Singapore has long been a country associated with its busy and fast-paced lifestyle. However, a new survey shows that looking busy does not necessarily correlate to productivity.
The survey found that workers in Asia spend more time appearing busy than actually working.
This includes the Little Red Dot, which ranks third in the world for “performative work”.
Salesforce subsidiary Slack and research firm Qualtrics uncovered these trends in their ‘The State of Work in 2023’ global study.
Source: Corinne Kutz on Unsplash
According to the Slack website, they surveyed over 18,000 desk workers across nine countries. They are:
Perhaps more relevant to our region was the finding that Asian workers reportedly spend more time appearing busy than actually doing productive work.
They term such work as “performative work”. Derek Laney, Slack’s “technology evangelist” for Asia-Pacific, said this includes time spent in meetings where teams present achievements instead of making decisions or addressing problems.
Source: Campaign Creators on Unsplash
Turns out, workers from India, Japan, and Singapore reported more time spent on performative work than the other countries.
The percentages of time spent on such work are:
Additionally, Singapore and Japan tied at the second lowest ranks for the time spent on productive work, at 63% each. India came in lowest at 57%.
Notably, 44% of Singapore workers relayed that their productivity has been affected as they spend excessive time in meetings and answering emails.
Source: Slack
The survey also showed that leaders at work are most likely to judge productivity based on what they can visibly observe rather than on outputs such as Key Performance Indexes (KPI).
27% of the executives surveyed said they measure productivity based on visual activity. However, 27% of workers said they wish they were measured by hitting their KPIs and goals.
As such, Laney noted, “This disconnect leads to wasted effort where employees try to show up well in front of their leaders.”
Across the survey, 63% of respondents said they try their best to keep their status active online, even if they are not actively working.
Along the same vein, a businesswoman in Singapore previously sparked discourse by saying that companies should let staff work shorter hours to get greater productivity and happiness.
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Featured image adapted from Colliers.
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