Employment expert breaks down why performative availability may be the hidden ‘productivity trap’ burning workers out
Nov 11th, 2026 – Gen Z is rejecting ‘performative availability’ at work and instead prioritizing boundaries to avoid burnout. As Gen Z continues to face scrutiny for shifting workplace norms, the COO of an international telecommunications provider is urging young workers to recognize that being constantly available doesn’t always correlate with productivity.
Jason O’Brien, COO at TollFreeForwarding, says:
“The goal shouldn’t be to win a competition for who can appear online the longest. If somebody produces excellent work, meets their responsibilities, and does it within reasonable hours, that should be viewed as effective working, not evidence that they could be doing more.”
“Good work doesn’t require somebody to demonstrate every hour of the day that they’re working,” O’Brien concluded. “The healthiest productivity habits are often the ones that give people enough time and space to concentrate, make good decisions, and come back the next day able to do it again.”
Gallup reported that 27% of U.S. full-time employees said they very often or always felt burned out at work in the second quarter of 2026, while its research suggests that how employees experience their workload can matter more for burnout than the number of hours they work.
“We’ve created a workplace culture where being immediately available can easily be mistaken for being productive,” O’Brien said. “Replying within seconds, having a completely full calendar, working through lunch, and being online late can all look like commitment from the outside, but none of those things necessarily tell you whether someone is doing their best work.”
O’Brien says the clearest warning sign is not having an occasional busy week or late night but realizing that constant availability has become the employee’s normal way of working.
“If the culture rewards instant replies, overloaded calendars, and people being visibly online at all hours, telling employees to set better boundaries only goes so far,” O’Brien said. “Managers also have to look at the behaviors their workplace is encouraging.”
For employees, that can mean turning off non-essential notifications during focus periods, questioning meetings where their attendance is unnecessary, actually stepping away for lunch, protecting annual leave, and setting clearer expectations around when they can reasonably be reached. For employers, it means judging productivity by the quality and impact of the work being produced rather than how constantly visible an employee appears.
Below, O’Brien identifies five common workplace habits employees may mistake for productivity-and why they could be doing more harm than good.
6 ‘Productive’ Work Habits That Could Be Burning You Out
1. Performative Availability: Using long hours as proof you’re working hard
Being the first person online and the last person to log off can create a visible signal of dedication, particularly in remote and hybrid workplaces where managers cannot physically see employees working. But time online is not the same as useful output-and new technology may be adding another layer of pressure.
As AI and other tools make certain tasks faster and more efficient, workers may feel an expectation to turn those time savings into even more output. That pressure is reflected in TollFreeForwarding.com’s recent survey, where 24.3% of U.S. office and knowledge workers said AI had increased the performance expectations placed on them, while 14.6% said it had increased their workload.
“In theory, technology should help people work more efficiently, but there’s a risk that faster work simply becomes an expectation to produce more,” O’Brien said. “The goal shouldn’t be to win a competition for who can appear online the longest. If somebody produces excellent work, meets their responsibilities, and does it within reasonable hours, that should be viewed as effective working, not evidence that they could be doing more.”
2. Replying to every message immediately
Seeing an email or Teams notification appear and responding within seconds can feel efficient. It signals availability and keeps the inbox under control. But constantly switching away from focused work to answer every incoming message can fragment attention and make relatively simple tasks take much longer.
“If everything gets an immediate response, then effectively everything has been given the same level of urgency,” O’Brien said. “Being responsive is valuable, but that doesn’t mean every message needs your attention the moment it arrives.”
3. Saying yes to every meeting
A packed calendar can create the impression of an important, highly involved employee. In reality, being present in every conversation can leave very little time to actually complete the work those conversations generate. Microsoft has previously found that inefficient meetings are one of workers’ biggest productivity disruptors, with just 35% saying they believed they would be missed in the majority of meetings they attended.
Before accepting another invitation, O’Brien recommends asking whether you need to actively participate, whether your input could be provided beforehand, or whether a summary afterward would be enough.
“There’s a big difference between being informed and needing to be in the room,” he said. “An employee can lose hours every week attending conversations where their presence adds very little.”
4. Keeping every notification switched on
From email alerts, Teams messages, and Slack notifications to calendar reminders and project-management updates, workers can easily spend an entire day responding to whatever happens to appear on their screen next.
While keeping notifications on may feel like a way to stay on top of everything, it also allows other people’s priorities to repeatedly dictate where your attention goes. O’Brien explains, “Being reachable and being interruptible are not the same thing. There should be parts of the day where employees can actually concentrate without feeling like ignoring a notification for 20 minutes means they’re falling behind.”
5. Checking work the moment you wake up-and just before bed
Reaching for your phone before getting out of bed can make employees feel as though they are getting a head start on the day. Checking it one last time at night can feel equally harmless. Together, however, those habits can gradually stretch the psychological workday far beyond the hours someone is actually being paid to work.
“The issue isn’t checking one urgent email at night,” O’Brien said. “It’s when work becomes the last thing you interact with before going to sleep and the first thing you see when you wake up, every single day.”
6. Treating annual leave like optional time off
Employees sometimes avoid taking vacation because they worry about falling behind or looking less committed than people who remain constantly available. Others officially take leave but continue answering emails, checking messages, or joining “just one” important call.
That may preserve the appearance of commitment, but it removes much of the point of taking time away in the first place. O’Brien explains, “If you’re on vacation but everyone knows they can still get an immediate answer from you, you haven’t really disconnected. Employees need to be able to take their time off without feeling like they have to quietly remain on call.”
Managers also have a role to play. If senior employees routinely send emails while on vacation or respond throughout evenings and weekends, workers may interpret that behavior as an unwritten expectation even when nobody explicitly asks them to do the same.
For more workplace insights and business communication advice, please visit www.tollfreeforwarding.com/blog.
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About TollFreeForwarding.com
Founded in 2002, TollFreeForwarding.com is an international telecommunications provider based in Los Angeles, California. A privately held company, TollFreeForwarding.com provides businesses around the world instant access to new and existing customers via their immense inventory of international phone numbers.
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