Should the CEO worry about employee productivity?

The obvious answer is ‘Yes’ but is that the right answer?

it depends on what you means by ‘worry about’.

The CEO needs to worry about ‘big issues’ - those that directly affect achievement of strategic aims and the overall mission.

Of course, productivity is important.  It is a useful measure of ‘future profit’, of competitiveness.  But is it a big issue?

Yes - but not at the employee level.

Even though the productivity of employees can be aggregated to the level of the organisation  it is not the determining factor of organisational productivity.  What matters is the productivity and effectiveness of the overall ‘system’, of the way various organisational components interact and interplay.

So, productivity is definitely an issue for the CEO - but at the highest levels where it does indeed directly affect achievement of strategic aim and the overall mission. Senior and middle mangers should then address the productivity of the various organisational components - functions, processes, departments, teams - so that productivity is build from the ground (shop floor) up.

The CEO then has no need to worry!