With employers forcing the office return, employees are pretending to be busier than they really are, in a tendency to “Taskmasking”.
After, there is now a new work trend to gain ground between generation Z – as more companies apply policies to the office, workers are adopt tactics of “Taskmasking” to seem occupied without being necessarily productive.
The trend, which involves actions such as Walk quickly through the office with a portable computer or writing aggressively on the keyboard to look busy, gain popularity in tiktok and to be noted by managers and human resources professionals.
A large amount of young workers entered the market when the pandemic demanded staying at home. With the return to the office to gain steam, it is now the first time many of them have to consistently move to the workplace instead of performing tasks in their own time and the privacy of their home. Now, physically surrounded by colleagues and superiors, they have to learn to visually communicate that they are busy.
The creator of content Gabrielle Judge, known as “Anti Work Girlboss“He recalled how his colleagues used to do” taskmasking, “looking busy when they weren’t working actively.
The techniques included concentrated look at the computers screens, the frequent shipping of emailsuse airpods to look like they are in meetings and get involved in small work related to work when they take a breakfast, explains the The Guardian.
“There is a lot of performance work in the office”Said Judge, stressing that the social pressure to seem occupied can be exhausting. “It’s exhaustive to have to wear a mask all the time at work. We were so tired when going to an office, even if it did nothing different from what it would do at home. It’s just tiredness that comes with the social exhaustion of playing a role, ”he says.
HR expert Cierra Gross, who previously worked on Google and ExxonMobil, stressed that Taskmasking reflects broader questions From the workplace, particularly the insistence on the physical presence in the office as a sign of productivity.
Even well -performing workers, who finish the tasks earlier, can resort to Taskmasking to fill the weather. “It is inevitable that there are people who Try to manipulate the system In all companies, ”he said, noting that the practice can be a response to the expectations of management and not a sign of sloppiness.
Taskmasking persistence can be reinforced by emerging workplace surveillance technologies. A study conducted in 2021 revealed that 80% of companies They monitor remote and hybrid workers, using software to follow online activity and even sensor technology to observe office behavior.
Despite such measures, Taskmasking offers workers a sense of autonomy, particularly for generation Z. “Generation Z has already done many steps from home, so the idea that work can only be done in an office It’s very distant”Said Judge.
