What is the ‘ghostworking' trend? Here's how a majority of burned-out employees pretend to do their jobs every day
'Ghostworking' — feigning busyness in order to fool the boss — is a phoney-baloney employment ruse on the rise.
'More than half of employees (58%) admit they regularly pretend to be working,' study authors from Resume Now, an online job-hunting hub, revealed in a new report.
5 More than half of today's US workforce admits to pretending to be busy at work, according to new data.
stokkete – stock.adobe.com
'From fake meetings to typing nonsense,' the insiders continued, 'employees are getting creative to maintain the illusion of productivity.'
It's a fake-it-til-you-make-it to 5 p.m. type of trend.
And when falsifying hustle and bustle grows stale, a staggering 92% of staffers search for other employment opportunities while on the clock.
But ghostworking isn't simply an effect of employee entitlement or Gen Z laziness. Instead, it's a craze born out of corporate confusion.
5 Due to burnout, a lack of direction and ineffectual leadership, most workers feel they need to pretend to look busy while in the office.
YURII MASLAK – stock.adobe.com
5 Folks who feel burned out by their jobs have gone to extreme lengths to fake engagement.
praisaeng – stock.adobe.com
'With burnout, career uncertainty and remote work blurring boundaries, employees are increasingly exploring new opportunities during the workday,' noted the experts.
They surveyed 1,100 workers across the U.S. to find that office pressures and micromanagement, as well as a lack of meaningful tasks and unclear expectations, all contribute to the viral movement.
To keep up appearances, 23% of ghostworkers walk around the office with a notebook, while 22% randomly type gibberish on their keyboards, simulating legitimate effort.
A whopping 15% of the fraudsters have held phones to their ears with no real call. Another 15% keep spreadsheets open while browsing unrelated content. However, only 12% have scheduled fake meetings to avoid real work.
Go-getters searching for their next gig — a startling 24% of respondents — use company time to edit their resumes, while an even bolder 23% apply to new positions on work-issued computers, and 20% take recruiter calls from the office.
The bravest (or most brazen) of them all are the 19% of wheelers and dealers who actually sneak out of their cubicles to interview with other companies.
5 The investigators found that 9-to-5ers often pretend to be on work-related phone calls to feign productivity.
FS-Stock – stock.adobe.com
5 An eye-popping number of employees use their job-issued devices to apply to other jobs during work hours.
Art_Photo – stock.adobe.com
However, rather than overwhelming ghostworkers with extra surveillance in an attempt to right their wrongs, researchers suggest a much more effective solution.
'[Balance] accountability with autonomy,' they advised managers, supervisors and executives. '[Give] employees the tools and trust they need to actually be productive, not just look busy.'
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