How to Increase Employee Productivity: The Human-Centered Approach

Culture is built on rhythm, a cadence that people expect and rely on. This is where they are able to reach a flow state and do their best work. Even when the workplace is a screen or three in their home office.

This can sound like a pretty utopian take on productivity when you’re subject to burnout culture. It’s even more maddening when management likes to see people “looking busy.” But sincerely, it’s not that out of reach. If you’re catching up on recognition and engagement, you’re already on the right path. 

Today, we’re not discussing the actions people take for a cash bonus. Nor are we examining how to reward high performers in hopes that others will work harder. We’re learning how to increase employee productivity across the board, sustainably, through a culture that supports it. 

What do we mean by employee productivity?

You’re familiar with simple employee productivity calculations. Output vs. hours worked, completion rates, and yes, revenue per employee. It would be a bit extreme to call this “dehumanizing” because we need some of these measurements. 

However, the type of employee productivity we want to increase has positive impacts on engagement and retention as well. 

It’s human employee productivity in a modern context: 

• The amount of knowledge work that leads to better-quality output.
• Deep work that leverages human cognition to optimize and innovate.
• Staying connected virtually to amplify productivity through feelings of belonging. 
• The ability to collaborate and own a place on a high-functioning team that keeps itself on track (with minimal intervention).

What’s causing low productivity?

It’s a day at work, not an evening at the theater. Yet it’s often the company that’s setting the stage for busy teams who don’t get enough done. Here’s why teams end up caught in productivity theater–looking busy without so much meaningful output. 

• Overemphasizing hours instead of examining results
• Distracting levels of gamification
• Too many programs, tools, and processes
• High workloads, long hours
• Ignoring work-life balance
• Poor attention to fundamentals like compensation, instructions, goals, and resources

The practices we’ll share coming up take a deeper look at most of these causes with ways to correct them. However, the primary way to address cultural challenges spanning everything from well-being to meeting goals is recognition. 

Employee recognition as the human-centered approach to increasing productivity

The latest research demonstrates the impact of recognition on productivity, among many other positive factors. This is where employee productivity becomes a human issue and not a metric to move.

Here’s how productive, well-recognized employees perceive their workplaces:

1. There’s a sense of fairness and justice. Everyone is worthy of recognition, even for small contributions.
2. They feel ownership over their work. Their employer recognizes them by allowing them autonomy and including them in decision-making. 
3. They feel like they belong. Recognition improves their job satisfaction, and they take pride in completing work for their employer.

The basics of recognition for productivity 

We could go on for another 20 minutes about high-quality recognition. For now, here are the must-know qualities of recognition that specifically target performance.

1. Highlights behaviors, not just output. People who champion core values and contribute to good morale will double down on these performance-enhancing behaviors when they’re appreciated for it.
2. It’s specific even when very small. Small, specific compliments inside of a positive feedback loop are believable and give people the chance to discover and capitalize on their strengths. 
3. Adds meaning to their tasks. Recognizing the impact their accuracy or improvement in a specific area has on the company makes it more personally important to them.

How to increase employee productivity: Practices that naturally boost quality output

Recognition can start today. But to prove they mean it, organizations need to clear the way for higher productivity. This means examining, adjusting, or eradicating their own practices.

1. Eliminate obstacles.

Disruptions like too many meetings, micromanagement, and substandard tools and processes are the first to go. 

• Cutting meetings. “This could have been an email,” employees are fond of remarking. Do you think maybe, just maybe, they’re right? Log weekly time spent in meetings. Evaluate the content of said meetings. Set and improve agendas, strengthen moderation, limit duration, and segment attendance by those who really need to be there.
• Replacing micromanagement with communication. We know check-ins are important, but when they’re frequent, inconvenient, or just unwarranted, they’re a distraction. Emphasize clear expectations and communication over random helicoptering.
• Weeding inefficiencies out of workflows. Map out workflows and toss any redundancies or extra steps first. Templates and SOPs can be created or updated to make processes more reliable and efficient. Find replacements for tools that don’t offer seamless integration. 

2. Protect their time and space.

Asynchronous work practices like individual communication over real-time interaction can be adopted company-wide for deep work blocks and focus time. For example, each morning contains a 90-minute deep work block from 9:30 am to 11 am. 

During this time, we do not interact in any way that would ping a notif, and we do not schedule meetings. If we succeed with other key strategies listed here (particularly the next one), these 90 minutes will become a reliable source of daily productivity.

3. Clean up and clarify targets and goals.

We’re all adults; we can identify what we’re supposed to work on and create a plan to get it done. However, do our plans align with everyone else’s, especially our employer’s? This is where many workplaces fail their teams. 

• Weekly priorities. Use task management tools or simple lists to lay out what the week’s output should include. Employees who start their workweek unsure of what the next five to seven days will entail aren’t as likely to be productive.
• Setting SMART goals. Yes, the old Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound trick. It should apply to all weekly priorities. This eliminates vague notions and time spent deliberating on what to do next.
• A framework for OKRs. If there’s a specific objective employees should be meeting, state it plainly and define what outcomes help meet that objective. For instance, if the objective is to improve customer satisfaction scores, share how it’s done, such as target percentages in ticket volume vs. productivity.

Finally, employees should be allowed to reject or defer those tasks that haven’t been set as weekly priorities or don’t serve the goals on their plate at the moment. 

4. Extend training and resources beyond onboarding.

Many employees lack the training necessary to make the most of the tools they’re given. They also don’t have consistent growth or learning opportunities that allow them to innovate or even improve. We often discuss this in terms of giving employees confidence and optimism for their future at a company. 

The real issue is that a lack of proper resources and skill development creates fear, stress, and anxiety. Employees want to increase their knowledge and efficiency so they can stay competitive with automation and AI. Training, mentorship, collaboration, and other opportunities increase productivity as well as retention. 

Almost 50% of employees want these benefits, but don’t know how to access them. 

5. Respect rest, promote recovery.

Longer blocks of deep work aren’t the best fit for every role or environment. Higher-pressure roles and crunch times before deadlines might get more juice out of the Pomodoro technique. This inserts more breaks into deeper focus sessions, reducing burnout while swatting away procrastination. 

Other ways to increase output with more frequent breaks include:

• Walking meetings or regular walking breaks
• Regular reminders encouraging employees to use their PTO
• Quiet rooms or areas where people can take a break to clear their minds
• A complete break for lunch, not just a time when people typically eat at their desks
  
  

6. Detox your monitoring processes.

When we’re sweating productivity, the workplace can quickly become a surveillance state. Becoming Big Brother only makes the environment more toxic. 

Don’t create the hyperawareness of being watched. Knowing you’re being tracked can increase output, and also errors. Employees can become obsessed with doing more, leading to burnout. All because you wanted to measure productivity.

Looking for patterns and bottlenecks in processes should lead to potential solutions, not shaming. Employees should not fear they’ll end up at the bottom of a productivity graph during a meeting. 

How do you increase employee productivity on remote and hybrid teams?

Many of the points and strategies presented today (especially recognition) benefit workers in a virtual environment. There shouldn’t be many issues applying them. However, the unique challenge with remote and hybrid teams is something called productivity paranoia.

Maybe you’re familiar. Productivity paranoia is where leaders and managers doubt their employees are productive enough because they aren’t watching them. That’s despite studies reporting that remote workers are more efficient and productive than in-office workers, who are subject to more distractions outside of their control. 

So, your first task with remote and hybrid productivity is to rule out paranoia. Someone isn’t more productive because you saw their face. From there, the following principles can help us adjust strategies to remote workers:

1. Cut those meetings, but increase communication elsewhere. 

Frequent check-ins and regular chat activity are more important on remote teams. You may feel that those Zoom meetings can help eliminate a leader’s bias toward seeing faces, but it still becomes a time drain. 

The bottom line is to touch base more often in smaller, yet still meaningful, ways. This is another strength we find in recognition tools. 

2. Get into virtual collaboration and team-building.

Live coworking hours, collaborating on shared documents, and virtual team rituals help connect remote and hybrid employees. 

Building connections with coworkers, not just supervisors, helps with accountability. Familiarity and a better understanding of others’ processes and responsibilities motivate remote workers to do their part.

3. Trust and output, not skepticism and surveillance. 

All evidence-gatherers, from Gallup and Pew to Harvard and Stanford, state that remote workers are productive. The problem is that they are less prone to truly connect, especially to a company without a healthy culture. 

Therefore, adopt an attitude that remote and hybrid employees are to be trusted until proven otherwise. Put the quality and timeliness of their output before tracking tools and monitoring methods. A distrustful workplace that engages in toxic surveillance practices is easier for remote employees to say goodbye to.

Your quick implementation guide to higher productivity in 2026

Recognition makes everyone feel (and perform at) their best.

Productive employees are engaged employees first and foremost. Engaged employees build cohesive teams. Cohesive teams hold one another accountable for their contributions. 

Recognition is at the root of it all, where people feel seen and valued for even the smallest stuff. It makes constructive feedback feel fair, not critical. It creates positive relationships that motivate us to achieve more, not check out.

Thousands of global teams use HeyTaco. Their results include:

• Higher engagement and morale
• Strong cross-department connections (even remotely!)
• A healthy, beneficial culture that’s built into their workflow, not a distraction

“It's brought us closer together as a team, and that's priceless. It also brings more awareness to what everyone's doing, which is another big plus!”

–Steven B., QA Automation Engineer

Learn more about how HeyTaco works and start your free trial this week. 

How to increase employee productivity FAQ

What is the 333 rule for productivity?

This “rule” breaks your day down into three blocks of three hours for better time management. Three hours for deep work, three hours on high-priority tasks or those we procrastinate on, and three hours for maintenance tasks like emails and follow-up. 

The 333 rule isn’t right for every role or environment, but it can be a way to increase time spent on deep work when productivity falls off.

What are the most common causes of low employee productivity?

Unclear instructions, inadequate goal-setting, and other communication issues are often to blame. Overwork, busywork, a lack of appreciation, and insufficient resources are also known productivity-killers.

How do you measure employee productivity?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employee productivity by comparing their output to the hours worked. If using this approach, it’s better to focus on improvements in productivity over excessive monitoring. 

Respect an employee’s privacy and monitor discreetly. Putting surveillance up front can add pressure to a role and stress a worker beyond their limits. 

Does having fun at work increase productivity?

Yes! Fun team rituals, frequent breaks, and shared humor are proven to enhance productivity, not distract. It reduces stress, increases engagement, and fosters resilience–an employee’s willingness to move forward and keep working toward goals.