The Myth of Productivity
How should we value human work in the age of automation and AI?
I once worked for a CEO who often said the quiet part out loud, lamenting that knowledge worker productivity is often invisible to the naked eye. His dream was to have a key performance indicator hologram displayed above each employee's head so he could assess the value created per worker on the spot. Did I mention he was the CEO of a nonprofit organization? That anecdote proves just how deep the productivity ethos has permeated professional and managerial work, not just skilled trades and service industry work. With the meteoric rise of AI agents and automation, his dream can now come true, but to what end?
How should we value human work in the age of automation and AI?
The promise of technological progress has most often been framed as the gift of time. The theory was that industrial and information (and now intelligence) technologies would liberate workers from burdensome tasks and inefficient processes and people would net more leisure time to spend on their own pursuits.
But anyone following workplace trends will know that reality never came to pass. Instead, we saw the rise of hustle culture, productivity hacks, gig work and bossware. And workers (especially in white collar and service professions) got the message that they had to figure out how to get more done in a 24/7 connected world where job security was scarce and the threat of offshoring, automation and competition from younger, hungrier workers were unspoken specters reinforcing the myth of productivity.
In practice, working smarter (not harder) is often an impossible goal as organizations seek to do more with less – smaller budgets, smaller headcounts and faster timelines. The mismatch between the promise and reality of productivity means that workers increasingly report feeling burnout and a sense that the workload will never be manageable, let alone conducive to ample leisure time as the sci-fi prophecy foretold.
AI agents and automation tools are just the latest flavor of productivity hacks, but now with an added existential threat that the AI will quite soon replace the workers it is making more productive today. As labor-saving (and replacing) technologies proliferate, how should we think about the future of human work?
Connective labor is an unacknowledged x factor driving meaningful outcomes, even as it defies efficiency metrics.
In knowledge work, caring professions and the larger service economy, what sociologist Allison Pugh has termed ‘connective labor’ is the emotional and relational work people do to build and sustain meaningful connections with others. Those connections, uniquely human in nature, create the conditions for understanding, learning, cooperation and countless other qualitative factors that improve outcomes, change perspectives and unlock novel solutions to sticky problems. It is the connective labor we must protect in the new systems we are creating in the intelligence revolution.
RESOURCE: The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World by Allison Pugh
In addition to coining new language for relational work, Allison asserts three key insights that can help us design a more human-centered future of work, even as we embrace new technologies in ways that complement what humans do best.
Name and value contributions that are uniquely human: The domains of emotion, empathy, sensation, experience and understanding are human. AI can perform a simulation of such things but can never genuinely connect through shared humanity. It’s hard to imagine that any collective endeavor can succeed in the long-term without a foundation of the shared human condition.
Get specific about what AI can (and can’t) do: AI is a non-specific term for a host of classification, prediction and automation technologies that (so far) can’t read connective labor inputs and so devalue them in outputs. Put simply, AI can’t read the real world, only the digital space. Perhaps a better frame for tech innovation is to really consider where tech can complement – not replace – what humans do well.
Acknowledge that not all productivity can be metricized: the old adage that what matters gets measured has fatal flaws when it comes to connective labor. As more as more professions become standardized and metricized we lose sight of the ineffable relational aspects that feed people’s enthusiasm and willingness to work hard toward a shared purpose.
BOTTOM LINE: Burnout – and its new cousin boreout – may well hollow out organizations and demoralize leaders well before it becomes clear that AI can’t solve all. Connective labor is a powerful antidote to languishing and dissatisfaction. Better to design a future of work that works for people from the jump.
For a quick take on Allison’s thesis, you can read this contributed piece in The Guardian or watch her public lecture at the London School of Economics.