Editor’s note: Microsoft is a client of the author.
Every vendor that has ever briefed me on a productivity product has argued that it will significantly improve employee productivity. Few vendors have proven that outcome, however, so the claim has become something of a bad joke over the decades. That’s not to say that there are never any productivity benefits, but when you make an employee more productive, it is almost impossible to measure by how much — and whether the product made a difference. When you free up time, it’s not as if employees suddenly don’t have things to do; they just move on to other tasks. And if they are salaried, you may not even see a difference in output because they may be working longer hours to get their tasks done.
