The No. 1 challenge Fortune 500 execs say they're facing with employees right now, according to new research

Executives are more concerned about employee productivity than about getting them back to the office, according to new research from Atlassian. 

In September, the Australian software company asked 100 Fortune 500 and 100 Fortune 1000 executives what their biggest organizational challenge is, and nearly half (43%) said low productivity. 

Only a third of executives with an in-office mandate said they thought their in-office policies have had any impact on productivity. Instead, 76% of the Fortune 500 executives surveyed said they are more worried about how their teams are working than where they work.

It's not the first time executives have said they're worried that workers are getting less done — and evidence suggests their fears aren't unfounded.

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, productivity soared to levels not seen in decades.

But that surge was short-lived. In the first half of 2022, productivity plunged by the sharpest rate on record going back to 1947 and remained low until this past summer, when workers' productivity grew 5.2%, the fastest pace of growth since 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Although productivity is improving, bosses are still struggling to trust that their employees are working without constant in-office supervision, Atlassian's co-founder and co-CEO Scott Farquhar tells CNBC Make It. 

"People are still trying to adapt to remote work and managers, in particular, are still wrestling with that loss of control, of having someone sitting right there in front of them," he adds.

It's hard to assign blame for lowered output and morale. 

Some CEOs have pointed fingers at remote work, arguing that clocking in from home has made it easier for employees to extend less effort, but research