Good morning!
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 Fortune.
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
amber.burton@fortune.com
@amberbburton
