3 in 5 Workers Try to Be ‘Active’ Online Even While Not Working: Slack

• 63% of workers surveyed say they keep their status actively online, even when not working, per Slack.
• Employees spend 32% of their time on performative and busy work, per the survey.
• These findings come amid an ongoing debate about hustle culture and performative productivity.

About 3 in 5, or 63% of workers surveyed by workplace messaging app Slack said they try to keep their status “actively online,” even if they’re not working.

The same group estimates that over 40% of their meetings could be eliminated from their calendars without any real consequences, according to a study published by Slack in June. Slack’s State of Work report was conducted between February and March, surveying 18,149 employers and employees from nine countries.

Survey respondents said they spend on average nearly a third of their time on performative work that doesn’t contribute to company and team goals, per the report. Slack did not quantify how many employees said this. 

While employees may be feeling the burden of keeping up appearances, bosses, however, love busywork.

About a quarter, or 27% of leaders surveyed said the most prevalent metric for gauging productivity was “visibility and activity metrics,” the report states. This metric surpassed other measures like cost and achieving KPIs and goals, per the report.

However, the report’s authors found no direct correlation between employees feeling pressure to be seen doing performative work and real, measurable gains in productivity.

These findings come amid an ongoing debate about hustle culture and performative productivity.

Last year, Insider’s Reed Alexander reported JPMorgan was tracking its employees’ activities, even monitoring when they swiped their ID cards and how frequently they attended meetings. An employee told Insider at the time: “At JPMorgan, nobody trusts you. The higher-ups don’t trust you to do your job if they’re not constantly watching you in the office.”

This discontent with hustle culture even propelled  “quiet quitting” into virality. 

But now, fears of a taciturn economy and a looming recession have again put hustle culture back on the map, despite its links to burnout and detrimental impact on workers’ health, Insider previously reported.

According to the OECD, Americans worked an average of 1,811 hours in 2022, higher than the OECD average of 1,752 hours worked in a year.