“The future of work is about producing Michelangelos. In a world where people have access to the same tools, how will an organisation differentiate itself from its competitors? It’s going to come through the cultivation of special people.”

HR’s critical role in enhancing employee productivity 

🔎 Idea in brief: HR practitioners have a critical role in unlocking employee value. In fact, Gartner’s research found that HR’s direct involvement in productivity initiatives boosted employee productivity by 11 per cent.

When we consider who is responsible for driving the productivity agenda, McEwan says HR shouldn’t underestimate the impact they can have.

During its research, Gartner found that one in two HR leaders felt that if they continued to execute on their core HR responsibilities – such as getting the EVP right or ensuring strategic workforce planning is in place – productivity would naturally flow as a result.

“That’s not necessarily the case,” says McEwan. “What we found was that when HR became directly involved in employee productivity, that led to an 11 per cent rise in productivity.”

What does this ‘direct involvement’ look like? McEwan offers three examples:

1. Aligning the executive on the true definition of productivity

“HR can directly influence the organisational productivity strategy by talking specifically about the role of value creation,” he says.

This might look like showing how teams who are delivering fewer outputs but greater client impact are creating more value than those hitting volume-based KPIs.

“If the organisation thinks it’s going to drive employee productivity by introducing technology and focusing on efficiency only, it’s not going to get the results that it needs.”

“How is it that we’re working longer hours than we were 30 years ago, but we’re not experiencing any higher productivity growth despite the invention of the internet?” – Aaron McEwan FAHRI

2. Ensuring managers know how to coach for value creation

Once the executive layer is aligned on the definition of productivity, the next step is to ensure managers know how to create the right environments for value creation to take place.

That might look like implementing rhythm-of-business rituals that promote focus and flow (e.g. a weekly agenda item where employees set and share their high-value goal for the week ahead), and elevating the role of managers from task coordinators to strategic enablers of value creation.

That shift might look like coaching a manager to go beyond simply checking on the status of projects, and instead having them help people  deeply understand the purpose and end goal of their work, remove blockers to progress and empower teams to say “no” to low-value tasks.

Read HRM’s article about how to say ‘no’ to more work (and when to say yes).

“In my experience, we don’t talk enough about leadership development, manager effectiveness or team performance in [alignment with] the most important things CEOs are focused on: growth and productivity.” 

• Creating the right conditions at an employee level
  
  HR can also look at productivity from a workforce planning perspective, says McEwan.
  
  “It’s about asking, ‘Have we actually got the right mix of capabilities? Are our employees aligned to the right jobs? Are we investing in the right future capabilities?’ All of that will drive both efficiency and value creation.”

How to identify and measure employee value creation

🔎 Idea in brief: In a world dominated by AI, where everyone has the same efficiency advantage, where is your differentiator coming from? Assess your current high-performing employees to see what they do well.

While employee value creation can feel intangible, HR leaders can help organisations articulate what it looks like, says McEwan. 

He suggests taking the time to observe your high-performing employees: what do they do differently? What’s something they spend time on that pays the business back in spades?

“It’s not always that they’re doing something really efficiently,” says McEwan. “They might be amazing at winning clients over, or maybe they can always close a deal. 

“As AI comes in and automates all the simple stuff, it’s the value creation space that’s going to differentiate companies.”

While AI is a master at predicting and synthesising, it can’t imagine – and it’s the creation of novel, innovative work that will give businesses a first-mover advantage, says McEwan.

Questions you might consider to determine where employee value creation is taking place include:

• What does a high-performing team do differently to others in the business?
• What would we lose out on if this high-performing employee was to leave tomorrow?
• Which activities consistently generate the greatest returns – and who is behind them?
• What do our most valuable employees spend less time on compared to others?
• Where are people demonstrating irreplaceable human skills – persuasion, imagination, adaptability – that AI can’t replicate?
• Who is regularly sought out by peers, clients or senior leaders for advice, influence or insight?
• What problems or opportunities get solved faster when this person or team is involved?

HR case study: Lee Health

🔎 Idea in brief: US healthcare company Lee Health created specific groups, made up of SMEs and representatives of frontline works, to stress-test productivity initiatives and ensure they wouldn’t compromise patient safety standards.

Healthcare organisation Lee Health, based in America, is striking the right balance with HR’s involvement in the productivity agenda, says McEwan.

At the strategic level, Lee Health established a Central Leader Council composed of all functional heads – including IT, medical and operations – chaired by the CHRO and Chief Nursing Officer. The council’s remit was to identify organisation-wide productivity opportunities, such as optimising bed allocation or streamlining service delivery.

The group’s structure reflected two key insights: that nursing is central to frontline execution, and that HR brings an impartial, enterprise-wide perspective. 

To translate strategy into practical improvements, Lee Health created a second group: the Local Leader Council. This council brought together HR business partners, nurse unit leaders, finance managers and other operational stakeholders embedded in hospitals. Their role was to assess the feasibility of proposed strategies on the ground, ensuring they wouldn’t inadvertently undermine patient safety or quality of care.

Critically, the local council had the authority to challenge and adjust strategies from the central group, bringing frontline realities into strategic decision-making. 

The model ensured productivity initiatives were not only ambitious, but also grounded in reality – maximising operational gains without eroding trust or clinical standards.

“HR was at the centre of it all,” says McEwan. “They were recognised as impartial but also in a position to inform organisational productivity strategy.”

Influencing AI adoption

🔎 Idea in brief: Many of the issues around adoption of AI technologies to gain efficiencies are central to HR’s work in the change management, learning and development and employee experience spaces.

A growing conversation in business circles is how to make the most of the time AI is giving back to workers. The strategic lens HR can bring to this discussion is value creation – ensuring reclaimed time is channelled into high-impact work, not just more activity.

History shows we haven’t always excelled at this, often filling the gap with low-value busywork.

“I often tell this cautionary story. When I was in university in 1996, I was in a band. There were three of us, and we all completed our undergrad in psychology together.

“Our bass player decided he wanted to do this brand new masters program – the first of its kind. It was called a Master of Leisure Studies. The whole premise was that technology would deliver us so much spare time in the future that we would need dedicated masters-level qualified people to help us use that leisure time effectively.”

Three decades later and we’re working harder than ever before, he adds.

“Despite the fact that we know technology has driven efficiency gains over multiple decades, productivity at the organisational level, and even the national level, has either flatlined or declined over that period. 

“How is it that we’re working longer hours than we were 30 years ago, but we’re not experiencing higher productivity despite the invention of the internet?”

“The future of work is about producing Michelangelos. In a world where people have access to the same tools, how will an organisation differentiate itself from its competitors? It’s going to come through the cultivation of special people.” 

When technology delivers efficiency gains, we fill the vacuum with more low-value work, he adds – meetings, reporting and justifying the work we’ve already done.

HR practitioners can influence the redirection of that effort, he says. Let’s take AI as one potential lever. Gartner’s research found that only 47 per cent of the workforce are currently using AI in their day-to-day work.

“The use of AI to gain productivity is so central to organisational strategy today that just short of 50 per cent of CEOs are now worried they’re going to lose their job in the next two years if they don’t demonstrate a return on investment for AI.”

This is where HR can position themselves as trusted, strategic advisors to the C-suite.

“The first thing you can do from an HR perspective is go to your CEO and say, ‘Half of our employees aren’t even using this [technology], and when people don’t use something, that’s typically a change management issue.’

“HR owns change management, they own learning and development and they own the employee experience. These are the things that are actually preventing employees from delivering the productivity gains that AI promises.” (See graph below).

“It’s not a problem with the technology, it’s a problem with the adoption, usage and understanding – that’s all HR.”

This is just one example of how HR can influence organisational productivity. While lifting employee productivity is a shared responsibility across the business, HR’s role is uniquely positioned in driving meaningful, enterprise-wide impact.

Upskill your entire HR team with critical change management capabilities and more with AHRI’s Corporate Training Programs. Explore the course directory.