Pretty sure that a big part of the reason for a decrease in worker productivity is due to the return to office, as people are less willing to work later hours when they consider time wasted commuting, as well as disruptions due to in-office conversations, calls, and other distractions like "team building exercises" or events.
Why is worker productivity slumping?
Workers in the U.S. have suddenly become less productive, and no one is sure what’s behind the slowdown. In the first six months of 2022, productivity — a per-hour measure of an employee’s output in goods and services — fell by the sharpest rate since records began in 1947, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The slump is mystifying, because productivity rocketed early in the pandemic as COVID forced people to work from home. Economists have several theories as to what could be pushing down productivity:
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers tells The Washington Post that many employees “were working unsustainably hard” in 2020 and 2021, and so some have now reduced their efforts.
Alternatively, the labor shortage may have empowered some employees to slow down — safe in the knowledge that they were unlikely to be fired — or to quit and take more-relaxed jobs.
Another theory is that “the link between hard work and reward has been broken” by remote work, resulting in a crisis of “cubed ambition," says Sinem Buber, lead economist at ZipRecruiter.
Posting on LinkedIn here at https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/why-is-worker-productivity-slumping-5477300/