85% of finance workers admit to faking productivity at work: survey

Finance and banking just topped an unflattering leaderboard. A new Software Finder survey found that the industry is the most performative in America when it comes to looking busy on the clock.

The 85% number

Finance and banking emerged as the most performative industry overall, with 85% of workers admitting to faking productivity. That figure was 34 points higher than retail at 51% and 19 points above the overall average of 66%.

Researchers surveyed 1,003 full-time US professionals, including remote, hybrid and in-office workers, to understand the frequencies, reasons and methods for faking productivity.

How workers fake it

They most often moved the mouse periodically at 56%, kept a decoy document or browser tab open at 56%, or slow-responded to non-urgent messages at 43% to simulate activity.

Use of mouse jiggers was significantly more common among hybrid and remote workers at 14% than among fully in-office employees at 4%, and was nearly twice as common at monitored companies at 13% versus 7%.

Why they are doing it

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. The blame, per the study, sits with workplace culture and managers who reward presence over output.

At companies that monitor employees, 63% say surveillance makes them more likely to fake activity, and nearly 1 in 2 workers who fake productivity, 49%, say the pressure to appear busy has contributed to their burnout or exhaustion.

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The market angle

The average worker burns 5 hours a week maintaining the appearance of productivity. For an industry that bills by the hour and prints headcount as a cost line, the 85% figure is a pointed argument for return-to-office hardliners and AI-driven workflow automation alike.

Expect the survey to be cited by both sides of the RTO debate, and by every vendor selling productivity monitoring, workflow AI, or agentic software to the C-suite.

Options market and stocks to watch

The read-through touches HR software, monitoring tools, and the big banks getting called out. Watch:

• JPM, GS, and MS: watch for renewed RTO messaging and any commentary on headcount efficiency into next earnings.
• MSFT: watch for Copilot and Viva analytics usage callouts as enterprises lean harder on productivity telemetry.
• CRM: watch for Agentforce demand narrative as firms pitch automation over headcount.

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