Employees in Asia are spending most time looking busy at work, says Slack report

What is really going on under the hood is this: in large companies, the vast majority of employees are unnecessary. They are kept on because having a lot of people underneath you in the org chart is a status symbol. The more people report to you, directly or indirectly (the latter being preferable because managing direct reports requires actual work) the more power and influence you have, and so people with a lot of people reporting to them tend to command the resources to allow them to accumulate more people who report to them. Actual productivity is a secondary consideration. Being docile and obedient are the primary qualifying factors because most employees are essentially pets for the powerful few, not much different from maintaining a ranch or an aviary or a stable of race horses.

I did performative work for a while. The company I worked for was purchased by another company, a huge national company.

The new managers had us submit paperwork detailing what our job duties were. I saw what was coming and simply didn't turn anything in. I slipped right through the cracks.

I ended up assigning myself tasks and variously worked with IT and engineering. Each group thought I was attached to the other group. I kept myself busy most days, but some days I'd surf the internet and essentially do nothing but keep my seat warm.

Most fun were two projects I started. I convinced management that our UPS was insufficient and that our SAN was trash. At my behest, what we ended up with was gigglingly massively overspecced and overpriced. The UPS got its own room and was stunning when it was finished. The president of the company even commented on how amazing it was. He looked at the new LCD screens on my desk and I told him they save piles of electricity over CRT's. Very shortly afterwards, every desk had brand new LCD's.

Not bad for a guy with no boss and no job title.

It's a bit clickbaity and disingenuous to say "employees in Asia", when South Korea comes in at the bottom, and the difference between Singapore and France/UK and the rest is just a few percentage points on a small sample (What's the error on the sampling?)

I put sometimes a mechanical watch under my mouse too. I wish, I don’t need to do this at my next job. It’s bad, but the work of my last 2 years was dumped into thrash by clever managers.

"The average employee has enough resources to do one of two things.

1. Be productive

2. Lie about how much is being accomplished.

All smart employees will direct all effort away from number 1 and towards number 2." - Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

Cultural norms at work... Productivity low but putting in lots of hours.

Seems like the world can go on without people working 40 hours a week?

The report gives the same main topic for France and Germany for example, weird to make the article about Asia. See slide 29.

> Performative work includes “spending a lot of time in meetings where ‘teams present achievements’ rather than making decisions or addressing issues,” said Derek Laney, Slack’s “technology evangelist” for Asia-Pacific.

This...does not feel performative to me?

Performative work is still very important work. It’s that which keeps those who actually matter happy, entertained, and feeling safe, secure, and comfortable. Dance monkey dance.

Bullshit Jobs was a good read on this subject, covering all things work theater-related and more.

The thing a lot of organizations do not appreciate is the distinction between needed labour capacity versus needed daily labour output.

Much like having a military or a fire department, your organization might need a lot of different people with a lot of different skills sitting around sometimes, just because you know that you will eventually need to use them.

Knowledge work is not the same as running a manufacturing line. You have people with highly specialized knowledge and skills who are needed intermittently to keep everything running smoothly. You can try firing them, but in a lot of cases it will end up costing you money in the long run.

I can't speak to other Asian countries, but in Singapore, it's frowned upon to leave the office before your boss leaves. You may be done with your work, but you don't leave until your boss has left.

Also, there's "kiasu" mentality - hyper competitive behavior in everything from work, school, etc.

Is it just Asia though?

Surely it's beneficial to get employees out of all these unproductive meetings so they can engage more on the Slack platform.

And it's no different in the west.

Someone should poll WFH employees.