73% of Managers Admit to Faking Productivity at Work: Study

A new Software Finder study making the rounds via the New York Post says the productivity theater is coming from the top down. The report found that 66% of employees and 73% of managers are faking productivity at work, with the average worker burning five hours a week maintaining the appearance of productivity — equivalent to 32.5 days or nearly seven work weeks a year.

For traders, the read-through hits everything from workplace software names to enterprise AI plays betting on measurable output.

The headline numbers

About two-thirds (66%) of employees and 73% of managers admit to faking productivity on the job, but that jumps to 80% for Gen Z workers, more than the 68% of millennials and 58% of Gen Xers who say the same.

75% of mid-level managers and 44% of directors and above copped to pulling the hustle and bustle hoax. In other words, this is not just a junior-employee problem.

How workers fake it

More than half (56%) of Gen Z workers confess to periodically jiggling their mouse or keeping a decoy browser tab or document open, while 43% deliberately delay answering messages that aren’t urgent to help them look busier than they are.

More than half of those who admit they pretend to be busy say they complete their work at least an hour before quitting time, while 22% finish two or more hours early.

Do you want to see how to make more plays? Do you want to find gains yourself?

Unusual Whales helps you find market opportunities through our market tide, historical options flow, GEX, and much, much more.

Create a free account here to start conquering the market with Unusual Whales.

Why it is happening

The study frames it as a pretense rooted in burnout, exhaustion and intense micromanagement from executives who value ‘visibility over results.’

If there were no consequences, 71% of respondents said they would log off immediately after finishing their work for the day. Employers usually combat tactics of fake productivity, such as mouse jiggling, through surveillance tools, but 63% said being monitored using productivity surveillance tools only made them more likely to fake productivity.

The AI angle

The rise of AI also highlights the arbitrary nature of the 8-hour workday, with 75% finishing tasks early. That is a direct challenge to the enterprise AI pitch: if workers use time saved to hide efficiency rather than take on more, ROI stories get harder to sell.

Yet 66% are given little to no direction with what to do with their extra time saved.

Options market and stocks to watch

Watch for reactions in workplace software, monitoring, and enterprise AI names tied to the presenteeism debate:

• MSFT: Microsoft owns Teams, Viva, and Copilot — the entire productivity-measurement stack. Watch for how management frames Copilot ROI on the next print.
• CRM: Salesforce has leaned hard on Agentforce as an output-based sell. A workforce skeptical of surveillance could shape adoption pacing.
• ZM: Zoom’s pivot to AI Companion depends on measurable meeting output, not seat time.
• NOW: ServiceNow’s workflow automation pitch is directly tied to trimming the fake-work hours flagged in the study.
• GOOGL: Workspace + Gemini competes with Microsoft on the same enterprise productivity narrative.

For more headlines, see other news.

Want more market intelligence? Create your free Unusual Whales account for options flow, market tide, GEX, and the full toolkit.