Ігор Вишневський Work 15 March 2025, 09:00

How to do nothing in the office but look really busy. Experts explain what taskmasking is and why it's common among Generation Z

The trend of returning employees to the office is becoming increasingly popular in the US, but for Generation Z, those born in the 2000s, this can be extremely unusual and, in their opinion, counterproductive. After all, since the quarantine times, they have become accustomed to online learning, and some of them have never even worked in an office.

At the same time, now, representatives of Generation Z, coming to the office, are faced with a dilemma — how to appear to their colleagues, and most importantly — to their boss — to be busy enough, despite the fact that they are not actually working at that time. That is, to simulate work in front of the eyes of the team. This imitation of work even got its own name — taskmasking.

«Generation Z graduated from school and college remotely. The idea that work can only be done in an office is very far from them»

The Guardian, analyzing this topic, jokingly recalls the old recipe for looking authoritative in the office: thirty years ago, George Costanzo from the TV series «Seinfeld» put forward the theory — «Always look annoyed.» Thus, «people think you are busy.» But today, young people in the workplace have replaced this recipe with task masking.

«Bosses, beware, Gen Z is ‘task masking,’» says a recent Fortune magazine article. «They do everything they can to appear as if they’re working hard, when in reality they’re not,» the article’s authors write.

One example of task masking is moving quickly around the office with a laptop or notepad. Another example is typing loudly on the keyboard even if what you are typing has nothing to do with your work.

According to HR specialists, the growth of task masking is happening because more and more employers are requiring a return to offices, and self-presentation in the office is significantly different from what you can afford while working remotely.

In September, Amazon announced that it would require all employees to work five days a week in the office, as if it were back to pre-COVID times. Similar orders have also been issued by companies such as Goldman Sachs, Dell, Condé Nast, and the Washington Post.

«A significant portion of young U.S. office workers came of age when the pandemic forced them to stay home. Perhaps for the first time in their lives, they were asked to constantly commute to work instead of completing tasks on their own schedule in the privacy of their own homes. Now, physically surrounded by colleagues and senior management, they must learn to visually convey their busyness,» the publication describes the essence of the problem.

In 2019, writer Anne Helen Petersen described a similar phenomenon in her book as «LARPing your job,» borrowing the acronym for real-time role-playing game for the book’s title.

In turn, writer Gabrielle Judge, who previously worked in the technical field, recalls how she and her colleagues organized task masking in the office.

«People looked very busy, even though they were just going to lunch, wearing AirPods all day to make it look like they were in a meeting,» Judge says. «A lot of people were also just staring at their computers.»

However, Judge says, task masking can be just as exhausting as work. «It’s exhausting to be constantly masking at work. We get tired when we go to the office, even if we’re not doing anything. It’s just the fatigue that comes with the social exhaustion of playing a certain role,» Judge says.

For now, taskmasking lives on as a way for employees to get into the office without doing too much work. «Gen Z has graduated from high school and college remotely, and they’ve gone through a lot of homeschooling, so the idea that work can only be done in the office is very far from them,» Judge says. «Taskmasking is a result of people feeling bitter and frustrated about it. I think it’s forcing employers to ask, ‘How important is it for you to be together in the office?’»

Taskmasking is the answer to bosses who bring people back to the office purely «for convenience»

Sierra Gross runs Caged Bird HR, an independent HR consulting firm. Before leaving corporate life in 2022 due to burnout and depression, Gross worked for many years in traditional HR departments at Google and ExxonMobil.

She calls task masking a symptom of broader problems related to recruiting, hiring, and talent management: namely, bosses' desire to get people back into the office at any cost, mostly «for the sake of it.»

«In every company, there will inevitably be people who will try to beat the system. Taskmasking may be associated with low performance, but high-performing employees who finish their work quickly can also do it,» says Gross.

We can also expect task masking to remain popular as more workers outsource the bulk of their work to artificial intelligence, freeing up their time for water cooler conversations and «fake typing sessions.»

However, company leaders have their own answer to taskmasking: a 2021 study found that 80% of employers try to monitor employees working remotely or on a hybrid schedule, with many using specialized software to track online activity, location, and keystrokes.

According to Wired, employee surveillance continues inside offices, where new technologies—including motion, light intensity, and humidity sensors—are available to executives who want to spy on specific rooms and desks.

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