Corporate life is built on a simple yet tragic misunderstanding—if something can be measured, it must be important. And so, the world of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) was born, where every single click, keystroke, and sigh of despair gets recorded, analyzed, and turned into a colorful pie chart.
Theoretically, KPIs should help us track progress, make better decisions, and improve productivity. In reality? They mostly help managers feel like they’re “data-driven” while employees master the art of looking busy.
Somewhere in a dark, windowless office, an overpaid consultant has convinced leadership that the true sign of a high-performing employee is:
✔ Emails Sent 📧 (because it’s quantity over quality)
✔ Meetings Attended 🎧 (even if you say nothing)
✔ Response Time to Messages ⏳ (even if the response is just “Noted.”)
✔ Percentage of PowerPoint Slides in a Report 📊 (even if nobody reads them)
And so, the corporate hamster wheel keeps spinning.
Measuring the Wrong Things
The real problem? KPIs rarely measure what actually matters.
For example:
❌ Employee Satisfaction – too difficult to track, so let’s just assume free coffee equals happiness. ☕
❌ Actual Productivity – butts in chairs = results, right? 🙃
❌ Innovative Thinking – just make an “Innovation KPI” and call it a day.
Meanwhile, the most important workplace stats remain ignored:
📉 “Number of hours wasted in meetings that should’ve been an email.”
📉 “Productivity drop after someone says ‘Let’s circle back on this.’”
📉 “Days since an employee questioned their entire career path.”
KPIs should be guiding lights, but instead, they’ve become corporate astrology—vague, symbolic, and mostly useless.
The Mastery of Looking Productive
Since employees know they are being watched, they’ve evolved. Now, the modern worker is an illusionist—skilled in the ancient art of “looking busy” while doing nothing.”
🟢 Marking yourself “Active” on Teams while watching YouTube.
🟢 Attending a Zoom call on mute while making a sandwich.
🟢 Sending one well-timed email at 9:30 PM so your boss thinks you’re a workaholic.
But hey, if your KPI dashboard is green, does it even matter?
Final Thought: The KPI Paradox
The most ironic KPI of all? The one tracking “employee engagement,” which mostly tells you how well employees pretend to care.
At the end of the day, KPIs don’t measure success—they measure whatever is easiest to count. And if leadership can turn those numbers into a feel-good PowerPoint for the next quarterly meeting, then mission accomplished.
