Similarly, in the drive to make teams more productive and cohesive, there might be an expected dip in the happiness of employees. These contradictions leave business leaders (particularly in the SaaS and tech space where product development is critical) grasping at a dream team that is happy, productive, and delivering quality output – unable to put all three together.

The good news is that, while these presumptions are widespread, there’s no evidence that you can’t have it all. For businesses, particularly high-growth technology businesses, achieving the much-sought-after trio of having a happy workforce, high levels of productivity and exceptional quality in their products or services is not an impossible task, but rather a delicate balancing act.

The relationship between productivity and happiness

A newer adage: productivity at the cost of well-being is a false economy. Any efficiency gains at the cost of heaped pressure and out-of-hours grafting will lead to burnout and team-wide misery. Surely, then, the lesson here is that productivity and happiness are inversely correlated?

Decidedly not. Research from Oxford University has already shown that happy workers are 13% more productive, and while the subject is multifaceted, it comes down to working smarter rather than harder.

Trying to force-start greater productivity without addressing the flaws in the workflow – uneven workloads, quality assurance (QA) roadblocks, output measuring – causes pressure to build up that will result in flare-ups, exhaustion, and ultimately unhappy workers.

Teams that can work with autonomy, clarity and purpose will make better decisions, hold quality lines better, and, crucially, enjoy greater team harmony and satisfaction.

For founders and leadership teams, then, the real challenge is fixing the necessary flaws to make this possible. And that is no mean feat; high-growth businesses can often be extremely busy, intense environments.

Embracing tech without killing morale

For product-led scaleups, the answer to this problem often lies in adopting more tech. The prospect of a new project management tool like Asana or Jira being hoisted upon them might cause some employees to stiffen, but when implemented thoughtfully, the right technology solution can be a huge support, rather than a burden.

Any project management platform can provide structure and transparency when used well, especially among remote or hybrid teams, but finding the right solution for each business is not guaranteed. This is the essence of the balancing act – finding the right pieces to solve a unique puzzle. Indeed, many organisations will have tried project and workflow management tools; each has its own strengths and weaknesses, so it can take time to find the best possible fit.

At Studio Graphene, we have teams across four countries (UK, Switzerland, Portugal and India) working on dozens of projects at a time. Remote and disparate developers and project managers, combined with the ever-present pressure of needing to maximise efficiency and quality, have meant we’re constantly seeking the best possible tools to support us in our work. Jira, for instance, has proven useful in allowing us to monitor linear progress when developing a new product, as well gaining visibility over who has ownership of each part of the process. However, Jira (and other similar solutions) were not ticking all the boxes we needed them to; issues in the product development lifecycle were not spotted fast enough, monitoring efficiency was nigh-on impossible, and identifying roadblocks during a project was very difficult.

The remedy to this headache? We actually developed our own proprietary technology platform to enhance project delivery: Pulse. And to be clear, this is not a sales pitch. Pulse has been developed purely for our own internal use. But the point here is that scaleups must find the right technology that empowers employees while also making teams more productive and improving the end product.

Bringing together the best and most-useful features of platforms like Jira, Asana et al, Pulse is designed specifically for digital product development, tracking and measuring performance across every stage of a product’s development lifecycle. This gives us a top-down view of the entire workflow, providing a roadmap to a structured and sustainable delivery engine that allows teams to prioritise quality and efficiency without unnecessary standards and protocols breathing down their necks.

Tight feedback loops, clear priorities, frictionless workflows – these are not just buzzwords, but the end goal of any product team that is pulling together and delivering quality outcomes. 

Any solution that boosts productivity at the cost of well-being is, indeed, a false economy. The task facing a successful founder is finding a solution that can boost both.

A careful balancing act

There’s no denying that getting this particular balancing act right is a challenge – but business leaders are always walking a fine line between success and disappointment as they look to create great products while nurturing productive, happy teams. The most resourceful among them will look for help from without, but the proliferation of AI tools in recent years raises the question of how things can be made quicker and easier, but not always better.

Tech can help in developing a delivery engine that is fast, focused, and sustainable, but those solutions cannot come at the cost of happiness. You can treat your team like the gears in a formidable machine, but you run the risk of grinding them down until they are spent, unless you keep the machine well-oiled.

Implementing the right tech is the key to making a workforce more productive while driving up quality in the process.  But to keep staff happy, they have to buy in, understanding how the tech supports them rather than it being a burden. That is the journey we have been on with Pulse, and it remains a fundamental challenge for any scaling business in the tech space.