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HRKatha
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The theatre of work: When employees act busy to appear useful
- Many employees engage in 'task masking,' appearing busy without genuine engagement in their work's purpose, driven by a need for external validation.
- This behavior stems from deep-seated insecurity, leading to professionals expending more energy on appearing busy than being effective, resulting in burnout and disillusionment.
- Taskmaster-style leadership, valuing activity over outcomes, contributes to a culture where talented individuals disengage to avoid negative attention.
- Employees may gradually disengage due to routine roles, unclear career paths, or lack of recognition, resorting to task masking as a survival strategy.
- Conventional performance management proves insufficient in addressing disengagement; a shift towards psychological insight and substantive conversations is necessary.
- Managers must collaborate with HR to identify disengagement indicators, understand underlying causes, and reinvigorate their teams to combat task masking.
- Task masking, a survival strategy in environments rewarding visible time spent and physical presence, leads employees to emotionally withdraw while appearing busy.
- Cultural insecurity, hustle-oriented workplace models, and rigid expectations contribute to the prevalence of task masking over celebrating initiative and individuality.
- Managers play a crucial role in addressing task masking by initiating conversations, investigating underlying issues, and fostering honest communication to reignite engagement.
- Shifting performance measurement towards focusing on outcomes, creativity, and value delivered, rather than sheer activity levels, can help combat task masking and promote genuine engagement.
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