The Rise of Productivity Theater and How to Combat It

The Rise of Productivity Theater in Modern Workplaces

With the reduction or elimination of both office and remote work settings, employees and employers are debating what the true productivity in the workplace is and it is becoming very clear.

Some workers even used to use methods such as staying late or leaving their coat on their chair to make it seem like they were working hard, although the tasks they were given were already done with. However, during the time of digital communication and remote work, this way of doing things has changed into something else.

What was once considered "showing off" or "office politics" is now a new workplace norm called productivity theater, and it is unlikely to go away soon. Let’s get into it in greater detail:

What is Productivity Theater?

It is to be regarded as a productivity ramp where employees artfully weave between digital interactions to look more productive than they are. These actions can be anything from answering emails and messages really fast to going to useless meetings. After the normal work shift, slackers might send excessive texts at non-work hours to demonstrate wizardry while in truth, they've not done anything at all during the real working hours.

The idea drawn up by Visier, a workforce planning and insight company, is about a continuous process in which employees direct their energies to tasks that mostly just allow them to show their employers that they are busy rather than being productive.

Is Productivity Theater Only a Remote Work Phenomenon?

Of course not. As per the Visier survey of 1,000 U.S. employees, the ones working from the physical environment of the office are the most motivated to show their productivity. The main part of the group which is then followed by the hybrid and the remote employees are the ones which are coerced to increase the degree of their visibility thereby creating the impression of their productivity along the continuum of remote to pure physical workplaces.

The principal of research at Visier, Andrea Derler, said, “It's paradoxical. We'd anticipate workers in the remote region to be more motivated, however, the statement suggests that either cultural or performance management is the influencing factor.”

What Fuels This Behavior?

The need to show people that they are busy at work is not a recent phenomenon. The incidences of people facing work insecurity have become so prevalent that employees now have to exhibit that they are productive. Over one-third of respondents admitted to the fact that they really wanted their co-workers to be aware when they were working. Besides more than half of them expressed their fears concerning the performance dimension of their colleagues.

It can be understood from the facts that many employees not only want to impress their immediate managers but also recognize the need to showcase their contributions to peers and the higher management of the organization.

The Role of Digital Monitoring

The transition to remote work brought social networks such as Slack and Microsoft Teams to the main stage. However, these communication tools, while being essential to keeping team members close despite geographical distance, also opened the possibility of increased surveillance. Employees are scared that if they go offline, they will be viewed as the ones not being active at work.

Slack researchers have documented these developments. Christina Janzer, Slack's Senior Vice President for Research and Analytics, made a comparable argument. “We’ve seen the assumption by knowledge workers that being seen as somewhere (i.e. in front of your computer) is more important than getting the job done,” she said.

Shifting the Focus: From Time to Results

Rather than constantly counting the hours worked or the number of emails that are sent, the companies should encourage a culture where the results are the productivity criteria. The definition of clear goals facilitates the workers to allocate the most important tasks and concentrate on quality rather than the quantity.

Slack, for instance, has implemented things to encourage vendors who set a "do not disturb" session to hold the minimum level of interruptions and others that allow teams to work more efficiently by not having to send messages all the time to show their availability.

Surveillance Tools: A Double-Edged Sword

Regrettably, some companies are caregiving to surveillance tools too zealously by doing such things as monitoring productivity. The software that captures screenshots or the applications that track the active number of hours worked by the employees most often cause the negative trends in performance. The study conducted by Visier showed that those under surveillance are more inclined to put on the show - for instance, by keeping the computers active without working or by writing exaggerated competitive updates”

How Managers Can Combat Productivity Theater

The real problem is, to a large extent, a difficult feature living in communication. Managers should outline specific goals to ensure that employees are aware of (and are following) the demands. “In the absence of clear performance management, people often feel they can only be seen rather than effectively work,” he said, Derler.

Instinctively, the achievement-oriented-by-submarines culture shows up as such and thus helps to decrease the phenomenon of visible performance. Giving employees a clear understanding of what is to be achieved and providing them with the freedom to perform efficiently without the need of appearances can be collectively done by companies thus end the productivity voyeurism it.

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Reference: https://www.worklife.news/culture/wtf-is-productivity-theater/