How Toxic Work Cultures And Systems Are Leading Managers To ‘Fake Productivity’

With about 22 million employed adults working from home, and 14 million working hybrid, productivity has been a major topic of both intrigue and contention. Managers expect results whether you’re in-office with them or not, and their methods of ensuring (or monitoring) productivity reflect their trust in your abilities as well as their response to their own pressures and responsibilities.

As a manager, you can tread a thin line between healthy supervision and annoying, inconsistent micromanagement, and if you’re not careful add fuel to the productivity fire. And managers themselves feel the pressures. According to Forbes, managers are often expected to do a lot with little, manage people and systems in understaffed or ill-equipped environments, holding the reins in what many have called a sometimes rewarding, influential but “thankless job.” Managers are often the first to blame when something goes awry, and sometimes the last to be congratulated when the ship is sailing smoothly.

All of this contributes to a problem on a different side of the same coin: fake productivity. It’s when professionals are basically “spinning their wheels” during work hours, giving in to distractions, doing “busy work,” attending or leading meetings deemed inefficient or “needless,” or excessively multitasking.

According to a Workhuman report, 37% of managers admitted to faking productivity, higher than the 33% average of all respondents. C-suite executives also admitted to participating in “fauxductivity,” with 38% stating that they do it.

“Managers especially are in the position to promote a workplace culture that allows employees to be human and say when they’re struggling—not turn to performative productivity,” Meisha-ann Martin, senior director of people analytics and research at Workhuman, indicated in the report. “Managers themselves need to resist the urge to keep up appearances and instead be vocal about when they’re taking a break.” 

Almost 70% of employees surveyed stated that faking productivity hasn’t impacted their day-to-day work. Researchers concluded in another study that it’s really “low well-being” that’s the culprit that negatively impacts performance. 

So, why would a manager feel the need to fake productivity? Many reasons point back to wellness and balance. Feelings of burnout, underemployment, “unrealistic expectations” and a need to simply appease the higher-ups all contribute to the practice of faking productivity. Distractions (56%) and personal responsibilities (40%) are also suspected reasons managers point to that might be behind the fake engagement.

Solutions are tied to a few major contributing factors: toxic office cultures and systems—often led by upper management, middle management peers, or executives—and work-life harmony. 

Fifty percent of respondents in the Workhuman survey said they’re expected to “immediately respond to all Slacks, messages, or emails,” and 52% said that they’re “expected to be flexible with their working hours to accommodate after-hours meetings.” This leads to anxiety and burnout since workers start to feel like they need to be “always on,” versus doing dynamic work that they enjoy in a pace and manner that’s efficient enough to get the job done.

From a decade of working in some sort of management capacity for various companies, here’s what I’ve found to be great starting points for managers to combat the desire or habit to engage in fake productivity:

Is that meeting with the entire team necessary, or could you have had individual meetings with the most important players for that specific project? What does sufficient engagement with your team look like? Do remote workers really need to “clock in” or do they need to simply get the work done and check in regularly during prescheduled virtual one-on-ones? Are the communications, sales, and project management tools you’re requiring your team to use the best fit for the type of work they do or the type of workers they are?

Are there better tech resources you need to invest in to make it easier for people to do their work and do it well? If money and resources are low, how best can you realistically maximize what you have instead of unfairly overextending those you manage? Do you need to personalize your leadership style versus simply telling people what to do or delegating management-related tasks to a third party? What’s your management bottom line?

Your strategy will depend on the company you work for, the nature of your job and projects, and how best certain platforms work with the personalities on your teams. I think a lot of company leaders forget that teams are actual humans, not automated robots, and that sometimes you have to pivot when it comes to the way you do business and how you interact with clients, customers and employees.

My mentor, an award-winning media executive who participates in body-building contests at 60-plus years old, once told me, “You have to be strong in order to be a leader, and if you’re not waking up, exercising, praying, and arming yourself, you won’t be able to handle the pressures of the job. You must bring your strongest self to work.”

I’m a big fan of work-life harmony (not to be confused with “balance”), a practice common for many of the top CEOs I’ve written about or followed. Another common thread among successful business leaders is participation in some sort of exercise or fitness activities.

When I started to really think about how my personal life played a role in showing up as my best self at work as a manager, I began to do things that affirm self-care and schedule on my calendar just like other important meetings. Even tasks as simple as taking a five-minute mid-day walk or having a 20-minute prayer and meditation session during my lunch hour get scheduled with a reminder, and the time is blocked out.

Therapy, networking, and seeking coaching is also important, since sometimes as a manager you can feel very lonely. These things can help with issues of perfectionism, hyper-independence, and inefficient conflict resolution skills that can lead to fake productivity habits.

If you’re working for a company that doesn’t prioritize employee wellness, balance, technological innovations, and efficient systems, you either want to be a change agent or get out of dodge. I’ve found that the rare times I stayed too long with a company that embraced or tolerated practices that didn’t align with my leadership values—where innovation took a backseat to a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses approach—I began to normalize acceptance of toxic management behaviors that can lead to fake productivity. In turn, those I’d manage would feel the brunt of it all. 

If you can talk with your management peers, find an advocate among the C-suite, and present solutions that actually work in terms of innovating the way in which teams communicate, the resources afforded to them to do their jobs well, do that. Partner up with other individuals to come up with innovative ideas that bring in more revenue so that the company can fill various gaps that will make everyone’s job that much easier. Find and incorporate realistic solutions that make the work quality better.

I mean, we all can’t just quit being managers. Great management minds and leaders are needed now more than ever.

But if you’ve found that you’re in a lose-lose situation, where you’ve tried to take up space, tried to forge change in reasonable ways, or the situation is just more stress than it’s worth in the long run, it’s time to initiate an exit plan and seek out opportunities and companies whose systems, values, and practices align with where you see yourself going in the future.

As a service-focused leader, it is not within the bounds of my values to stay at a company or continue working with a brand if I have the time or energy to “fake” anything, really. Not only is that counterproductive, but it doesn’t serve the greater good of my professional development nor that of the world at large. 

Fake productivity is nothing new. It’s an age-old practice and an ongoing issue in workplaces. While managers, alone, can’t fix all the systemic issues and remove all barriers that feed common toxic elements of our modern work world, we can certainly be part of the solution, advocating for ourselves, doing the self-work, and remembering our why.