Managers are faking it even more than their employees.
It seems a growing number of people are pretending to do more work than they actually do at work.
While workplace performance art takes many forms and occurs for various reasons, one generation is outperforming others in its efforts to slack off: Gen Z.
“The average worker fakes about five hours per week,” the survey states.
A recent study of full-time American professionals revealed that 66% of employees admitted to faking productivity at work, and a staggering 73% of managers confessed to doing the same.
Gen Z has a particular affinity for this practice, outperforming older generations by 12 points in terms of slacking off. A whopping 80% of Gen Z respondents said they are faking productivity, compared with 68% of Millennials and 58% of Gen X.
The research from Software Finder uncovered a range of tactics employees use to appear productive when they aren’t.
The top two methods employees employ include “moving the mouse periodically” and “keeping a doc or browser tab open,” used by 56% of respondents. Another tactic, adopted by 43% of full-time workers, involves deliberately slowing down responses to non-urgent messages—known as “slow-responding.”
More than one-third of employees reported logging into tools they aren’t actively using, while about a quarter said they send strategic messages on work platforms like Slack or Teams to create the illusion of productivity. An additional 22% scheduled emails for later in the day.
This deception adds up to a significant time drain over the year. The survey indicates that the average worker fakes approximately five hours per week, equating to 260 hours annually—more than 32 full workdays lost when measured at an eight-hour daily rate.
However, it may not be the employees’ fault. More than half of respondents stated they finish their work at least one hour before the end of the day, meaning the rest is lip service.
Who are they faking it for? Over a third cited their direct manager as the reason, while another 31% said “no one in particular.” The latter trend reflects a growing phenomenon where workers fake productivity without a specific target—driven by workplace culture itself, which accounts for 27% of respondents.
The next leading reason was managers who prioritize presence over actual output.
