OBJECTIVES: The growth in the literature documenting relationships between health and productivity has resulted from the development of several survey-based productivity measures. However, some of the survey instruments have been developed for particular situations and contain idiosyncrasies that make it difficult to understand whether differences in productivity measures noted across studies are due to differences in the instruments that were used or the populations to which they were applied. METHODS: To address this issue, we applied two productivity instruments to the same employees working at a large telecommunications firm. Productivity metrics obtained from the Work Productivity Short Inventory and the Work Limitations Questionnaire were compared. RESULTS: The results suggest that acute, intermittent, or chronic conditions may reduce productivity by 4.9% to 7.1% (or by about $2000 to $2800 per employee per year), depending on the instrument. CONCLUSIONS: While the productivity losses seem comparable, they suggest different courses of action. The WPSI is designed to point to particular conditions that seem problematic, while the WLQ points to the types of productivity problems these or other conditions may elicit. Such problems may reflect difficulties managing the time, mental or interpersonal, output, or physical demands of the job. Given the different foci of these instruments, the results obtained seem complementary, and both may be useful for employers who are interested in estimating productivity losses and in learning where to focus their energy to help stem those losses.