When Employees Pretend to Work, It’s a Culture Problem. Not a People Problem.
According to Resume Now’s 2025 Ghostworking Report, 58% of workers say they regularly pretend to work. Another 34% admit they do so occasionally. That means a staggering 92% of employees are faking productivity at least some of the time.
They’re walking around with notepads, typing gibberish, faking meetings and phone calls. Some even apply for new jobs on company time. On the surface, this might look like a motivation issue. But if you zoom out, the reality is much deeper, and more dangerous.
This isn’t about bad employees. It’s about broken cultures.
The Hidden Cost of “Ghostworking”
The term “ghostworking” refers to performative effort, appearing busy without actually producing meaningful results. And while the behaviors may seem like office comedy tropes à la The Office, they signal something serious:
- A breakdown in trust.
- A culture focused on surveillance over substance.
- A leadership approach that values appearance more than impact.
This isn’t just a quirk of remote work either. The same survey shows 47% of workers say they waste more time at home, but 37% say they waste more time in the office. In other words, location isn’t the problem. Culture is.
What Most Leaders Get Wrong
When issues like this surface, most leaders follow the same pattern:
- They double down on control: micromanagement, more check-ins, stricter performance reviews.
- They bring in hype: motivational speakers, high-energy team-building days, pizza Fridays.
- They obsess over face time: pushing for return-to-office policies under the illusion that proximity drives performance.
But none of these address the root problem.
Why?
Because they don’t help people feel seen, connected, or mission-driven. They simply amplify the pressure to perform, and people respond by getting better at faking it. When employees are treated like machines to monitor rather than humans to develop, disengagement becomes self-protective. Performative work is the symptom. Insecure leadership is the cause.
Why Traditional Leadership Development Falls Short
Most leadership development efforts fail for the same reason ghostworking spreads: they treat symptoms, not causes.
They offer new tools, models, and language, without ever addressing the leader’s inner world. They may improve short-term behaviors, but they don’t drive lasting change because they don’t address the mindset behind the behavior.
You can’t fix a culture problem with surface-level interventions.
You can’t build trust with team-building days.
You can’t stop performative work with performance reviews.
And you can’t develop impact-driven teams with leaders who are still driven by fear.
What Actually Works: A Systemic, Mindset-Driven Shift
At SightShift™, we’ve worked with leaders across Fortune 100 companies, high-growth firms, and family businesses. And we’ve seen the same truth play out across industries: You can’t force culture. You grow it from the inside out, starting with leadership.
That’s why the SightShift Leadership Operating System™ (LOS) focuses on transformation at the root level. Instead of offering tools to manage people, we train leaders to:
- See their own blind spots.
- Shift from validation to impact.
- Recognize when insecurity is shaping their actions.
- Lead in a way that produces trust, ownership, and alignment, at scale.
If 58% of your workforce is pretending to work, you don’t need another motivational seminar. You need leaders who can create environments where people want to work, because they see meaning, alignment, and ownership in what they do.
Ghostworking isn’t a joke. It’s a red flag. And it’s a sign your culture is costing you more than you think.
When you build cultures where people lead for impact, you won’t have to ask them to stop pretending to work. They’ll stop pretending because they’ll actually care. And that changes everything.
Are you sure your team is engaged? Or are they just getting better at pretending?
If you don’t know where your culture is at risk, you won’t know where it’s leaking performance, trust, and alignment.
The Culture Risk Report™ helps you see what others miss, before it becomes too costly to ignore.
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