How much time employees say they waste trying to look busy

Your employees are performing productivity. No, really. As more employers focus on output during the “Year of Efficiency,” more employees report needing to feign productivity to please managers. 

Slack’s latest State of Work report released Thursday finds that employees spend 32% of their time on average dedicated to performative tasks that don’t directly contribute to their company’s goals. That’s approximately 12.8 hours of a 40-hour work week. The reason? Many workers point to the hyper-focus among higher-ups on employee output and the feeling that they always need to be on. 

They’re not wrong. According to the report, 60% of executives track activity metrics (everything from the number of hours employees work to the number of emails they send) to gauge productivity levels. It’s a move that actually proves detrimental. Only 15% of employees report feeling that such tracking aids in their efficiency on the job. 

“When I think about employees focusing on performative work, it shows me a lack of trust [among leaders],” says Slack SVP of research and analytics Christina Janzer. “It’s important that we take a much more holistic view of not just how to measure productivity, but how to drive productivity.”

Managers themselves say they struggle to inspire and measure productivity in the new world of work. Forty-three percent agree that motivating their team is a top challenge, according to Slack’s report. That’s why taking a well-rounded approach to productivity is all the more important, Janzer tells Coins2Day.

Employee experience, job satisfaction, and work-life balance all contribute to motivating employees. “We’ve done a lot of research about how important flexibility and focus time is. Having deep time to focus and do deep work really drives productivity,” she says. 

For HR leaders, it might be time to start lobbying for meeting-free days again.

Amber Burton
[email protected]
@amberbburton

Reporter's Notebook

The most compelling data, quotes, and insights from the field.

Hiring among private companies surpassed expectations in April, according to ADP's National Employment Report releasedWednesday. Private payrolls increased by 296,000 jobs, and annual pay rose by 6.7%, a slight deceleration in pay growth from the year prior. 

"The surge comes despite Federal Reserve efforts to slow economic growth and, in particular, to tame a powerful labor market that has added more than 800,000 jobs this year by ADP’s count." —CNBC

Around the Table

A round-up of the most important HR headlines, studies, podcasts, and long-reads.

- Employees are angling for bigger raises this year, while employers, fearing a recession, are trying to save on payroll. Wall Street Journal

- Recent tech layoffs and return-to-office mandates have laid bare a long-known secret: Workplaces discriminate against moms. The 19th News

- Goldman Sachs is preparing to settle a class action gender discrimination lawsuit for $200 million to avoid going to court. Bloomberg

- Intel CEO Pat Gelsniger told employees he wanted a better “balance” between in-person and remote work, urging staff to spend at least half the time in the office. The Oregonian

Watercooler

Everything you need to know from Coins2Day .

RTO summer school. PWC and Deloitte are offering training programs to help younger employees learn soft skills they may have failed to develop while working remotely. —Orianna Rosa Royle

Productivity theater. Some employees spend over 10 hours pretending to be busy, what some call “productivity theater,” according to a survey from HR software company Visier. —Chloe Berger

Mama, I made it. Some young people feel they’ve “made it” when they earn about $120,000 a year. —Orianna Rosa Royle

#MeToo lawsuit.  The bond giant TCW Group settled a landmark sexual harassment lawsuit out of court. The trial was scheduled to begin this week and expected to kick off a new reckoning on Wall Street. —Maria Aspan