Fauxductivity and Your Employees, The True Threat to Productivity

If you are an HR leader, you are responsible for driving organizational success. There is nothing more important than making sure your teams show up at their best. But what about when most of your employees are just looking busy, and they’re actually stuck in the cycle of fauxductivity? This is a problem that HR leaders need to be cognizant of.

Fauxductivity looks like but isn’t actually productivity. It is when employees are busy with tasks that appear and feel like they should matter even though the task is not in service of advancing any meaningful progress or strategic objectives. This can be a dangerous pitfall full of quicksand, particularly in some roles where constant communication is the lifeblood, and it feels like tasks come at you from every direction.

In this guide, we take a look at the ills of fauxductivity on employees, its detrimental impact on the organization, and how HR should respond.

The Rise of Fauxductivity and What It Says About Your Employees

These employees live in a world that praises “busyness,” and as such, may feel obligated to be consistently on the move to prove their worth. Whether that means they spend the day responding to emails, going from one meeting to another, or completing bottom-of-the-barrel tasks just so they can tick them off and say they are done, fauxductivity is doing everything that looks like activity, but real results are not guaranteed.

This tends to be the result of several standard norms in the workplace:

1. The Multitasking Myth: Many employees think that the more they can multitask, the more productive they are. Yet most of us multitask, and multitasking splits focus, resulting in sloppy work or missed deadlines. Studies have shown that task switching can decrease productivity by up to 40%. Employees seem busy – but they are all running around an off-balance wheel, going faster but not progressing effectively.
2. The Endless Loop of Emails: One of the worst offenders of false productivity is an email. How much time do employees waste every day managing their inboxes? Email is a core functionality but not always the most strategic. It is tempting to give priority to the most short-term object. Employees could spend the majority of their time managing their inboxes, and once they have it sorted, here comes more emails to manage.
3. Meeting Overload: The most typical form of fauxductivity is the “meeting culture” that prevails in many organizations. Teams spend their days buried in brainstorms that go nowhere, status updates followed by more status updates, and “catch-ups” devoid of actual follow-up. As much as some meetings are great, they can take away time from work mode.
4. Task Completion Addiction: Also, it seems that completing a small task is a dopamine hit for many, which means more time wasted on the small easy things rather than working on more essential projects. It gives the appearance of progress while not advancing the organization. Even when people look productive they could be focusing on admin and busy work to feel productive rather than the deep work that makes a difference.

The Domino Effect of Fauxductivity in Your Organization

Fauxductivity can sound innocent on the surface. However, this facade of productivity has the potential to do severe long-term damage to not just an individual’s performance but also the organization’s success.

1. Burnout without results: Burnout happens when one is frustrated and morale decreases. Slightly less dramatic, a fauxductive employee has likely worked themselves into the ground (or close to) from being busy every minute of every day without ever really doing anything of substance. Workers may think they’re being productive but lack tangible results, which can cause a decrease in job satisfaction and retention.
2. Missed strategic goals: The problem of awkward productivity is that employees lack a focus on the big picture. Fauxductivity steals attention and resources from urgent and important work that is necessary for the organization’s progress. Instead, important strategic projects, human resources development, or innovation often get sidelined in favor of smaller tasks and actions that provide immediate rewards but have zero benefit or impact in the long run.
3. Decreased efficiency: One could assume that by multitasking or participating in numerous short meetings, employees become more efficient. However, in reality, such practices create bottlenecks. Divided on too many fronts, employees lose an opportunity to focus, which subsequently results in a significant proportion of missed deadlines and a bank of important work that was not accomplished on time. Along with that, interruptions often lead to distracted employees who struggle to refocus. Which, in the end, leads to more time wasted and decreased productivity.

How HR Leaders are Solving the Problem:

• Encouraging focusing on high-impact work: HR professionals can assist their employees in single-handedly identifying tasks related to their key goals and prioritizing those over busyness. For instance, it is possible to utilize the Eisenhower Matrix which separates tasks by their urgency and importance; it will help employees spend more time doing what truly matters. They can also help employees create time blocks for undisturbed work.
• Reevaluate meeting culture: HR admins and organizational leaders should take a long look at the number and structure of meetings in the organization. They should determine if all the meetings are necessary and if they could be replaced by email updates of different collaboration tools such as Slack. By creating a meeting free time block each day or each week will provide dedicated times where employees can focus on tasks without the interruptions of meetings. Any essential meeting should have a well-defined agenda and actionable outcomes.
• Establish Well-Defined Strategic Goals: Employees are less likely to be caught up in fake productivity if they can see where their work fits into the broader plan of the company. Encourage the organization to once again communicate its priorities and how every division supports them. When employees feel their work contributes directly to how the organization succeeds, they are less concerned with simply being busy and more focused on the difference they make.
• Tool for More Efficient Time Management: Providing employees with time management systems and training can help keep them focused and productive throughout the day. Some of these tools could be time-tracking apps, project management software, and productivity tools like the “Pomodoro” timers to help your employees better structure their workday so they can avoid being distracted.
• Lead by Example: Your own behavior as an HR leader sets the standard for the rest of the organization. Show up with more behaviors you want to see: Do your high-impact stuff first, cut unnecessary meetings, and establish limits around your time. When employees see that leadership values the focused work of deep thinking over the empty busyness of shallow thinking, they will be more likely to do so as well.

Conclusion: From Busy to Productive

It might be all too easy to accept that fauxductivity is the way things are done elsewhere, and therefore must shape what “business culture” means. Through promoting employees to work on high-impact tasks, streamlining unnecessary meetings, and supporting your staff with the resources and direction for better time management, you can help your team go from being busy to being productive.

For HR leaders, it is essential to remember that real productivity is not about how much your employees do – it is about what they get done and how they help the organization move forward. Fighting fauxductivity allows for a healthier, more engaged, and more productive work.