Study Reveals Barriers to Team Performance — AI Model Delivers €3,418 Productivity Gain per Employee
New research shows how structural leadership barriers reduce performance — and how new Novogain AI unlocks measurable ROI.
A new national study of 227 HR managers and frontline supervisors from Finnish companies and social and healthcare organizations reveals a pattern that many leaders intuitively recognize but rarely quantify: organizations are structurally preventing their own teams from succeeding.
The findings highlight a decisive imbalance between traditional financial steering and the modern leadership capabilities required to maintain performance, wellbeing, and retention. To solve these obstacles, Novogain AI was developed — enabling every organization to apply the most effective development tools to improve productivity in a sustainable and measurable way.
Catch more HRTech Insights: HRTech Interview with Stan Suchkov, CEO and Co-founder of AI-native corporate learning platform, Evolve
The Five Most Significant Barriers to Team Performance
The respondents identified five critical obstacles that consistently undermine team effectiveness across industries:
Team leaders lack time to solve team problems (18.9%)
Management systems prioritize cost over people (16.7%)
Insufficient human leadership skills among supervisors (16.3%)
Leadership and well-being work is not implemented systematically at the team level (11.1%)
Lack of tools for systematic team development (9.0%)
Supervisors are squeezed between short-term performance pressure and a chronic lack of time. They know they should invest in people leadership, but the system pushes them toward firefighting.””
— Marko Kesti
These findings paint a clear picture: supervisors are held responsible for team performance, yet the organizational system makes it nearly impossible for them to succeed. Novogain AI was created specifically to solve these barriers. With it, organizations can now access the most effective leadership development tools and improve productivity in a sustainable, long-term manner.
“Leaders know what matters — the system doesn’t allow them to do it”
Leadership researcher and Novogain AI founder Marko Kesti describes the problem as systemic rather than individual:
“Supervisors are squeezed between short-term performance pressure and a chronic lack of time. They know they should invest in people leadership, but the system pushes them toward firefighting. When leadership becomes reactive, QWL drops, stress increases, and productivity declines.”
Kesti’s 20 years of research have yielded a human capital production model demonstrating how leadership behavior shapes a team’s effective working time, wellbeing, and financial performance. The study’s results align precisely with this dynamic: when QWL falls, productivity follows.
Turning Point: AI-Driven Leadership Support
To address these long-standing barriers, Kesti’s team developed Novogain AI, a research-based leadership assistant that builds a digital twin of each team. The solution analyzes team dynamics, predicts the productivity impact of potential leadership actions, and recommends the most effective strategies for both wellbeing and performance.
Unlike traditional leadership training, Novogain AI provides:
Real-time guidance tailored to each team
Evidence-based practices validated through reinforcement learning
Financial impact forecasts using the human capital model
Clear prioritization, recommending only 1–4 high-ROI actions at a time
“Leadership development often fails because it’s generic. Novogain makes it personal, situational, and financially transparent,” Kesti says.
Case: The Wellbeing Services County of Kainuu— A 3,900-Employee Systemic Turnaround
One of the clearest demonstrations of Kesti’s research in practice comes from The Wellbeing Services County of Kainuu (Kainuu), a major public organization in North-East Finland.
Over a two-year period, Kainuu implemented systematic QWL measurement and leadership development practices structured around Kesti’s research and aligned with Novogain’s methodology.
Performance Results
Team performance increased from 54.9% to 64.7% in two years.
QWL was measured across all 3,900 employees using a comprehensive, organization-wide survey
Direct Financial Benefits
The development program generated significant, measurable improvements:
€8.9M reduction in personnel costs
€2.1M savings in purchased services
€1.6M lower spending on materials and supplies
€0.73M reduction in disability-related payments
Total documented benefit: €13.33 million.
Impact per Employee (FTE)
To express the gain in a way decision-makers can benchmark across organizations:
(€M 13.33)/(3,900 employees) = €3,418 per employee
In practice, this means each employee generated €3,418 in annual value through improved leadership, reduced structural time (Ax), and stronger team functioning.
Operational & Safety Improvements
Beyond financial benefits, Kainuu achieved notable operational improvements:
Near-miss incidents were cut in half
Employee load indicators dropped to one-third
These changes reflect healthier teams, more sustainable work rhythms, and stronger organizational reliability.
“The Kainuu case shows that leadership development pays off when it’s systematic. When supervisors receive structured support and teams are guided with evidence, performance and cost improvements follow naturally,” Kesti emphasizes.
Read More on Hrtech : Digital twins for talent: The future of workforce modeling in HRTech
[To share your insights with us, please write to psen@itechseries.com ]