Employees in the Asian region have been spending the most time trying to look busy at work, a Slack report has claimed. The report states that the Asian workforce has been found doing the most “performative work” compared to the workers from other regions.
The new global survey by Slack and research firm Qualtrics surveyed more than 18,000 desk workers, including executives, reported CNBC. The survey found that in performative work, employees from India, Japan and Singapore beat the rest of the world.
The survey defined performative work as trying or focusing to appear busy instead of doing actual productive work. Slack’s ‘technology evangelist’ for Asia-Pacific, Derek Laney, defined performative work as “spending a lot of time in meetings where ‘teams present achievements’ rather than making decisions or addressing issues.”
The survey noted that about Indian employees spent 43 per cent of their time on performative work. Following India, employees from Japan and Singapore contributed 37 and 36 per cent of their time on performative work, respectively. The global average for the same turned out to be 32 per cent. South Korea and the United States tied for the last place, with both their employees dedicating 28 per cent of their time to performative work.
While, for the percentage of time dedicated to real work, Japan and Singapore scored a low of 63 per cent each and India the lowest of 57 per cent, the survey stated.
Laney states that the way leaders measure productivity impacts the employees’ focus and dedication to appearing busy at work. He added, “Leaders are most likely to judge productivity based on visible activity instead of focusing on achieving outcomes. This disconnect leads to wasted effort where employees try to show up well in front of their leaders,” as cited in the report.
The survey states that the top choice for leaders to measure productivity across the world is through visibility and activity metrics, like the number of hours spent online or the number of emails sent. This can in turn impact employees to feel pressurised to work longer hours, attend every meeting and reply to emails at the earliest, the report added.
The survey further states that about 44 per cent of employees from Singapore (highest worldwide) stated that ‘too much time’ spent in meetings and emails affected their productivity. About 63 per cent of the employees surveyed stated that they try to appear active online, even if they are not working.
The survey found that workers wished for different productivity measuring metrics. They added that they prefer to be assessed through their conversations with their supervisors and the number of hours spent on specific tasks rather than activity metrics.
Laney added, “There is an opportunity for companies to explore new and different ways of working, such as … adopting asynchronous ways of working rather than meetings, to facilitate more effective collaboration at work.”
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More than half of the survey respondents stated that flexible schedules are the best method for employers to support productivity. About 36 per cent workers vouched for flexible locations, with unique workplace benefits and office improvements ranking lower at 32 per cent, according to the survey.
