Ever left Slack open on your laptop while you go for a toilet or a coffee break so your status still shows green? Or noticed your manager heading towards you in the office so quickly switched screens to make it look like you’re busy? Or maybe you’ve got a tad further in a bid to look busy and even scheduled emails to be sent out of hours so your manager thinks you’re REALLY putting the hours in?
If you’ve done anything like that then you have engaged in the practice of “productivity theatre.”
What is it? Why does it happen? And how can you stop happening in your workplace?
What is productivity theatre?
Productivity theatre is basically when someone focusses on performative tasks over and above tasks that have meaningful value.
In other words, their focus is on looking busy rather than on being productive.
Productivity Theatre Examples
Perhaps the best way to explain this is with some examples!
- A remote worker is taking a 20 minute break but keeps occasionally moving their mouse so they still look online
- Staying late in the office even if you’ve done what you need to do that day just so you look like you’re working really hard
- Attending a Zoom meeting that you perhaps don’t need to be at when you could be doing other work, but knowing that being on the Zoom meeting is more visible to your boss
- Deliberately responding to or sending digital communications out of hours again for the benefit of looking like you’re working really hard
- Exaggerating hours spent on a task in a time tracking system
We all engage in productivity theatre to some degree
“How are things?”
“Oh, really busy…”
I bet almost all of us have responded to a “how are thing?” question from a colleague or manager telling them we are busy.
It’s almost just a habit. After all, you wouldn’t want to tell your colleagues you’re not busy, right?
And we’ve all made an effort to make our business value more visible in work – whether that’s through going a step further than you need to in your work, taking on duties you’re not paid for or making that extra effort to respond to emails super quick to make an impression.
There’s an element of productivity theatre that is tied into an innate human desire to be liked and valued.
And actually, in small doses, productivity theatre isn’t something we necessarily need to be worried about in our own businesses.
But when it becomes a HUGE thing people focus on, it can have a phenomenally detrimental impact on productivity and outputs.
How common is productivity theatre and why do people do it?
Very. According to a recent survey by Visier, some employees spend almost half their week on tasks designed to make them look busy.
The study found that 43% of US workers spend 10 hours a week on performative tasks.
10 hours!
And their reasons probably resonate with many of us:
- 64% believe it’s important to their professional success
- 41% want to appear more valuable to the business
- 33% want to appear more valuable to their manager
- A quarter do it because their peers do and they don’t want to “fall behind”
- 19% do it because they’re concerned about their job security
- 15% feel pressured by the workplace culture to feign “busyness”
How to avoid productivity theatre
I’m not entirely sure you can avoid it altogether unless you stop hiring humans and replace them all with robots.
And, well, I’ve played with AI a lot now and I’m still not convinced I want it for a colleague!
But one thing we should be focussed on is reducing productivity theatre in any way we can. I’m no psychologist or HR pro. But from my own experiences as both an employee and an employer, here are some things that I think help:
- Try and stamp out any elements of reward for long hours. If your team is working long hours or regularly working outside their contracted hours, make it your job to notice, to ask why and to take steps to stop that. Make it clear to your team that you don’t expect that from them and don’t want that.
- Actively encourage work life balance. Flexible working (location and hours wherever feasible) is one way to do it. Perks that encourage healthy non work pursuits like gym members are another way.
- Lead by example. It’s all good telling your employees that you don’t want them working crazy hours but if they see you on it constantly, then it sets the scene for what’s expected (even if unintentionally). If you need, as the boss, to pull a few long nights, don’t make it visible to your team. If you are working out of hours and sending digital communications like emails to staff, schedule it to go in the morning instead of out of hours. This also reduces any pressure they might feel to respond out of hours
- Ditch the time tracking. Urgh. I know it’s not possible for everyone in every business. But by it’s very nature, having people log hours basically says you’re measuring them on hours and not on the quality of their output.
- Measure people on sensible goals. If you measure how many hours someone worked, you encourage them to make it look like they worked more hours. Sit down and look at your business goals, how to achieve them and the role your team plays – then come up with objectives that encourage them to contribute to goals rather than just clock up hours.
