How Clear Metrics Create High-Performing Global Teams

"Leaders across industries are asking the wrong question about productivity. The issue isn't that employees have stopped working hard. It's that many no longer know what excellence looks like. When expectations are vague, people default to whatever feels safest, especially in remote work environments. Employees stay visibly online, respond at lightning speed, stack their calendars with meetings, and volunteer for highly visible work that broadcasts effort more than it advances business goals. This often accelerates employee burnout."

"Many companies have responded to remote and hybrid work with surveillance and activity tracking, which acts like a tax on trust and measures motion instead of momentum. High performing workers compensate for unclear goals by taking on more work and staying constantly available. Ultimately, this stretches them thin and squanders the very strengths the organization depends on. Clear KPIs create the opposite effect by defining success in a way that empowers autonomy,"

Leaders across industries are asking the wrong question about productivity. The problem is not employee effort but unclear standards of excellence. Vague expectations push people toward safe, visible behaviors—constant online presence, rapid responses, packed calendars, and volunteering for highly visible tasks—that signal effort more than produce outcomes and that fuel burnout. Connext Global Solutions' Confidence Gap Survey reports nearly half of employees say responsiveness gets more praise than outcomes, only 23 percent are measured by clear metrics, and two-thirds admit to "productivity theater." Surveillance and activity tracking tax trust and measure motion instead of momentum. Clear KPIs define success, enable autonomy, and focus energy on real progress.

Read at Inc