According to a new Asana survey, 67% of employees admit to engaging in “productivity theatre,” where they perform tasks to appear busy despite not doing anything meaningful. The survey shows that this is weighing heavily on a smaller group of workers, with 40% of high performers experiencing stress due to their colleagues’ over-dependence on them for productivity.
Nearly 72% of employees reported feeling so overwhelmed by their workloads that they have taken a day off in the past six months to cope.
“Many organisations are mines of untapped potential. People can become unmotivated if they don’t think their skills are being used in the right way, impacting workforce productivity and the desire to deliver meaningful work. Stress and burnout are often the result of people feeling undervalued, which can be caused by a lack of autonomy or ownership when it comes to an individual’s learning and development – leading to so-called productivity theatre,” said Jeanette Wheeler, chief HR officer at MHR for HR magazine.
Moreover, the survey found that 44% of workers struggle to track who’s responsible for what on their teams, with 40% working on the wrong task due to miscommunication.
In addition, another 70% reported that their managers were often unavailable or unresponsive when guidance was needed, and 59% felt micromanaged. Wheeler highlights the importance of HR working with business leaders to ensure employees’ skills are adequately matched with their roles, adopting a “match-and-gap” approach to boost overall workforce efficiency and well-being.