#productivity

Can someone explain how they are tracking productivity? What’s the software? Is it just Viva Insights? What are they tracking? Who gets the reports? Please share if you actually know. This is important info for all of us!

A review needs to happen for leadership roles within the India team, particularly L10 and above, should also be included. These are some of the highest-cost resources, especially when travel expenses are considered.Corruption is at its best with some leaders who run ICC or GCC
There is a perception that accountability standards are not being applied consistently. From what I have observed, some leaders have limited overlap with business hours, significant flexibility in schedules, and there is little visibility into actual productivity or outcomes.
The return-to-office expectations should also be reviewed. While the requirement may be three days onsite, there are concerns that attendance is not always being validated consistently. I have heard reports that some individuals badge in briefly and leave shortly afterward, while others may be relying on workarounds that undermine the intent of the policy. Whether these reports are accurate or not, they warrant verification if compliance is being reviewed.
In addition, overlapping leadership and management roles, travel spend, organizational layers, productivity, and office attendance should all be evaluated together to ensure consistent standards, fairness, and value realization across the organization.

Anybody else being given more meaningless "busy" work by their manager when you already have more than enough work of your own and are actually busy tying to get it done? Can there be any other point to this other than intentionally trying to make me look incompetent?

Alright, let's hear it! Comment below on the first week back under the new RTO mandate. People going from 3 to 4 days a week, how bad was it having that extra day and having 3x the amount of people around you all day? HBAs returning to office (myself included), was it as bad as you thought, worse or better? My personal opinion and observations were the following:

• Commutes: These are only 'tolerable' if you get there before 7 and leave before 3. Traffic is and always will su-k in a post covid world where everyone drives like they are either on me-h or sleeping pills.

• Collaboration: We have to sit around people we already work with (I work with cool people thank goodness). Zero difference in teamwork, communication etc other than talking over a cube wall instead of in a teams chat. The idea that being in person will "increase collaboration" is one of the biggest lies told to us. In fact, it seems that people are less likely to do any type of extra "collaborating" because everyone is tired, burnt out, and of patience. Another Fail for ELT. (put this L on the stack with the others)

-"Culture": Day one had lots of chatter and "summit energy" from associates seeing others they had not seen in years. This type of "energy" also can be found at Founders Day. Oh wait, PP ki-led that whole event with no explaination. By day 3 people appeared to be less "bubbly" and were more or less just focused on staying in their cubes, plugging the ears with a headset or ear buds, and counting down the hours until it was time to leave. Everyone looks tired and checked out. If EDJ had any brains, 2 days in office seems to be the sweet spot if you were going to have RTO and not make it fail horribly. But, these people are stupid and will never notice this. Also, for the folks that think HBA peeps are lazy because we are (or were) at home, please sit down and take your L. Lazy people in the office are no different than a lazy HBA. In office are actually worse about getting out of doing work because there is nobody watching them. HBAs always felt like they had to go above and beyond to stay off the radar.

• Productivity: This was the biggest fail of them all. The distractions of having people walking by my cube, the background noise, hearing other calls, and just general in office vibes. This is a horrible, outdated, beyond stupid way to complete non client/branch facing work. It is unbelievable how much less productive I was this week in office VS at home. The time it took to get day to day work done was increased due to having so many distractions. I made more errors this week than I have in years. Stupid errors from simply not being 100% locked in on the work I was doing.

• Leaders: The only leaders that seem to be enjoying this new RTO are the ones at or above DL. The ones who wear the sport coat/blazer every day. They have the talking points down, the fake persona like a politician, and generally walk around thinking they are Gods gift to this company as they figure out new and creative ways to break everything they touch. They don't even seem like real people and make zero effort to interact or have any personal relationship with the people under them, unless of course they need a new 'work around' created for a system tech failure. They stay in their clique` with the other 'jackets'. They seem almost completely detached from reality and have zero ability to "read the room".

Summary: I knew it would be bad, but this is much worse than I imagined now that I'm seeing it in real time. People that love WFH don't care if someone is in office, teams chat is yellow/away, or someone doesnt reply right away. We simply do not care and only focus on the job we are paid to do. Nothing else matters to us if the work is getting done correctly. The in office junkies (the ones who love RTO) seem to be nothing more than micro managing control freaks. They dont have enough to do and have major insecurities. They love being in the office and therefore everyone needs to be in the office to fill whatever mental void they have. These people are borderline psychopaths with the way they obsess over what their coworkers are doing. It's sick and childish when it comes down to it. The obsession with seeing bodies in the cubes and nothing more has to be one of the biggest fumbles and fails EDJ has ever done (next to layoffs and outsourcing). I'm generally curious at this point as to how much extra $ is wasted on these buildings to keep them functional VS when the company was fully remote for almost 4 years. It's going to be a very long summer.

Every team is now building their own AI Agents. it's chaos.

The pencil pushers have recently discovered that tokens cost money. Now they are getting rationed. We are only halfway through the year too. lmao. productivity!!!

Updated - F, 6/5/26.

The purpose of AI -

• To enhance (Productivity), (Efficiency); and to provide (Cost-savings).

• Employees are a line-item expense due to (Cost of Salary, and Benefits) from a business viewpoint.

  These are the facts.

Polaris efficiency is really just shifting of work to a different cost center. A few examples:

1. I now spend time every pay period downloading my paystub and emailing it to myself. This used to be automated. With Lolaris I now take time to do it that I would otherwise be working.
2. Time writing now takes multiple clicks and entering in archaic codes to get to the actual timesheet where in the former program it just opened up to the timesheet immediately.

Multiply these small time wasters by thousands of employees. Where is the productivity gain?

Give the keys to the people who know exactly where the useless management is. Most management is just getting in the way; completely useless. When my Dir or Sr Dir are on vaca, productivity soars! They have zero self awareness when they hold 3 hour meetings delegating pointless tasks while the ADs are trying to keep their teams functioning.

The culture that we are getting into right now with teams, and these group pings is absurd. They say it takes 20 minutes to refocus after you’ve been distracted… these silly group pins and constant teams alerts on pinging are so unproductive and frustrating. Just send us an email! Not to mention things keep getting lost in different variations of group groups that are pinging so I literally can’t keep up.

I’m so over teams and all the obnoxious features that come with it that destroy my productivity.

Kevin O’Leary said recently he doesn’t care if someone works “from their basement” as long as they can execute and deliver results. That’s the part “leadership” still doesn’t seem to understand.

https://fortune.com/2026/03/10/shark-tank-kevin-oleary-ai-tech-gen-z-rto-office-cubicles-corporate-america/

We already proved remote work works. The job gets done. In a lot of cases productivity improved, turnover dropped, and companies saved money. Even Stanford research still shows hybrid schedules had zero negative effect on productivity while reducing turnover.

Instead, we are doubling down on badge swipes, presence reports, and forcing people back into traffic for work that still happens on laptops and Teams calls all day.

People aren’t frustrated because they “don’t want to work.”

They’re frustrated because leadership saw proof that flexibility worked… and ignored it anyway. They chose max pain and misery over common sense and happy employees.

Whenever we find a new way to be more efficient or prodctive the benefit never goes to the employee doing the work.

Mgmt will use it to increase output, cut heads, or dump more work on whoever is left. Nobody in leadership is sitting around saying great, now employees can work less… They are asking how much MORE $$$$ they can squeeze out of it.

Workers only get a share of the gains when they have leverage.

Usually, that means, bargaining collectively.

Now let the downvotes come.

We are doing it to ourselves…

Bring back DF, majority of employees would agree, it would improve morale and the productivity would go back up. I am not sure we can continue like this any more.

How is this possible?

I just want to do my actual job and go home. Instead, I spend hours in meetings where nothing gets accomplished, where we generate more questions than answers, and where people just complain about things that no one is going to fix. It is exhausting and completely pointless.

Lots of people want out and it’s leading to complacency. TC you’ll have a much more productive workforce if you offer early retirement again.

Do they not realize that happy workforce equals profits and unhappy one brings major drops in productivity? It's been proven again and again. What's their aim here? To keep making us more and more miserable until what? We quit? Is that what this is all about?

Not directly connected to Oracle but many companies in the industry are going this way. The world has changed this year…
—-
ZEB EVANS (CEO - ClickUp)

Today we reduced headcount by 22%. The business is the strongest it's ever been. So I think it's important to be direct about what I'm seeing and why.

First, I made this decision and I own it. I did it because the way to operate at the highest level of productivity is changing, and to win the future, ClickUp needs to change with it.

Second, this wasn't about cutting costs. Most savings from this change will flow directly back into the people who stay. We'll be introducing million-dollar salary bands. If you create outsized impact using AI, you'll be paid outside of traditional bands.

Most importantly, I have the deepest gratitude for those affected. We're doing this from a position of strength specifically so we can take care of people properly. Everyone affected receives a package aimed at honoring their contributions and easing the transition.

I only see two options: wait for this to play out gradually in the market or be honest about what I'm seeing and act proactively.

THE 100X ORGANIZATION
The primary change is that we're restructuring around what I call 100x org. The goal is 100x output. The roles required to build at the highest level are fundamentally different than they were a year ago.

Incremental improvements to existing systems won't get us there. We need new ones. That means creating enough disruption to rebuild rather than iterate on what's already broken.

The common narrative is that AI makes everyone more productive. It doesn't. Many of the workflows of today, if left unchanged, create bottlenecks in AI systems.

These roles will evolve. But waiting for that to happen naturally means falling behind now.

The 100x org is actually heavily dependent on people - infinitely more than today. This is only possible with 10x people that have embraced and adopted new ways of working.

THE BUILDERS, AGENT MANAGERS, AND FRONT-LINERS

— THE BUILDERS: 10X ENGINEERS
I don't think most companies have internalized what's actually happening with AI in engineering. The common narrative is that AI makes all engineers more productive. That may be true in isolation, but at an organization level - that is the farthest thing from reality.

Here's what we've validated recently at ClickUp: the great engineers, the ones who can orchestrate, architect, and review, are becoming 100x engineers. They're not writing code. They're directing agents that write code. The skill is judgment.

AI makes the best engineers wildly more productive, and everyone else using AI slows these engineers down.
Think about it - the bottlenecks are (1) orchestration - telling AI what to do, and (2) reviewing - what AI did. Everything is leapfrogged and no longer needed.
So who do you want orchestrating and reviewing code?

And how do you want your best engineers to spend their time?

If your best engineers are spending time reviewing other people's code, then this is inherently an inefficient bottleneck. These engineers can review their agent's code much faster than reviewing human code.

The new world is about enabling your 10x engineers to become 100x.

The wrong strategy is to push every engineer to use infinite tokens. Companies doing this are celebrating 500% more pull requests. But customer outcomes don't match the volume of code being generated.

I call this the great reckoning of AI coding, and every company will face this soon if not already.

More code is just another bottleneck to the best engineers, and ultimately to your company's impact as well.

— THE BUILDERS: 10X PRODUCT MANAGERS
Product management and design roles are merging.

Designers that have customer focus, become more like product managers.

And product managers that have intuition for UX become more like designers.

The bottleneck of user research is gone. It takes us just one mention of an agent to kickoff research and analyze results.

The bottleneck of product design iteration is also gone. The product builder iterates on their own, along with agents and skills that ensure alignment with quality and strategy.

Also controversial today - I believe that the wrong strategy is to have your PMs shipping code - that just introduces another bottleneck that the best engineers will waste their time on.

To be clear, PMs should be coding but they should do this in a playground to iterate, validate, and scope. That code should not go to production.

Everything outside of managing systems, orchestrating AI, and reviewing output becomes a bottleneck.
That's why the other roles that are critical along with these are the systems managers (to reduce bottlenecks) along with a bottleneck you can't replace - customer meeting time.

— THE SYSTEM MANAGERS
Ironically, the people that automate their jobs with AI will always have a job. They become owners of the AI systems - agent managers. We have many examples of these people at ClickUp.

The underlying systems in which we operate are absolutely critical to get right. I think most companies are delusional to think they can iterate on existing systems and compete in this new world.

You must create enough disruption so that old systems are deprecated entirely. If there's any definition for 'AI native' that's what it is.

— THE FRONT-LINERS
In a world that will become saturated with AI communication, the human touch will matter more than anything to customers.

This is a bottleneck that you shouldn't replace - even when agents are high enough quality to do video meetings.

One-on-one meeting time with customers is something that shouldn't be automated. The systems around the meetings should be - so that front-liners spend nearly 100% of their time with customers.

REWARDING 100X IMPACT
In a world where companies are able to do so much more with less, where does that excess money go?
In our case, much of the savings in this new operating model will flow directly back to those that enabled it.

We must reward people that create productivity accordingly. This aligns incentives on both sides. Plus, in a world where your best people create 100x impact, you can't afford to lose them.

You should aim to retain these employees for decades. The context they have and their ability to efficiently orchestrate and review will be nearly impossible to replace.

Compensation bands of today should be thrown out the door. We're introducing $1 million cash/year salary bands with a path available to nearly everyone in the company if they produce 100x impact by creating or managing AI systems.

THE FUTURE
Nearly every company will make changes like these. The ones that do it proactively will define what comes next.

The future is not fewer people. It's different work, new roles, and better rewards for those who embrace it. We're already seeing entirely new roles emerge, like Agent Managers, that didn't exist a year ago.

ClickUp is positioning to lead this shift, not just internally, but for our customers too. I've never been more certain about where we're headed.

https://x.com/dj_curfew/status/2057522382315929802

Our leadership is now looking at productivity in our org (Berry, planning ahead for something?

I was already a 10x engineer. Now I'm 3x10x. I think next week I'm slated to up that to 9x.
In a few more quarters, I figure I'll be outputting more PRs than atoms in the universe.

Cengage (and all textbook companies) have a major culture problem. These aren’t serious people. Everyone outside the companies talks about it.

What they deem as productivity measurements are distractions disguised as productivity. Constant Slack check ins by managers with emojis like a parent checking in on their children, the million Slack channels that are created, the utter useless salesforce boxes that have to be checked- and they wonder why they have stagnant growth. Teams Meetings that could be emails where everyone is in the chat sending gifs, getting asked immature d-mb questions and they want you to put your answer in the chat. Absolutely NONE of these items drive growth or productivity. It’s a culture of immaturity that are checking boxes that make them look like they are working and contributing. The hours wasted are immeasurable.

Everyone knew Slack was a massive distraction and doesn’t drive growth or sales 10 years ago. It should be used for acute things, not on the daily. Always behind the curve.

A Gartner study challenges the expected profits from AI-driven layoffs. Many organizations reducing staff with AI found little direct return on investment. The research surveyed 350 large global enterprises. Strongest AI returns came from enhancing employee productivity, not eliminating workers. Companies often underestimate hidden costs and the need for human oversight.

Ann Arbor, Michigan

https://mitechnews.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-layoffs-may-not-be-delivering-the-payoff-ceos-expected-gartner-study-finds/

Hi haters - this fiscal Nike has reduced the work force by roughly 4% while revenues have been flat vs last year. Conclusion; productivity per employee has gone up; these lay offs do make sense.

A continuation of stream lining the org and setting Nike up for the next 10 years of growth only makes sense.

Pre-WFH, I've had two managers who obsessed over start times and break lengths. Neither of them actually knew how to lead. They just watched the clock because it was easier than doing their real jobs. It never improved productivity, but it worked for them. Those are the kind of people who want us back in the office. To hide their own failings.

My life is ruined, my daycare bill is up , and over an hour commute to this sh---y Dallas building with sh-t parking and rediculous gas prices, this company is a joke, everyone is exhausted and less productive professionally and personally

Anyone who's spent five seconds using them knows that Excel is way better than Sheets than what you'd get from say, Copilot vs. Google Gemini. Are they trying to destroy my productivity? I already know the answer. You complete fu--ing mo--ns.

Concerned in the BH UM arena for coming layoffs. Not enough work to keep all of us at normal productivity with current loss in Marketplace.

WFH already proved it works. We did it for years. Output didn’t drop, and in most cases it actually improved. Turns out it’s the person doing the work that matters, not the chair they’re sitting in.

The irony is we sell global connectivity, yet don’t trust our own employees to work remotely on the very networks we provide. It’s a “do as I say, not as I do” situation, and everyone sees it.

If the goal were cost and efficiency, the answer is obvious… let people work from home. Less real estate, no commute drain, same or better output.

Instead, we’re spending more to force people into buildings to do the same work… on a screen.

So what’s the real objective here?

I was told by my manager that SAP is launching a global AI adoption program and will track the usage of LLMs and other AI features on SAP products. They plan to coincide the launch with Sapphire so there will also be a big buzz about it. I bluntly asked if this is going to be used to determine one's performance and my manager said yes. Apparently, we are all supposed to use AI as much as possible in our day to day work and improve efficiency and productivity by doing more work in less time. Our area is deciding to add an area level performance goal that everyone contributes to but we are also asked to include AI in our other goals.

I really don't get it. Yes, I find AI somewhat useful in my work especially if I am researching something. But NO it is not gamechanging to my work. I feel so disappointed by this move that I plan to only use AI but not get work done because no one cares about work anymore and all they care about AI adoption. I feel like we are training our replacements. If AI is useful, why does management need to force everyone to use it?

Half of our management can't even use AI because they are too old school and because they only use German in emails and chats and conversations and AI is somewhat useless in German. Is this also happening in other areas now?

Hey Billie D! Let’s see how well the bank does this quarter coming up with lower productivity because you can’t adapt to modern time and need to save face with all of the real estate you purchased by displacing employees who could manage work life balance for once. How fun!! Can’t wait to hear about it!

Started back to work and thought I’d take advantage of $5 North Shore Parking with a shuttle to and from downtown Pittsburgh. Because I don’t have the extra money to spend like most of us. What a bust. Shuttles weren’t running every 15 to 20 minutes as promised but rather an hour to an hour and a half long. So much for that. Got into the office and the majority of the floor was empty. Why did I bother? No work got done. I’m sure we are going to see productivity plummet. Wasn’t approved to work from home to be with my epileptic child. Job well done, Bill.

TRP is the only place I’ve worked where used a VDI; all other jobs provided a dedicated developer laptop. The VDI crashes all the time while I'm working. Honestly, how can you expect good results when the tools you’re given to build them are so unreliable?

My manager has this habit of asking for detailed updates on things that don't matter, formatting reports three different ways for no reason, and scheduling meetings about meetings. I spend at least five hours a week on tasks that nobody ever looks at or uses. It's just work for the sake of making him look busy. Why can't we get rid of people like him? Productivity would improve all around.

Any update on Ambetter LOB layoffs since the financial call today? My team isn’t meeting productivity and our census is terribly low.

They pushed RTO hard and productivity somehow dropped instead of improving. Who'd have thought? (Other than everybody with two functioning brain cells, of course.)

I accomplished something today in about 20 minutes with my manager using Copilot a project that would have taken the India team 11 hours to accomplish. 1 hour to explain. 6 hours to read the document and do the work. Another hour to re-explain what I wanted because they did it wrong, and then another 3 hours to finish the project.

The co-pilot answer was structured, tabular, concise, without excessive use of passive voice that makes my brain hurt.

Definitely the future

Confirmed by a senior leader.

It’s frustrating that they do not see how it’s impacting productivity of the entire workforce.

Reduce the workforce by 50% and let the other 50% do their job in peace. Right now , no one is doing their full potential because it’s always layoff axe on their necks.

Is it actually causing layoffs? Is it really being used productively anywhere? I'm not talking about CoPilot, but rather focused projects with a specific purpose. Would be interested in hearing from people involved with or affected by such endeavors, rather than the usual PR fluff that gets spewed by leadership.

I'm really not trying to rant here, I'm actually asking. Does anyone feel productive when they come in? My office days are pure chaos. People talking about sports, playing on their phone, solving puzzles together. Random coworkers keep stopping by my desk to chat. I spend half my energy just trying to tune it all out so I can do my job. At home I get ten times the work done. How is any of this helping us collaborate?