9 Essential Productivity KPIs and How To Measure Them

In today’s fast-paced business world, measuring productivity is paramount. As a business leader, you need accurate performance insights to make informed decisions. And with productivity key performance indicators (KPIs), you can open up a whole new world of data.

In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at how to measure team productivity with nine productivity KPIs every business should measure, along with steps to track them effectively.

What are the 5 factors of productivity?

Put simply, productivity is a measure of business performance that tells you how efficient your organization is at achieving desired outcomes. It reflects both the quantity and quality of work based on how effectively your company leverages people, processes and technology to achieve goals. Five factors impact productivity; these include:

• Tools/resources
• Time management
• Human resources (employees, managers, etc.)
• Work environment
• Management practices

How do you know your team is productive?

Understanding the productivity of a team and individual employees is crucial to overall success, profitability and morale. How do you know if the company and your team is productive?

The best way to uncover productivity metrics is to integrate a productivity measurement platform like ActivTrak into your business processes. A company can be profitable yet still have an unproductive team. Productivity measurement requires managers to dive deeper into data showing team metrics like  collaboration and workload balance, as well as individual time allocation, focus time, schedule adherence, and more.

Understanding these analytics helps managers identify employees who may be at risk for disengagement  and spot employees who don’t have enough work. In addition, time allocation data may identify that team members are spending too much time in meetings or on other non-beneficial tasks.

What are productivity KPIs and why are they important?

Productivity KPIs are used to measure productivity and include a range of metrics to calculate how different employee activities contribute to overall performance. Regularly tracking productivity metrics across teams and individuals makes it easier to identify areas for improvement — and to help position employees for success.

Why measuring productivity KPIs matters for business performance

Without productivity KPIs, your efforts to drive efficiency would be based purely on observations. You could try to remove the guesswork by conducting weekly team syncs, one-on-ones and status updates. But you’d take up valuable work hours — and still not get the real-time, authentic insights you need.

Using KPIs to measure employee productivity and team performance will help solve this challenge. You’ll not only gain a clear picture of overall productivity but also see exactly where you need to improve.

Selecting the right KPIs for your business

Understanding the importance of productivity KPIs is great, but how can you start using them? And what, exactly, should you measure?

Start by examining your business objectives. What do you want to achieve? Are you striving to increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction or streamline operations? Identifying these goals first will help you narrow down the specific productivity KPIs that matter most to your organization.

Once you’ve defined your business goals, it’s time to select KPIs to measure. Every business is unique, and so are its measurement needs. Consider factors such as industry standards, internal benchmarks and the availability of data.

Some commonly used productivity metrics include:

• Employee productivity rate
• Average productivity rate
• Task completion rate
• Quality of work ratings
• Efficiency ratings
• Projects completed
• Goals reached
• Revenue per employee
• Schedule adherence

Next, let’s look at each of these in more detail.

9 essential productivity KPIs and how to measure them

These KPIs capture essential aspects of productivity, enabling you to assess employee performance, measure progress and identify areas for improvement.

1. Employee productivity rate

Arguably the most crucial productivity KPI, the employee productivity rate measures the output generated by each employee within a specific time frame. Tracking this KPI helps you identify high-performing employees and see who may need more training. According to ActivTrak’s 2026 State of the Workforce report, employee productivity saw a 5% uptick in 2025.

How to calculate employee productivity rate

To calculate employee productivity rate, divide your output — usually the number of goods or services produced — by the total number of employees generating it. Use this formula:

Productivity = Total Input / Total Output 

Real-world example: A COO assesses a 25-person customer support team to understand the individual employee productivity rate. The team resolved 2,500 support tickets last month. The company set a goal that the team needed to resolve at least 100 tickets per employee (on average each month).

Productivity = 2,500 tickets ÷ 25 employees = 100 tickets resolved per employee

After reviewing the data, the COO found that the team hit the benchmark goal for the month.

2. Average productivity rate

The average productivity rate is a KPI that shows the number of hours per day people can perform productive work. If you want to understand how employee engagement and productivity fluctuate from week to week, measuring your average daily productivity rate will help.

The most reliable way to track this KPI is with productivity management software designed to analyze activities in real time. With the software, you can see if people are more productive at a specific time in the day, which can help you set a flexible schedule that maximizes productivity.

Calculating average productivity rate

This productivity KPI may also be referred to as the “average time utilization rate.” Companies can measure it by dividing the number of an individual’s productive hours in a week (or month) by the total number of hours worked. 

Average utilization rate = (Total productive hours / Total hours worked) 

Real-world example: A Chief Technology Officer (CTO) assesses billable time of team members regularly. He finds that one of the company’s programmers clocked 17 billable hours of client work across a 50-hour week. The programmer’s average productive time is 17/50 = 0.34. This programmer’s weekly productivity rate is 34%. The CTO flags this as a concern as the company’s productivity KPI is 80%.

3. Task completion rate

Task completion rate measures the percentage of assigned tasks successfully completed within a given period. This KPI shows how efficient your team members are at meeting deadlines. A high task completion rate is a sign that people have the resources they need to be as productive as possible, while a low one may indicate it’s time to revisit workloads.

Calculating task completion rate

To calculate this KPI, divide the number of employees who successfully completed a task by the total number of all who attempted it. Use this formula:

Number of employees completing task / Number of employees attempting it

Real-world example: A Chief Content Officer (CCO) has a team of 7 writers. Each was assigned a task of completing 15 articles per week. Only 2 team members hit the goal. The task completion rate would be 2/7 or 28%. The CCO uses this information to address potential issues or gaps that may hinder writers from meeting their KPI.

4. Quality of work ratings

While quantity is important, quality is crucial for long-term success. By regularly measuring the quality of work, you can identify customer or employee satisfaction issues that have the potential to become bigger problems if left unaddressed.

How to assess quality of work ratings

Unlike other KPIs, work quality ratings aren’t assessed via a standard formula. Instead, customer feedback and reviews help provide a fair measurement. However, companies could also choose to measure quality based on the number of errors made or defects in products or services. These errors may be tied to a benchmark. For example, a company may mandate an error rate of 10% or less. This number would be calculated based on the following formula:

Total number of projects – Number of projects with errors / Total number of projects = Work quality rate

Real-world example: A CEO reviewing work quality ratings of a team of internal marketing writers finds that the team produced a total of 500 pieces of content, The company set a benchmark of delivering 95% of all work without errors. Only 20 pieces containing an error. The team had a total work quality rate of 96%, exceeding this team KPI.

5. Efficiency ratings

If you want to empower employees to produce quality work, focus time is key. When people focus on important tasks for extended periods, the result is shorter deadlines and better results. By measuring efficiency, you can see when multitasking, notifications and other distractions get in the way.  

ActivTrak’s 2026 State of the Workplace report also noted that “…Focus efficiency dropped to 60% — a three-year low…,” which, when combined with an increase in collaboration time and more time spent multitasking, may point to more workers feeling underchallenged.

How to calculate efficiency ratings

Like the average productivity rate, measuring efficiency will require specialized software designed to track focused time versus time spent in meetings or on multitasking.

6. Projects completed

This is the simplest KPI, which is used to show how many jobs are completed in a set period. It tracks productivity in its most basic form, and is typically used to answer one of two questions: How many products is your organization producing, or how many services have you provided?

How to calculate the number of projects completed

To calculate projects completed, simply count the number of projects completed for each week, month, quarter or year.

7. Percentage of goals reached

Outside of the cumulative number of projects completed or services provided, it’s useful to compare this figure against the goal or benchmark. Doing so allows you to see if an employee or team is exceeding or falling below expectations.

How to calculate the percentage of goals reached

Uncovering the percentage of goals the team has reached is simple. To measure it, divide the actual achievement by your original goal and multiply by 100. 

Real-world example: A company’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) oversees the sales team and sets a goal for every team member to make 60 sales calls per week. The CRO discovered that one star team member made 100 calls, denoting that this salesperson was at 167% of the  goal (100/60) * 100 = 167%).

8. Revenue per employee

Another way to measure productivity is to focus on revenue per employee. This metric gives you a basic understanding of how profitably your business is running.
Generally speaking, the higher the revenue per employee, the more productive your organization is. However, this won’t take into account if some employees are more productive than others, so take this figure with a grain of salt.

Calculating revenue per employee

In order to calculate this KPI, divide the revenue generated over a specific period by the total number of employees working during that time.

Real-world example:  A CEO of a small company of 10 employees assesses revenue and discovers that the company generated $1 million in revenue for the year. In this scenario, the revenue per employee would be $100,000 (1,000,000/10=100,000). 

This number indicates that each individual generated $100,000 for the company over the course of the year. However, C-suite executives may need to dig deeper into data insights. The CEO can compare this output to annual salaries to better understand how each employee’s role impacted the financial bottom line of the company. For example, a salesperson who is paid $200,000 but generates only $100,000 for the company reveals that the company is paying more for the individual than they are generating in revenue for the organization.

9. Schedule adherence

Schedule adherence is a great way to measure team productivity. This KPI measures how closely employees follow their planned work schedules, ensuring tasks are completed on time and workflows remain efficient. 

This KPI is especially valuable for teams with structured shifts, remote work arrangements or time-sensitive projects. Low adherence can indicate bottlenecks, distractions or unrealistic scheduling. On the other hand, high adherence suggests strong time management and accountability. By monitoring schedule adherence, leaders can identify trends and provide the necessary support to keep productivity on track without overburdening employees.

Calculating schedule adherence

To calculate or measure schedule adherence, companies need a productivity measurement platform like ActivTrak. The analytics via ActivTrak highlight how often each individual adhered to their specific schedule and how often they got off track. Companies can look for productivity trends to understand work habits and identify employees who may be failing to adhere to company standards.

Productivity KPIs at a glance

FAQ

What are good productivity KPI benchmarks?

ActivTrak’s 2026 State of the Workplace report highlights how AI is changing productivity in the office. In an AI-driven workforce, key productivity KPIs may focus on percentage of goals reached, projects completed, and efficiency ratings. These KPIs can help companies understand if AI is making their employees more or less efficient. For example, AI deployment may reveal that team members are now more likely to hit their goals, exceed project completion expectations, and have more focus time. However, the data also could reveal that AI deployment has caused lagging productivity and a stagnated or unmotivated workforce. This data may help companies pivot to different tools or methodologies when embracing the AI revolution.

What productivity KPIs should remote and hybrid teams track?

Companies may prefer to assess schedule adherence, projects completed, and task completion rate to understand productivity of their remote and hybrid teams. These KPIs help managers pinpoint how many tasks remote teams complete compared to in-person teams. Understanding individual task completion rate also may be meaningful.

How often should you review productivity KPIs?

Each company may have their own preference for assessing productivity KPIs. For example, individual KPIs may be reviewed yearly or quarterly. Companies may review productivity on a monthly basis for the team (and each individual) monthly, helping them identify trends impacting profitability and overall productivity. Other companies may want a more frequent review, and assess these KPIs weekly.

What is the difference between productivity KPIs and efficiency KPIs?

While productivity KPIs measure the output produced (like the number of total sales), efficiency is a measure of the time, effort, and or cost. Teams can be very productive but also quite inefficient (if that output took more time than necessary).

Identify and measure key productivity KPIs with ActivTrak

Ready to elevate your organization’s productivity to new heights? With ActivTrak’s productivity management and measurement software, you can. We’ll track crucial workforce planning metrics for you, delivered in easy-to-understand dashboards. You won’t need to manually calculate KPIs or analyze the results — that’s what our real-time productivity management software is for. 

Request a demo to learn how to start generating detailed productivity reports today.

This article was originally published on Dec 28, 2023, then updated on Jul 29, 2026