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Task masking is the performance of looking busy or productive without doing meaningful work, often to avoid seeming unproductive to an employer. It can involve anything from unnecessary meetings to conspicuously busy behavior, but there is no established national prevalence rate or proven single cause. The label describes a workplace behavior—not a diagnosis, and not proof that any particular employee is avoiding work.
What task masking means
Macquarie Dictionary’s 2025 longlist defines task masking as “the performance of appearing busy or productive at work without achieving anything meaningful, especially in order to avoid appearing unproductive to one’s employer; performative busyness.” It was a longlist definition, not a claim that task masking was selected as the Dictionary’s Word of the Year. Macquarie Dictionary
The term is newly prominent, but the underlying behavior is familiar: making activity visible when someone fears that quiet work, spare capacity, or a lack of assigned tasks will be mistaken for poor performance. Related expressions include “faking productivity,” “pretend productivity,” and “performative busyness.”
What task masking can look like
SHRM lists behaviors people may use to appear busy, including unnecessary calls or meetings, loud typing, carrying a laptop around, moving hurriedly through an office, keeping extra browser tabs open, sending frequent updates, or maintaining a deliberately focused expression. SHRM
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These are examples, not validated signs of task masking. A meeting, message, open tab, or quick walk may be necessary work. An observer cannot reliably infer someone’s output or intent from one visible behavior.
How common is it?
Available estimates differ substantially and should not be combined into a single prevalence figure:
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| Source and measure | Reported result | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| SideHustles.com, 2025 | 78% admitted task masking; 1 in 5 said they spent 4–6 hours a week doing it. | A May 2025 survey of 988 employed Americans, part-time or full-time; 79% were individual contributors and 21% managers. These are respondents’ self-reports. SideHustles.com |
| BambooHR workplace trend report | 15% admitted task masking. The page also reports that 79% of in-office workers and 88% of remote workers feel a need to prove they are productive. | The page does not state the report year in the opened source. Its figures use different wording and measures from the SideHustles.com survey. BambooHR |
| Workhuman survey, reported by Employee Benefit News in 2024 | 33% said they faked productivity when in person; the figures were 38% for C-suite executives and 37% for managers. EBN also reports that 48% of managers said fake productivity was common on their team. | Related evidence about “fake productivity,” not necessarily the same question or definition as task masking. Employee Benefit News |
These results come from different surveys, samples, time frames, and question wording. The available pages do not establish why the estimates differ or provide enough common methodological detail for a like-for-like comparison. Treat them as separate snapshots, not a representative national rate. SideHustles.com respondents also frequently cited burnout and unrealistic expectations as reasons for masking, but that is a reported explanation—not evidence that those factors caused the behavior.
Why employees may feel pressure to look busy
No definitive task-masking study establishes a single cause. Research and expert commentary instead suggest several plausible workplace conditions that can reward visible activity over meaningful results.
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Presence and activity are easier to see than outcomes
When managers equate being at a desk, online, or visibly occupied with good performance, employees may feel pressure to demonstrate activity even when their work is complete or requires quiet concentration. A 2024 conceptual paper by Supriadi frames the behavior as performative visibility, productivity simulation, and output avoidance. It connects these ideas theoretically to return-to-office mandates, presence-based evaluation, and micromanagement, while calling for empirical testing and validation across work settings. It is a framework, not proof that those conditions cause task masking. Supriadi, 2024
Rigid rules and monitoring can create pressure
ITPro reports that, in Owl Labs’ State of Hybrid Work 2024, 38% of 2,000 UK-based workers and 46% of 2,000 US-based workers said their employer had added productivity-monitoring software to its tech stack in the preceding 12 months. In both country samples, 86% believed employers should be legally required to disclose monitoring tools. These are figures reported by ITPro from Owl Labs’ report, not an independently inspected primary report here. ITPro
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In the same ITPro article, Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt argues that task masking follows from rigid office rules that do not always align with productivity or preferred ways of working. Dropbox executive Andy Wilson describes it as “not laziness – it is a symptom of how work has been designed”. Those are expert perspectives, not study findings establishing causation. Wilson also warns that monitoring “measures motion not progress, and this can undermine trust.”
Work may be unclear, insufficient, or difficult to discuss
SHRM identifies possible factors such as micromanagement, disengagement, fear of skill gaps, anxiety, and a lack of meaningful work. An employee may have unclear priorities, too little assigned work, or a genuine barrier they do not feel safe raising. These are possibilities for managers to investigate, not conclusions to draw from a single behavior. SHRM
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How managers can respond
The practical aim is to make useful work and expectations clearer—not to catch people performing busyness. The following are management recommendations, not interventions with established task-masking effect sizes.
- Explain why in-person work is required. If employees are expected in an office, specify what the time or location enables and what they should accomplish there.
- Set outcome-focused expectations. Agree on priorities, deliverables, and timelines, then assess progress rather than visible motion alone.
- Use two-way check-ins. Ask about workload, unclear priorities, barriers, well-being, and whether employees have enough meaningful work. Make it possible to raise those issues without implying that spare capacity is misconduct.
- Address the underlying need. Where appropriate, consider flexibility, higher-value assignments, mentoring, courses, or workshops—particularly when a real development need or skill gap emerges.
- Be transparent and proportionate with monitoring. Explain what is monitored and why. Activity data alone cannot establish the value, quality, or impact of someone’s work.
What employees can do if they feel pushed to mask
If you feel you must look occupied to protect your reputation, make your actual work easier to see without manufacturing activity:
- Ask your manager to clarify the most important outcomes, deadlines, and how progress will be evaluated.
- Share concise updates tied to completed work, decisions, or blockers rather than sending updates solely to appear active.
- If you have spare capacity, ask about useful priorities or development work; if you are overloaded, describe the competing demands and ask what should take precedence.
- If office attendance or monitoring expectations are unclear, ask what the policy requires and how performance is assessed.
These steps can make expectations more explicit, but they cannot guarantee a particular employer response. They are ways to surface a mismatch between visible activity and the work that actually matters.
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