Seven in 10 U.S. workers believe employers reward highly visible employees more than those who quietly deliver strong results, according to a new MyPerfectResume survey. The findings point to a workforce-management problem in which employees may spend time signaling productivity rather than producing it, raising questions about how companies measure performance, build trust and manage employee experience.

For many employees, doing good work may no longer feel sufficient if nobody sees it.

A new survey from MyPerfectResume found that 70% of U.S. workers believe employers reward highly visible employees more than colleagues who quietly produce strong results. The findings suggest that workplace visibility has become an important part of how employees perceive career advancement, recognition and even job security.

The survey of 1,000 U.S. workers also found that 56% have deliberately used at least one tactic to appear busy or productive at work, while 65% spend at least some portion of their working day managing how productive they appear.

For HR teams, the findings highlight a challenge that extends beyond employee behavior. They raise questions about whether organizations are measuring outcomes effectively or inadvertently encouraging employees to optimize for activity, responsiveness and visibility.

The most common tactic identified by the survey was delaying simple tasks to make work appear to take longer, reported by 25% of respondents.

Other workers said they had sent emails or status updates primarily to appear active, remained logged in or at their desks longer than necessary, stretched out completed tasks or taken on unnecessary work to avoid appearing idle.

The behavior is particularly relevant in workplaces where managers cannot directly observe how employees spend every part of the day. Remote and hybrid work have increased the importance of digital signals such as online status, messaging activity, meeting attendance and response times.

Those signals can provide useful information, but they can also become imperfect proxies for productivity.

The MyPerfectResume research found that 84% of workers have responded to messages immediately at least occasionally to signal attentiveness. Sixty-eight percent said they do so frequently or occasionally.

That creates a potential disconnect between responsiveness and performance. An employee who responds instantly to every message may appear highly engaged, while an employee who protects uninterrupted time for complex work could appear less available despite producing more valuable outcomes.

The survey suggests that workers are aware of this dynamic. Eighty-two percent said they have worried at least rarely that appearing “too idle” could negatively affect their job security or career growth. Fifty-seven percent experience that concern frequently or occasionally.

The pressure is also widespread. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said they feel at least some pressure to look productive or constantly available, including 30% who experience that pressure often or constantly.

For HR leaders, that creates an employee-experience issue as much as a productivity issue.

When employees believe visibility determines rewards, they may adapt their behavior accordingly. Instead of focusing exclusively on completing high-value work, they may spend additional time communicating activity, attending unnecessary meetings, maintaining visible online presence or taking on work that is easy for managers to see.

That can create a form of organizational inefficiency that conventional productivity measurements may miss.

The survey found that 20% of workers spend at least one-quarter of their average workday managing appearances. Six percent said they spend between half and three-quarters of their day doing so, while another 4% reported spending at least 75% of their time on appearance management.

The broader workplace culture appears to contribute to the behavior.

Half of respondents said pretending to look busy reflects pressure to constantly prove their value. One-third associated the behavior with burnout or disengagement, while another 33% pointed to job insecurity.

Thirty percent said workplace productivity is confused with visibility, and the same proportion said companies focus too heavily on surveillance or monitoring. Another 28% said employees do not feel trusted by management.

These findings have implications for performance-management technology.

HR platforms increasingly provide managers with dashboards, employee analytics and productivity indicators. Used carefully, those systems can help identify workload problems, engagement trends and workforce risks. But organizations can also create unintended incentives if digital activity becomes a substitute for meaningful performance measurement.

The distinction between activity and outcomes is therefore becoming increasingly important.

A worker’s number of messages, meetings, logged-in hours or status updates may be easy to measure, but those metrics do not necessarily capture problem-solving, creativity, customer impact, quality or progress on complex projects.

For HR technology providers, this creates an opportunity to develop systems that help organizations evaluate contribution more holistically.

Performance-management platforms can emphasize goals, deliverables, feedback and business outcomes rather than simply tracking visible activity. Workforce analytics can also help managers understand workload and collaboration patterns without turning employee monitoring into a constant surveillance exercise.

The survey found that actual workload remained the most commonly cited source of workplace stress, selected by 38% of respondents. But 35% identified pressure to appear productive, available or responsive as their greatest source of stress.

That suggests organizations may be dealing with two related problems: employees can be genuinely overloaded while simultaneously feeling compelled to demonstrate that they are working hard.

Addressing the problem may therefore require more than telling employees to focus on results. Companies may need clearer performance expectations, better manager training, more transparent recognition systems and technology that measures meaningful outcomes rather than digital activity alone.

The MyPerfectResume findings ultimately point to a basic workforce-management question: what does an organization actually reward?

If employees believe the answer is visibility, they are likely to optimize for visibility. If companies want employees to prioritize meaningful work, performance systems need to make meaningful contribution easier to demonstrate and more consistently recognized.

Market Landscape

The findings arrive as employers continue refining performance management for hybrid, remote and digitally connected workforces.

HR technology increasingly provides managers with visibility into workforce activity, but the challenge is distinguishing useful workforce intelligence from surveillance-oriented metrics.

The emerging focus is shifting toward outcomes, goals, skills, employee experience and quality of work. Organizations that rely heavily on activity indicators risk encouraging performative productivity, while systems built around measurable objectives and structured feedback can give employees clearer signals about what actually matters.

Top Insights

• 70% of surveyed workers believe highly visible employees receive greater rewards than colleagues who quietly deliver strong results.
• 65% spend some portion of their workday managing how productive they appear, according to MyPerfectResume.
• 84% have responded immediately to messages at least occasionally to signal attentiveness or availability.
• 82% have worried that appearing too idle could hurt their job security or career growth.
• The findings highlight the tension between workforce analytics, employee trust and meaningful outcome-based performance management.

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