Clock Botching: Why Leaders Need to Look Deeper
The latest workplace trend making headlines is 'clock botching', where employees are dragging out tasks to fill their contracted hours, doing just enough to get by without tipping into outright underperformance. Some have called it a new form of 'quiet quitting,' but the reality is more complex.
While this behaviour can be identified as laziness, it’s actually a coping mechanism and leaders who dismiss it as poor work ethic risk missing the far bigger signal: a workforce increasingly disengaged, burnt out, and disconnected from meaning at work.
What Clock Botching Actually Is
Unlike absenteeism, where employees don’t show up or presenteeism where the employees work but unconsciously not fully engaged; clock botching is a conscious adjustment of effort - employees are opting out of urgency.
Emails are answered eventually, not immediately and people show up to meetings, cameras on, but they’re not fully present.
On the surface, they’re 'doing their job’ but if you scratch deeper, you see the erosion of discretionary effort - thus showing the difference between employees who give their best and those who give just enough.
Why It’s Happening Now
The pandemic forced people to reassess the role of work in their lives. After decades of 'hustle culture' and the expectation that work should provide identity, purpose, and community, employees are drawing clearer boundaries.
Many have concluded that work is just a paycheck, not a source of self-worth. This cultural reset means that workers feel less obligation to go above and beyond, especially when they don’t see a fair return in recognition, development, or wellbeing.
Burnout rates in the UK remain high, with 46% of employees reporting symptoms in 2024 (Indeed survey). The truth is that many organisations have failed to rebuild capacity after the pandemic.
Workloads remain stretched, resources are thin, and managers are under relentless pressure. Employees who have hit their limit are clock botching not out of malice, but out of self-preservation. It is a way to pace themselves in environments where the pace has become unsustainable.
Research consistently shows a widening trust gap between employees and their employers. Workers who feel their contribution is undervalued, whether through stagnant wages, limited career opportunities, or ineffective leadership - are less likely to give discretionary effort.
Clock botching is often a rational response to the perception that 'no matter how much I give, the organisation won’t give back.'
In hybrid and remote settings, productivity has too often been reduced to activity metrics: hours online, meetings attended, response times. This encourages people to 'look busy' rather than work effectively.
When outputs aren’t clearly defined or rewarded, employees fill the time they’re contracted for instead of working with focus and efficiency. Clock botching thrives in this gap between what gets measured and what actually matters.
The Cost of Ignoring It
Disengagement already costs the global economy $8.8 trillion annually (Gallup). In the UK alone, it equates to £340 billion a year in lost productivity, higher turnover, absenteeism, and recruitment costs. Clock botching is simply the latest expression of this disengagement.
Left unchecked, it corrodes culture. Colleagues notice when some are coasting, and resentment builds. Managers lose credibility and organisations pay twice - firstly in underperformance, and again in the talent churn that follows.
What Leaders Can Do Differently
The instinctive response is to double down on monitoring and often includes more time tracking, more oversight, more metrics. The thing is this only breeds more clock botching, not less.
The solution lies in rethinking how we structure and lead work:
Stop measuring hours and start measuring outcomes. Success should be visible through impact, not activity.
Equip them to have conversations about motivation, capacity, and meaning — not just tasks and deadlines.
Micromanagement drives withdrawal. Clear goals and autonomy drive ownership.
Use real-time pulse surveys, one-to-ones, and manager check-ins to catch disengagement before it calcifies into clock botching.
The Deeper Point
Employees are telling us something: 'My job isn’t my life. I will do what’s required, but I’m no longer giving more without something in return.'
The return they’re asking for isn’t just pay, it’s meaning, agency, and a work environment where effort is recognised and sustainable.
Organisations that dismiss this shift will keep bleeding productivity. Those that face it head-on - rebuilding systems, roles, and leadership for real engagement - will be the ones that thrive.
