Gen Z Workers Are Faking Productivity More Than Any Other Generation, New Study Finds
· Vice
For a generation with a reputation for doing the bare minimum, Gen Z really is putting in serious effort—just not where their employers think.
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According to a new study from Software Finder, 80% of Gen Z workers admit to faking productivity at work, a significant margin over every other generation. Millennials came in at 68%, Gen X at 58%. The survey, which polled 1,003 full-time American workers, found that 66% of employees overall have stayed online or remained active after finishing their actual work to avoid appearing unproductive — burning nearly 5 hours a week maintaining appearances, which adds up to around 32.5 days, or almost 7 full workweeks, per year.
The methods are, at minimum, creative. Moving the mouse periodically was the most common tactic (56%), followed by keeping a decoy document or browser tab open (56%) and responding slowly to non-urgent messages to simulate activity (43%). Mouse jigglers — devices that keep a cursor moving automatically — were nearly twice as common at companies with monitoring software than at those without.
A New Study Found 80% of Gen Z Workers Admit to Faking Productivity
That last detail is where the story gets interesting. Among employees at companies using productivity monitoring tools, 63% said surveillance made them more likely to fake activity, not less. Only 3% said it made them less likely. The intended effect and the actual effect are almost perfectly inverted. Workers at non-monitored companies still faked productivity out of habit — 43% did it even knowing nobody was actively watching.
The “why” comes down to self-preservation. More than half of workers (64%) said they intentionally slowed their work down to avoid finishing too early, because completing tasks quickly led to higher expectations. Workers most commonly blamed general workplace culture (27%) and managers who measure presence over output (22%). Managers themselves, when asked to explain it, pointed to fear of being seen as lazy as the primary reason.
Faking it takes a toll. Nearly half (49%) of workers who fake productivity said the pressure to appear busy contributed to burnout. Women reported it more — 53% said it contributed to exhaustion compared to 44% of men, and 44% said they worried about being called out, compared to 32% of men.
Gen Z didn’t invent this. They just grew up performing everything online, and it shows.
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