2024 Executive Productivity Report

About the Report

The 2024 report is based on our fourth annual Executive Productivity Survey which we sent to 600 high-income executives in December 2023 to identify key trends among senior management and highly effective people.

Energizing Productivity in 2024

When we compared data from our 2023 survey to previous years, these productivity insights stood out:

• Fewer executives think working in the office boosts productivity. Since 2021, the number of executives who believe they are more productive in the office has fallen from 79% to 56%.
• Executives in permanently remote positions jumped from 9% in 2022 to 47% in 2023. As more executives work from home, their needs will change.
• Administrative work is a top productivity buster, according to respondents. More than half cite it as the area with which they need most help.
• Just over half of respondents are already using AI to offload busy work. They’re using AI for administrative work that eats up their time and steals their focus from high-value work.

A Word From Our Founder 

The view that working from a traditional office automatically equates to higher productivity compared to remote work has eroded in many business leaders minds. This year's Prialto Executive Productivity Report, based on a comprehensive survey of high-level leaders, reveals fascinating trends in this evolving landscape.

One major challenge? Administrative tasks. These mundane burdens, cited as the biggest productivity drain by many executives, steal valuable time and focus. However, a powerful solution is emerging: artificial intelligence. Many executives are already leveraging AI to automate routine tasks, freeing themselves to tackle strategic initiatives.

These shifts highlight a crucial message: flexibility, strategic focus, and AI-powered efficiency are the new cornerstones of executive success. This year’s report delves deeper, offering actionable insights for navigating this changing landscape and empowering leaders to reach new heights of productivity. Tune in, business leaders, as we unlock the secrets of the modern executive office.

- Eric Taussig, Founder and CEO of  Prialto 

 

Office or home: does work location really matter?

In 2023, the majority of respondents (78%) worked from the office at least some of the time. A full 42% worked from the office on a full-time basis, down from 48% in 2022. Thirty-seven percent chose a hybrid option, a slight downtick from 38% the year before.  

For the second year in a row, the top reason for choosing to work from the office was to improve productivity. Yet, confidence that productivity increases in the office seems to be waning. In 2021, 79% of respondents believed they could be more productive in the office. That dipped to 61% in 2022 and to 56% in 2023.

Those who continued to work remotely fulltime cited increased productivity, better work-life balance, and the lack of a commute as their reasons for doing so; but for many, they simply didn’t have the option to head back to an office.

Remote work makes a giant leap

In 2022, roughly 9% of executives were in a permanently remote position. That number skyrocketed to 47% in 2023, indicating that work-from-home is here to stay, if not gaining speed.

Last year, we continued to see evidence that fewer and fewer executives believe that working in the office is better for their productivity, if they even have an option to work from an office.

Still, we’re also seeing a decline in how fully remote executives view their work-from-home productivity. In 2021, more than half (56%) thought working from home would improve their productivity, but that number dropped to 46% the following year and experienced another drastic decrease to 37% in 2023.

Key Takeaway: Where executives work is less of an influence on their beliefs about productivity than in the past, as fewer fully remote and full-time office workers believe their respective work locations will benefit their productivity.

Productivity strides are steady—but there’s room for improvement

When we first started conducting the study in 2021, an impressive 84% of respondents were satisfied with their current levels of productivity. Since then, they’ve reported steady improvements. Roughly in line with 2022, in 2023 61% of respondents felt their productivity had improved, 27% felt it had stayed the same, and only 12% felt it had declined.

While the numbers are promising, they also show that more than a third of executives could benefit from tools and resources that drive productivity, starting with eliminating some key productivity barriers many executives face.

From 2022 to 2023, the number of respondents who felt meetings and their ability to concentrate were their biggest barriers to productivity decreased. That said, we saw an uptick in the number of executives who believe administrative tasks and stress were impacting them the most.

In 2023, 51% (up from 47% in 2022) felt stress was their biggest productivity blocker. Additionally, 42% of respondents (also up from 38% in 2022) cited administrative tasks and busy work as their biggest productivity blocker.

In fact, when asked which tasks they need most help with, respondents said administrative tasks (53%, up from 50% in 2022) was their chief need.

Mundane busy work pulls executives away from high ROI work

Of the tasks that executives least like doing, bookkeeping (49%), scheduling meetings (45%), and responding to requests for information (35%) rounded out the top three. When asked why they are doing those tasks themselves, a resounding 73% said it was vital to keep the business running.

When asked why they weren’t delegating these tasks, the responses were grim, with 42% saying they lacked the confidence that someone else could do the task and 34% not feeling they have the time to find and train a reliable person. 

An overwhelming list of to-dos—many of which they shouldn’t be doing anyway—is likely having an impact on executives’ stress levels, which further degrades productivity.

Executives hope the right mix of people, tech, and tools will bolster productivity

To help them be productive, executives rely heavily on people. The data has been relatively consistent since we began our research in 2021, with colleagues and peer leaders being at the top of the list executives rely on to help them be productive.

Over the three years, relying on virtual assistants has fluctuated from 25% in 2021 to 35% in 2022 and back down to 28% this past year. This will be a trend worth watching, given the rise in executives who are now permanently in remote positions and can rethink who they hire to assist them with everyday tasks.

Executives remain strongly invested in productivity tools and apps

In the three-year span from 2021–2023, the number of respondents who actively or sometimes seek out new productivity tools has been in the 80% range, showing that there is strong and consistent appetite for solutions that can help them work more efficiently and effectively.

A surprising move away from productivity systems

In 2023, we saw a drastic decline from 67% in 2022 to just 35% in 2023 of the number of respondents who adhere to productivity systems. This is a trend worth watching to see if it is a fluke or if people generally are moving away from these systems.

Key takeaway: Improving their own productivity remains a top priority for the executives surveyed, although in a surprise fewer report using a productivity method vs. previous years.

Artificial intelligence: a rising force in productivity tools

A new metric we began tracking this year is how executives are using AI. Usage was nearly split down the middle, with 51% saying they are already using AI to enhance productivity and 49% not using it at all.

Those who are using it have found it useful for time-consuming productivity killers, including scheduling, generating reports, creating to-do lists, completing repetitive tasks, conducting research, and drafting emails.

Key takeaway: AI has already become indispensable for more than half of executives survey. As its ability to quickly perform tasks simple and complex grows more powerful, we can confidently predict this number will rise in short order.

Conclusion

As executives navigate the continually evolving, increasingly complex hybrid workplace, they’ll need to rely on the right balance of people, processes, and technology to meet the requirements of the job and needs of the company.

AI is poised to offer a lifeline and help alleviate (some) workloads significantly. However, they’ll also need to focus more on delegating administrative tasks and busy work that too often steals their time and keeps them from focusing on big-picture, ROI-driving work.

Demographics of the Study

About Prialto 

Prialto is a managed virtual assistant service, providing support for high-level executives throughout the US and parts of Europe. We are a values-driven company, bridging the need for good job opportunities in places like Guatemala and the Philippines with the need for reliable professional administrative support.   
 
Prialto is different than other virtual assistant (VA) services in that it hires, trains, and manages assistants instead of simply matching contractors with employers.

This ensures that workers are treated fairly, and also means that service is continuous thanks to the availability of back-ups when an individual VA gets sick, on vacation, or leaves Prialto. 
 
The security provided by our managed service saves members hundreds of hours and many more dollars that they would otherwise have to spend on hiring and training new assistants. Because we provide fractional support, our service is also much more affordable than hiring in-house administrative assistants.    

Download Our Past Reports

2022 Prialto Executive Productivity Report

2021 Prialto Executive Productivity Report

2020 Prialto Executive Productivity Report