Nadella on Microsoft's 'productivity paradox': 85% managers think workers are slacking, 85% staff say...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said there has been a structural shift when it comes to working remotely or from home. (File photo)

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has recently revealed that the company is grappling with a "productivity paradox" in which most managers reported that employees have been slacking off work while the employees claimed that they have been working too hard. During a chat with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Nadella said that in situations like this, the company has to depend on data, not dogma.

The tech leader was addressing a question on the growing call for flexibility in workplaces after the pandemic and the challenges they pose when he said there has indeed been a structural shift when it comes to working remotely or from home. "We looked at data pretty broadly across sectors and geos [geographics] and there are three findings that we are looking at, including ourselves at Microsoft. The first one is what we describe as this productivity paradox," Nadella said.

"Eighty-five percent of the managers think their employees are slacking off work, 85 percent of employees think they are working too hard and are burned off. And it's real data! So we have this paradox on how you can see these things in two different ways. And the only way around it to me, Reid, is you have got to use data. Dogma is not going to help."

The Microsoft boss further said that one of the ways to solve this would be for leaders to figure out how to have aligned goals. "As leaders, we have to learn how to bring clarity to what is the output that you'd like to see. What are the measures of it and then using that to see whether it is working or not and then create the norms," he said.

Nadella also stressed on the need for industry leaders to develop soft skills to better manage employees in a changing environment.

"I think the world needs today, more than anything else from leaders, are optimism and energy," he added. "It's easy to be down on everything [but] my true measure of any leader is who can come into a situation, bring clarity, generate energy, and solve over-constraint problems. As long as you do those three things, I think the world will be a better place."