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A new report from workforce scheduling platform Visier shows that many workers indulge in “productivity theatre,” with some employees spending up to half a week trying to appear busy rather than getting any work done.

“At a time when many employers are taking steps to reduce costs while driving greater staff productivity, there is a risk that the added pressure on overburdened employees could result in artificial productivity, hurting both the organization and employees. workers. Whether motivated by fear of layoffs or burnout, employees may prioritize choosing tasks that are more visible than others over those that have a real business impact,” the report says.

What is the theater of productivity?

Visier points out that productivity theater occurs when employees prioritize performance work over more valuable tasks: “Here, performative work refers to activities that mostly create the appearance of actively generating products and value rather than contributing to significant business results. In small doses, this could be relatively harmless, but added up, it’s a real threat to a company’s overall efficiency.”

The platform surveyed 1,000 full-time employees in the US to better understand employees’ “productivity theater” habits and the factors that drive workplace decision-making.

Relevant data from the survey:

43% of employees spend more than 10 hours a week on productivity theater tasks
· Close to half of an organization spends 1.25 days participating in performative work
· 83% admitted to engaging in at least one of the most common performative work behaviors. The percentage stayed similar whether employees worked in a hybrid, in-person, or remote workplace.

Among the most practiced performative work behaviors are:

· Respond to an email or instant message as soon as possible, even if an immediate response is not required: 42%
Schedule an email/message to be delivered at a future time: 36%
Attending a meeting you didn’t need to attend: 36%
Keeping the computer screen active even when not actively working: 28%
Exaggerating when giving a status update: 9%
Beautify time card: 3%

7 in 10 respondents said managers use performative work, followed by their peers (39%), their department leaders (32%) and their company’s senior leadership team (29%).

The main reasons behind performative work behaviors are not necessarily exploitative: the lack of other work to do and the desire to avoid doing more work ranked last among motivators. In fact, most employees believe that their performative behaviors are valuable for both business and professional success:

It is important for my professional success: 64%
I want to appear more valuable to the business: 41%
I want to seem more valuable to my manager: 33%
· My colleagues also do performative work and I don’t want to be left behind: 25%
· I am concerned about the safety of my job: 19%
· I feel pressured by the culture of my workplace to pretend to be busy: 15%
I want to avoid doing more work: 8%
I have no other work to do: 6%

To avoid this practice, Visier says, employers should consider changes that encourage employees to prioritize tasks to deliver value, rather than show others they’re online and busy. Similarly, when it comes to implementing new initiatives that could see employees increasingly compare themselves to their peers, employers need to consider how they communicate and implement these programs, and intentionally measure the impact on motivation and well-being. of employees over time.

“The most important thing to remember is that every workforce looks different. To understand what will reduce performative work behaviors in your organization, first work to discover the feelings and motivators that already exist among your employees,” says Visier.

For more details about the study, click here.

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By Scribe