Why is it important to measure productivity in hours?

This week, Mattias was inspired to talk about a complex topic after having a discussion with his team. A lot of leaders can probably relate to being confronted with something like: "It's always about the hours!".

Measuring productivity

As in any other industry, productivity needs to be measured in one way or another, in iGoMoon's case, this is done by counting the number of hours sold to customers. While this is a necessary thing to do, it can sometimes be frustrating for the team to have the feeling that the focus is always on the hours and not so much on the creativity. Mattias understands what some people might be feeling, however, does not agree that the sold hours should be neglected. Instead, there should be an equal focus on creativity.

The importance time-reporting

To outline what can happen when there's no time-tracking, he shares a story from the early days of his company, when the team was working however much they wanted on projects and did not have the understanding of the scope of certain things yet. Someone has actually spent 100 hours on something as simple as an email signature for a customer. Needless to say, that email signature turned out to be very expensive for iGoMoon.

As time progressed and the team learned from past mistakes, everyone started to report and track the hours sold to the customers. As mentioned prior, not everyone is always a fan of that. Mattias explains that in these cases it is important to find out if the time-tracking is really what bothers them, or if they simply feel too much pressure on them. If the latter is the case, good leadership is needed to guide each employee individually to a solution.

💡 EPISODE TAKE AWAY
Productivity and creativity need to be addressed equally.

How do you measure productivity?