What is fauxductivity and why this workplace trend can hamper productivity

James glanced at the clock—just ten minutes left in his shift. He quickly clicked through tabs, typed a few lines, and scrolled through a report, making sure his screen looked busy. As his manager walked by, James nodded, pretending to be deep in work. In reality, he hadn’t accomplished much—just moved emails around, skimmed documents, and switched between tasks without real progress.


This is the essence of a new trend that has emerged in people, which has been given the term fauxductivity—the act of looking busy without actually being productive. The term derives from the words- ‘faux’ meaning fake or false and ‘productivity’ which means the act of being productive.




A 2024 study from Workhuman highlights a disconnect between employees and managers when it comes to fauxductivity. Through a survey, they found out that while 67% of employees deny faking activity at work, nearly half of managers (48%) believe it’s a common issue within their teams.

The phenomenon is not exclusive to first-world countries, every workplace promotes fauxproductivity at some level. Nikhil Kamath, the founder of Zerodha, pointed this out in his podcast with Kumar Birla, he said, “One day I was sitting in my office, and having this conversation with some CXO of our company, my brother, and a couple of other guys. And we all started saying this one after the other. One is like, okay, I pretend to work X hours a day, out of the insecurity of knowing that you are sitting in front of me and pretending to work. I don’t think I do productive work for more than maybe like 90 minutes and that would be pushing it. Most of what I do is pretend to work.”






The trend seems to have grown in recent times, especially when COVID-19 forced the world to work from home. With remote and hybrid work becoming the norm, flexibility increased, but so did the way productivity was perceived.




Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar India, Vineeta Dwivedi, associate professor in Organization and Leadership Studies at SPJIMR, explained this shift. She noted that productivity is no longer measured by hours spent at a desk but by tangible outcomes. This change has challenged traditional workplace norms, redefining how efficiency is valued in modern workspaces.

In an effort to understand why employees feel the need to appear productive, Visier conducted a survey in 2023 involving 1,000 full-time workers in the U.S. Their findings revealed- when businesses place heavy pressure on performance, employees respond by focusing on tasks that make them look busy and noticeable to management rather than engaging in meaningful, high-impact work.




The employees feel pressured to ‘look busy’ and thus resort to things like- constantly moving their mouse, keeping their screen awake, and picking up tasks to appear productive. While this might not appear harmful, it is ultimately killing a company’s efficiency.




Employees today are under extreme pressure, they are not just trying to balance their work and life, but also struggle with issues like burnout, disengagement, and dissociation from self. It is the responsibility of the managers to make an employee feel like a human and not turn work into a performative theater. This can only start when managers themselves can resist the urge to keep up appearances for the sake of being taken seriously.