Define productivity in the context of people in business.

• A. Output per hour worked
• B. Output per employee or per hour worked
• C. Total sales per day
• D. Hours worked per employee

Answer: (B)

Productivity here is about how efficiently people convert their effort into results. It looks at output relative to the amount of labor used. Measuring output per employee or per hour worked directly shows how effectively the workforce is turning time into goods or services: more output with the same number of workers, or the same output with fewer hours, means higher productivity.

This is better than total sales per day, which can be influenced by prices, demand, and marketing rather than how well the staff use their time. And measuring hours worked alone doesn’t tell you whether those hours produced useful output. So, linking output to the number of employees or to hours worked best captures the idea of how productive the people are.