Reports have emerged that employees are ‘task masking’ – appearing to be productive without actually doing anything – in response to tighter controls over where they work. But Andrew Wood argues that it points to a lack of trust that managers and HR can address.
HSBC last month warned UK branch staff that failure to comply with its return-to-office policy could cost them their bonuses. From Wall Street banks to British high street giants, there’s a growing sense that the great remote work experiment is being quietly wound down.
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Whether through incentives or ultimatums, more organisations are tightening the reins and asking workers to return to the office – not for one or two days, but often four or five.
But if the goal is productivity, then pushing for presenteeism isn’t necessarily the right path.
What is task masking?
Earlier this year, we started hearing reports of a new phenomenon labelled ‘task masking’, where employees – typically younger generations – perform the appearance of productivity without delivering meaningful output. In other words, they show up, they stay visible, they keep busy, but they don’t necessarily get much done.
While it’s tempting to view this as disengagement or immaturity, I’d argue it’s something more complex and systemic – a failure of trust and clarity at the heart of how we manage people in a hybrid world.
Much of the pressure to return to office life is rooted in pre-pandemic assumptions, particularly the idea that being physically present means you’re more committed, more collaborative, and ultimately more productive. But younger workers, particularly Gen Z, don’t necessarily see it that way.
Many entered the workforce during or after the pandemic, meaning they’ve never experienced the traditional nine-to-five, in-office conditioning. To them, productivity looks like clear goals, efficient communication, and results – not necessarily time spent in a building or face time with managers.
Visibility vs outcomes
When they’re asked to return to the office without a clear reason – and then evaluated based on visibility rather than outcomes – the natural result is performative work. And performative work, of course, is the very definition of taskmasking.
However, before we point fingers, it’s worth asking – is task masking that different from the quiet time-padding or meeting-hopping we’ve seen in offices for decades?
I’d argue perhaps not. What’s new is the context – a hybrid or post-remote world where the rules of engagement are being hastily rewritten, often without enough input from the people being asked to follow them.
At Willo, we’ve built our business around asynchronous hiring and working. As a global, hybrid team with fully remote members, we know from experience that great work doesn’t depend on location – it depends on clarity, trust, and shared goals.
We’ve found that trust is the foundational layer of any successful asynchronous or remote setup. Without it, employees start to overcompensate. They make sure everyone knows they’re online, they stay in every meeting, they reply instantly, even when it’s not necessary. They spend more time looking busy than being effective, just in case anyone thinks they’re not pulling their weight.
Crucially, this isn’t a Gen Z problem, it’s a management problem.
Questions for HR
The question HR leaders need to ask is not “Are employees working hard enough?” but “Have we made it clear what good looks like, and created an environment where people can achieve it?”
Task masking is something more complex and systemic – a failure of trust and clarity at the heart of how we manage people in a hybrid world.”
When productivity is measured by time-at-desk rather than tangible results, employees will game the system to meet those expectations – it’s human nature – and in a hybrid or remote world, that usually means replacing real work with visible work.
In practice, that can look like attending unnecessary meetings to demonstrate commitment; being ‘always on’ in chat platforms, extending tasks to fill time, and prioritising low-impact but high-visibility tasks.
The irony is that the people best equipped to thrive in flexible or asynchronous setups – the proactive, self-driven, results-oriented types – are also the ones most likely to become disengaged by micromanagement or outdated expectations.
If they feel they’re being measured on presence rather than performance, they’ll either disengage, mask their work, or quietly exit.
So, how can organisations evolve past task masking and build more meaningful engagement?
Strategies to build trust
Here are three key strategies HR leaders can implement:
1. Shift from time-based to results-based performance management: The more you measure by output instead of hours, the less incentive there is for performative work. Define clear KPIs, clarify what success looks like, and focus on outcomes. Trust your people to get there in the way that works best for them.
2. Reduce performative collaboration: Review your meeting culture. Are meetings necessary, or habitual? Encourage asynchronous updates where possible. Provide clarity in documentation. If employees don’t have to constantly perform their productivity, they can actually focus on being productive.
3. Lead with transparency and purpose: If you’re asking people to come into the office more often, be clear about why. If the value is collaboration, creativity, or team cohesion, then structure time in the office to support those goals. Mandates without meaning create resistance; purposeful design creates buy-in.
Task masking is less rebellion, and more reaction. It signals a lack of trust, poor communication, and outdated expectations, and if managers address those things, the behaviour disappears.
Our culture is built on a simple belief that being in the office doesn’t mean you’re doing your job – and being at home doesn’t mean you’re not.
The companies that embrace this mindset – and adopt flexible, asynchronous-first cultures – will be the ones that retain top talent and stay ahead of the curve.
Effective hybrid work requires a cultural mindset shift, and those who see it as a way to replicate the old rules in a new setting will fall behind.
But those who take the opportunity to rethink how we define work, performance, and engagement will find themselves with more motivated, creative, and loyal teams. Because when people are trusted to work well, they usually do.
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