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Saving time creates little value when organisations have no deliberate use for the capacity released.
In this ADAPT Insider episode, Dom Price, Work Futurist and Visionary at Be Luminous, examines why conventional productivity metrics reveal too little about the conditions that sustain performance.
He considers how organisations can redirect saved time, protect long-term workforce capability and build the confidence to experiment amid constant change.
Key takeaways:
- Productivity gains create value when organisations direct released capacity towards meaningful, higher-value work.
- Workforce decisions should account for the experience, context and institutional knowledge that employees develop over time.
- Small, safe experiments help teams act on new information, adjust direction and share useful lessons across the organisation.
Saved time requires a deliberate destination
Productivity, sales and GDP remain common measures of performance.
These lagging indicators reveal little about whether people have the environment, tools, trust and space to produce meaningful work.
Dom points to organisations that achieved significant productivity gains, then filled the released capacity with more meetings.
Without a clear next-best use for that time, greater efficiency changed the volume of activity without improving its value.
Leaders can assess the conditions behind performance alongside the final output.
Discretionary effort, curiosity and human connection reveal whether people feel engaged enough to contribute beyond the minimum expected of them.
Automation decisions shape future capability
AI can improve work by augmenting employees and redirecting their attention towards higher-value contributions.
Removing roles without considering the talent pipeline risks leaving organisations without the experience required for future leadership and specialist positions.
Graduate roles illustrate the long-term value at stake.
Early-career employees may initially cost more than they contribute, yet those roles build context, experience and institutional knowledge over time.
Dom points to IKEA’s decision to redeploy employees affected by automation into new roles.
Their existing expertise remained inside the organisation and supported a different source of value.
Workforce planning should account for the capabilities an organisation will require in the future, including the pathways through which employees develop them.
Learning velocity helps organisations adapt
Many organisations were designed around stability, efficiency and five-year planning.
Constant disruption has reduced the value of waiting for certainty before acting.
Dom describes learning velocity as the ability to absorb new information, adjust direction and test ideas without punishing people for changing course.
Leaders can select one manageable opportunity each quarter, test it at low cost and share the result.
A small experiment gives teams evidence they can act on while limiting the consequences of failure.
Leading by example gives employees permission to try, learn and adapt.
Repeated experimentation builds practical knowledge faster than waiting for a perfect business case.
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