All play and no work

[cosmic]

You might have seen their strategically self-regarding emails or watched their self-inflating egos in work meetings.

But business school researchers have identified a type of employee who manages to look busy and successful, without actually doing anything useful.

The productivity study examined 28 UK workplaces and found staff who appeared to be "highly engaged".

But on closer inspection they were found to be "self-promoters" whose lack of effort pushed down overall output.

The research, from the Ashridge at Hult International Business School, examined the engagement levels of teams of workers, across seven different employment sectors, such as health, government, transport and not-for-profits.

It found some very motivated workers - and some who were plainly disgruntled and disaffected.

Corporate culture

But about one in five teams was a conundrum - where staff appeared to be very engaged, but where teamwork and productivity were poor.

The study found when "lifting the lid" on these groups of workers, that they were undermined by staff who were successfully "gaming the system" but not really getting anything done

'Self-promoters' cheat the system at work - BBC News

Sounds like 70% of permies. As a contractor I see it on a daily basis but also see a lot of contractors doing the same to justify the crap work they spew out giving a bad name to contractors.

Where I'm at a permie slept her way to the top and was even caught in the action with a director

[OwlHoot]

'Self-promoters' cheat the system at work - BBC News

Sounds like 70% of permies. As a contractor I see it on a daily basis but also see a lot of contractors doing the same to justify the crap work they spew out giving a bad name to contractors.

Where I'm at a permie slept her way to the top and was even caught in the action with a director

Works both ways though, because some companies are so badly run or so engrossed in ironing out process glitches (e.g. temporary disruption after a takeover or expansion or some innovation) that many employees or contractors quite able and willing to put in a good day's work simply don't consistently have the opportunity. In that case what are they to do for the best, both for themselves and their managers? Be seen to be obviously surfing the web all day or reading the papers, or "looking engaged"?

[jds 1981]

Yeah, the contractor I sit next to is very good at mumbling quietly into his hands free headphones while clicking things on his computer without actually doing anything. Must be at least an hour a day...

[vwdan]

I wish I could be all indignant about it, but let's face it, we're all there to take some cash home to our families. To that end, absolutely, I'm in this for myself - I'll gladly put in a solid days graft when given the opportunity, but most companies don't really have that kind of pipeline of work or rapidly moving processes.

I'm not really one for playing games or politics, so I don't particularly identify with the article (and I avoid all meetings wherever possible), but if somebody wants to believe it took me a week to spin up something that took 3 days well then I'm not going to try too hard to correct them.

Look after yourself - because nobody else will.

[xoggoth]

I always programmed entirely at random. Works for monkeys.

[GreenMirror]

If only the self-promoting CUK posters could be banned.

[Hobosapien]

I always programmed entirely at random. Works for monkeys.

It's a common practice. How else does it take millions of lines of code to get data from a database to a screen and back again.

[Mordac]

Yeah, the contractor I sit next to is very good at mumbling quietly into his hands free headphones while clicking things on his computer without actually doing anything. Must be at least an hour a day...

Yeah, Assguru asked me to apologise on his behalf. And it's actually more like 7 hours...