Why do businesses need a productivity rethink?

The push for greater productivity has always been central to how businesses are run. It’s also a constantly shifting debate, with new trends emerging on a regular basis. In the last few years alone, for example, we’ve been told that working from home is great for productivity, that it’s terrible for productivity and that AI will soon solve all our productivity problems forever.

What unifies everything is that every organisation wants more of it and will invest time and money to deliver even the most subtle incremental improvements in output. Unfortunately, a lot of this effort goes to waste, with investment often directed at tools and technologies rather than the underlying ways work is organised.

Many of us will be familiar with working environments where productivity initiatives are very well-intentioned but where different teams end up pursuing their own approach or new technology systems are layered onto existing environments without removing legacy processes or complexity. Instead of helping us be more productive, in many cases, this increases the time and effort required to complete even routine tasks.

Part of the problem is the widespread assumption that adding more technology automatically improves productivity. This is rarely challenged, and success (or the lack of it) continues to be measured by activity and output rather than outcomes, with a tendency to optimise the most obvious productivity metrics rather than those that deliver meaningful impact. Clearly, that’s missing the point.

A different perspective

A more useful definition of productivity is to look at how efficiently effort is converted into meaningful results, not just the volume of tasks being completed. For instance, inefficient points of friction often exist at the intersection of systems, teams and data rather than within individual tasks.

For example, as a business grows, informal ways of working often need to be formalised into repeatable processes. To facilitate additional opportunities, new approvals and handovers are often introduced. Over time, this can make even simple tasks more time-consuming, as work moves between teams rather than being completed end-to-end. The result is that productivity improvements are not commensurate with the additional effort and complexity introduced as the organisation scales.

This is why, in many cases, productivity cannot be improved in isolation, as it is shaped by how the wider business environment is designed. This kind of friction tends to accumulate across multiple layers of the organisation rather than in any single area. For example, disconnected systems mean data has to be re-entered or validated multiple times, and multi-team processes can introduce delays or suffer from unclear ownership. In many places, manual work persists alongside automation, creating parallel effort rather than streamlined workflows, with productivity optimisation only partially realised.

At the same time, increasing security and compliance requirements add further steps to everyday processes. Individually, these issues may seem relatively minor, perhaps even too significant to actively address, but collectively they can create a substantial drag on an organisation's overall output.

Unlocking potential

So, where should the focus be placed instead? Rather than optimising individual tasks, the priority should be to reduce friction across entire workflows. A key starting point is improving how data is shared. When information flows consistently between systems and teams, the need for duplication and manual intervention is reduced.

Greater visibility also enables faster, more confident decision-making, with simplified processes requiring fewer approvals and handovers. Organisations often talk about empowering their employees, but also shackle decision-making with unnecessary admin or a refusal to reconsider legacy processes. Striking the right balance between efficiency and control is crucial.

Technology still plays a critical role, but only when it is applied in a way that aligns with how the business operates. In this context, automation becomes a tool for removing repetitive effort rather than accelerating inefficient processes. Similarly, AI can have a transformative impact on productivity, but its effectiveness depends on the quality and accessibility of the underlying data. Just bolting on AI tools is no guarantee of success because it risks amplifying existing inefficiencies and adding further complexity.

This is why productivity is becoming less about discrete initiatives and more about how well the organisation is set up to support change. Part of the challenge is that it’s a race with no finish line, so organisations must always be prepared to evaluate and adopt new systems and ways of working. Preparation for the future must take place alongside day-to-day operations, rather than as a separate transformation exercise, as the current AI revolution is demonstrating.

With National Productivity Week returning at the end of April, the 2026 theme of “Unlocking the UK’s productivity potential” is extremely relevant. Those organisations that grasp the opportunity will be well placed to reap the benefits over the long term, whatever the future brings.