about how intelligently work is designed. “It reflects how decisions are made, where accountability lives, how roles are structured and which cultural norms quietly govern behaviour,” she says. “HR is not responsible for how much people work, but for how intelligently work is designed and how mature the leadership is that governs it.”
To this extent, HR can influence productivity at the level of the operating system, rather than through individual effort.
Like Fletcher, Qodiri views culture as one of the strongest levers HR has, but this is culture as an operating model, rather than a set of declared values. “When culture defines how work actually happens, speed of decision-making, openness, data-based thinking, and permission to experiment, teams behave differently,” she says. “Decision cycles shorten, coordination costs drop, and ownership increases. Culture, in this sense, is not what organisations say, it is how work gets done. And productivity follows.”
In this context, learning and technology also become influential levers on productivity—how these areas are designed and supported will have an impact on how work is done within an organisation and therefore how productive that business can be.
Looking Ahead
Qodiri identifies areas where HR can reduce resistance to better productivity rather than simply trying to boost it. “One common risk is bureaucracy disguised as best practice,” she says. “Over-engineered performance systems, excessive reporting, and compliance-heavy procedures can turn HR into a productivity tax. On paper, the organisation appears mature, but in reality, speed declines, decisions blur, and accountability weakens.”
So, should HR formerly take on the title of productivity within its job title, shifting away from a pure people focus to one of people and systems?
“Adopting ‘productivity’ in the title might help shift perceptions of HR from being a traditional, ‘fluffy’ people function to a strategic partner that actively drives business outcomes,” suggests Fletcher. “For me, the title is less relevant, HR has evolved but the main issues remain. Visibility within the business and a clear alignment to the strategic goals. Also fundamentally, HR must always have a seat at the top table with an opinion that is heard.”
“My preferred approach is to expand HR’s mandate and accountability to explicitly include productivity without abandoning our broader people responsibilities,” says Qodiri. “Some organisations are doing this through dual titles like ‘Chief People and Performance Officer’ or expanded role definitions that make business impact expectations explicit.”
But clearly, as Qodiri notes, the work is more important than the title. “HR should own productivity-related metrics like time to proficiency, quality of hire, regrettable turnover, leadership bench strength, and organisational capability development,” she says. “We should have analytics capabilities to measure our impact on business outcomes. We should partner deeply with operations to redesign work and remove productivity barriers.”
“If renaming the role helps achieve that shift, I’m open to it,” says Adewusi, “But title changes without substantive role transformation are just cosmetic. I’d rather be a CHRO who drives measurable productivity impact than a Chief Productivity Officer who lacks the authority, resources, or capability to actually move the needle.”
